what "good" college did you attend but would not necessarily recommend to your kids or others?

[Anonymous]

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Plus it has Zingerman's. That alone would make Ann Arbor a great college town. Ashley's is one of the best beer bars in the country, much less in college towns. And when you add Krazy Jim's and chipati sauce on top of all that, it's a slam dunk.

>Tell us you paint your face yellow and blue on Saturdays for sportball games without telling us you paint your face yellow and blue on Saturdays for sportball games.

Also, props on being so narrow-minded you think a good bakery and deli is incredibly rare near college towns, let alone college towns with a population of 150,000.

I can’t find a great Jewish deli in the entire Chicagoland area. So much for your point.

Ever heard of Northbrook’s Max & Benny’s? That baby bread basket! My husband palpitated the mini challah and pronounced it magnificent. I’ve lived in a lot of different places and it’s still at the top of my list.

Yes I have. Been there with relatives in Highland Park and Deerfield. I can think of at least four delis off the top of my head in metro Detroit better than anywhere in Chicago.

Are you the Michigan State grad from College Confidential with a pit bull dog avatar like 150,000 posts?

Nope, but you gave me a good laugh. Honestly, who eats challah at a deli? It’s all about the rye bread. The twice baked rye breads at many Michigan delis cannot be beat. Sorry to go so far off topic…..

You, people, are both insane and entititled and don't realize it. How asinine is it to evaluate quality of your child's college education by availability of a 'great Jewish deli'? That speaks volumes about education in this country, not to mention, this country's population.

Signed,
-a foreigner

Translation: I don’t have the cultural competence to understand this discussion, but I’m bursting with the need to share my opinion about this (and everything else).

Reminds me of my German roommate in Cairo who every day tried to explain to Egyptians how they were speaking Arabic wrong because they didn’t talk like his elementary grammar book.

As someone who did master’s level work in Germany, this made me laugh out loud! Yes, the Germans are always very sure they are correct.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Yale. Depressing. Draconian liquor laws

What?? Yale had officially sanctioned events with alcohol available to underage kids. Free alcohol easily available on the freshman party circuit. I loved Yale, but understand everyone might not have had a great experience. But draconian liquor laws? I can hardly think of a place where it’s easier to get alcohol and liquor laws are less enforced…

How long ago are you talking about officially sanctioned events with alcohol? Lehigh was like that until about 20 years ago, I think.

[Anonymous]

Ha yeah I went to visit Yale as a high school junior and recall being served tons of alcohol at restaurants and bars with no issue. This was in the late 90s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cornell
Competitive, cold and lots of super rich kids from NYC
I was miserable

I can believe that was the case. Heard same from friends.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:University of Southern California. Too large. Way too much emphasis on Greek life. Absolutely lives up to its nickname of University of Spoiled Children.

I don't think it will easily shake the stink of the Varsity Blues scandal with Aunt Becky's overprivileged youtuber daughter.

Smart rich and attractive USC families don’t give a darn what malcontent proles think of them. USC is elite and will become a top 20 if not too 15 university in the near future.

USC has the greatest assets of maybe any college in America: Los Angeles, sunny, rich, d1 elite sports, private, elite programs, on the rise, full of attractive smart kids, boisterous Greek life. It’s basically going to become Duke in a 10000x better location or Stanford without the weirdos.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:University of Southern California. Too large. Way too much emphasis on Greek life. Absolutely lives up to its nickname of University of Spoiled Children.

I don't think it will easily shake the stink of the Varsity Blues scandal with Aunt Becky's overprivileged youtuber daughter.

Smart rich and attractive USC families don’t give a darn what malcontent proles think of them. USC is elite and will become a top 20 if not too 15 university in the near future.

USC has the greatest assets of maybe any college in America: Los Angeles, sunny, rich, d1 elite sports, private, elite programs, on the rise, full of attractive smart kids, boisterous Greek life. It’s basically going to become Duke in a 10000x better location or Stanford without the weirdos.

Don't forget coaches and administrators who take bribes from wealthy parents with stupid kids! "On the rise" - snort.

[Anonymous]

Colgate.

The good: excellent academics and deep connections with professors, some lasting decades.

The bad: it's a pretty toxic place. Greek culture dominates, and drinking and partying are rampant. There is pressure on the professors to go easy on athletes. Students who aren't interested in the Greek -- athlete -- drinking continuum are outsiders and often ostracized. Perhaps worst of all, the treatment and objectification of women is still an issue, and has led to several friends and friends' daughters seeking mental help.

Recent attempts to make themselves more attractive are interesting. I love that they have essentially made themselves free for students with limited resources. But their entrepreneur center is all about appearance rather than substance, and is an extracurricular no different from intramural sports. Much of what they are doing seems to be about the appearance of being a great elite school.

It's a good school academically with a really big footnote, and you can get the good school part without the toxicity elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

I went to Northwestern and had a very good experience there, but I would not recommend it now.

Dc went to NU, made some good friends, and did well academically, but found most of the other students to be cold, unfriendly, and competitive to the point of being cutthroat. This was not the case when I went there. When I visit the campus, the students indeed look either very serious or glum. The career counseling was pretty disappointing for a top school that talks about all the great resources available and all the amazing contacts you will make. Siblings had much better job hunting experiences at other colleges, colleges where the students actually looked happy to be there.

