Which elite colleges are actually fun?

[Anonymous]

Stanford, Penn, Yale, Rice and Notre Dame.

[Anonymous]

Definitely Dartmouth: Work hard, play hard. It isn't totally about drinking and the frats. My kid loves the on campus ski mountain, cross country skiing, hiking, TRIPS, homecoming, etc.

[Anonymous]

St. John's College, Annapolis.

[Anonymous]

McGill — great school in a great town — and drinking age is 18 so you’re not stuck going to dorm or frat parties. It’s not an easy academic ride but it’s a rich experince.

[Anonymous]

NORTHWESTERN!!!!

[Anonymous]

UM - Twin Cities

[Anonymous]

UMBC!!!

[Anonymous]

UCLA !!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I remember my high-achieving DD coming to me during her senior year of high school and telling me that she didn't want another four years of constant stress and competition. She was drained from it all and just wanted to enjoy her college experience and flourish both academically and socially in a balanced and healthy manner. It both broke my heart and made me really proud of her. She ended up eliminating several colleges among her options because of the toxicity and unhealthy competition she heard they bred. It may have been precarious to do so based solely off talking to students to hear their experience and reading online, but it was what she needed. She's at the perfect school for her now. She is academically challenged and growing, but she doesn't have to pull all-nighters or forget to eat meals just to feel like she's doing okay.

I'm a pretty firm believer that any place where a group of 18-23 year olds with limited (at least, compared to the "real wold") will have a party/social scene. But its that ineffable environment at every college that speaks far more for the balance and healthy living it does or doesn't support.

Comments like this make me want to find a different high school for my rising HS'ers. It's one thing to do a pay-your-dues 80+ hour a week job (residency, banking, big law, lab work) in your earlier 20s as a stepping stone to a great career but another thing to be forced to do so in MS, HS and college and onward. Not necessary, there are other happier ways to skin the cat. I know I found a happier, less stressful route at each juncture but still have great CV and creds.

[Anonymous]

IMO it's not the #hours that causes the stress but whether the ethos of the school is geared towards teamwork and cooperation or sets the kids against each other. Obviously too much of anything is not good but that's a more straightforward issue to handle.

[Anonymous]

Barnard. New York City is great and super fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Barnard. New York City is great and super fun.

Catty, mean-spirited, competitive women who have a major inferiority complex. No thanks. What's so special about Barnard being in NYC that doesn't describe NYU, Fordham, CUNY, and others?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Barnard. New York City is great and super fun.

Catty, mean-spirited, competitive women who have a major inferiority complex. No thanks. What's so special about Barnard being in NYC that doesn't describe NYU, Fordham, CUNY, and others?

Whoa! WTF? Did they reject you or something? Barnard is actually full of supportive quirky non-competitive women. It is nothing like Fordham which is jesuit or NYU which has no campus and is downtown and huge.

[Anonymous]

Brown

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD is a college sophomore at HYPS, and I have been surprised to hear that she and most of her friends are not enjoying college very much. It seems they are all still caught up in the rat race, and are surrounded by a lot of kids who never seem to want to leave the library. Even Dartmouth seems to be shedding its party school image (although that may be more of a good thing). Do you need to just forget about the elites and go to a big state school somewhere if you want a fun, social experience in college? Is this really what it has become? I remember college as some of the best years to my life, but it seems like kids today are being cheated.

Oh, DCUM, you're so elitist and douchey.