It's also absurdly expensive. When dc went, tuition, room and board started in the mid 60s and ended in the mid 70s. Now it is $83k, and current freshmen will probably pay in the mid 90s senior year. It's not worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to Northwestern and had a very good experience there, but I would not recommend it now.

Dc went to NU, made some good friends, and did well academically, but found most of the other students to be cold, unfriendly, and competitive to the point of being cutthroat. This was not the case when I went there. When I visit the campus, the students indeed look either very serious or glum. The career counseling was pretty disappointing for a top school that talks about all the great resources available and all the amazing contacts you will make. Siblings had much better job hunting experiences at other colleges, colleges where the students actually looked happy to be there.

It's also absurdly expensive. When dc went, tuition, room and board started in the mid 60s and ended in the mid 70s. Now it is $83k, and current freshmen will probably pay in the mid 90s senior year. It's not worth it.

Nice try, but, no. Obvious troll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ohio State (undergrad) and Northwestern (grad) - I loved my time at both but now both are too unsafe, IMO.

The Cleary Reports show otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Mount Holyoke - amazing school in many ways, but I underestimated how rural and quiet it was. For the right student (introvert or very sporty) it could be great, but if you want that classic work-hard/play-hard experience, you had to go off campus to U-Mass, Amherst College, etc. That said, the academics were stellar and the alumnae network is exceptional. But you really need to be a "fit."

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:NYU: I loved it for grad school but I did not encourage my kids to apply for undergrad. Socially you have to find and form your own group, otherwise it can get pretty hard finding your people. My DH thinks JHU is NOT at all a great undergrad experience. Expectations are different for GRAD school so good for GRAD school.

This was my experience at Hopkins (I went to grad school on the medical campus but lived and studied on the undergraduate campus). The graduate programs (especially medicine, public health, etc) have students from many different backgrounds and from all over the world. The student bodies are interesting and diverse. In the medical school you have athletes, ballerinas, art majors, engineering majors, entrepreneurs, refugees, trust funders, and on and on.

The undergraduates (in my observation)are primarily pre-med gunners. Study, study, study. Very similar kids--can't tell one from another. The library (MSE--Milton S. Eisenhower) was jam packed every Friday and Saturday night--no lie. It just seemed like a sweatshop of a university. My classmates who attended JHU undergrad were all sort of shell-shocked. It think getting into medical school or graduate school at Hopkins following undergrad at Hopkins is akin to the survival of the fittest.

I actually went to Hopkins undergrad and this was not my experience. I was active in Greek life and spent lots of weekend nights in Fell’s Point bars with my friends. Never saw the inside of a library on a weekend night outside of finals.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:UCLA's Westwood/LA has sunny weather all school year, world class restaurants, Hollywood Hills, an international airport, and is like 6 miles from an ocean.

Ann Arbor is literally 17 degrees right now with blizzard conditions, a deli called Zingermans and a handful of restaurants serving Sysco food on their Main Street, crumbing roads, and Detroit is a half hour away.

Both can be excellent for different reasons.

I think the problem is that you don't know what a "college town" is. When people talk about a "college town," they're talking about the area immediately surrounding the campus. UCLA's college town is the area of Westwood immediately surrounding the campus, but the beach several miles away, LAX, or Hollywood Hills. Those things are all in the city of Los Angeles, but not in the "college town" surrounding UCLA. Similarly, when people talk about Ann Arbor being a great college town, they're talking about the area immediately surrounding the campus, not the mall several miles away from Ann Arbor or whatever else is in Ann Arbor. They're talking about State Street, University Blvd, Main Street, etc. (it's been a long time, so I hope I'm remembering the streets). What you're really saying is that it's better to go to college in a big city vs. a college town. That's a reasonable opinion, but stop comparing applies to oranges which is what you're doing.

I didn't bring up major city universities, a PP brought up UCLA, something about UCLA students being jealous of Ann Arbor. No UCLA kid is jealous of flyover Ann Arbor, Michigan. As for the bold, if you want to talk about the handful of blocks around campus, what precisely makes them unique, let alone the best and most unique in the U.S.? Right now it's 17 degrees and a blizzard, how fun are those blocks of crumbling streets as we speak? Even overlooking depressing weather, that exact cookie-cutter setup -- pizza, subs, sushi, burgers, bars, gastropubs, bakeries, farmers market -- exists around basically every large top 50 university with a strong endowment. The point I was making is that there are warmer places and far superior restaurants around dozens of other universities -- which really isn't even up for debate. If you're a rich kid and can afford to apply anywhere, why Ann Arbor and not somewhere warm and not in the gloomy Rust Belt?

Why don't you ask Christopher Schwarzenegger?

Gloomy Rust Belt.

Or Sasha Obama

Humor, right, because she transferred to USC.

[Anonymous]

Johns Hopkins (for grad school). They are driven by the profit motive more than values, which is an issue for public health.
Professors are incentivized towards research not teaching.
Last but not least, the city has some very dangerous sections, which are harder to avoid than those of other major cities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Johns Hopkins (for grad school). They are driven by the profit motive more than values, which is an issue for public health.
Professors are incentivized towards research not teaching.
Last but not least, the city has some very dangerous sections, which are harder to avoid than those of other major cities.

Those dangerous sections are right on the doorstep of Johns Hopkins hospital, so yes, it is sketchy in Baltimore but not inside the hospital.