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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
You're the only person talking about a suburban versus urban context and arguing that everyone else is stuck in a suburban mindset  :roll:

We are more realistic than you. It doesn't matter whether the school is urban or suburban or rural. For the nation's top colleges (consider all the top 50 universities and LACs) the vast, vast, vast majority of students will be very much focused on their own college and their campus and will develop friendships with students from their own college. This is true of Bowdoin or Dartmouth or Hamilton or Cornell or Harvard or Brown or Penn or Princeton or Hopkins or Georgetown or UVA. These are intense four year academic experiences. These students aren't going to have much opportunity or even interest in reaching out to students from other colleges. Take Penn. Philadelphia has more college students than Boston. Penn has Drexel right next door. Do Penn students hang out with Drexel students? No. They do not. Sometimes friends of friends from high school who's at Drexel might come to an off campus party, but that's about it. And Drexel students don't hang out with Temple students.

I'm sure you can find the exceptions. I can think a few. Very religious groups can have overlapping friendships through quasi-off campus religious facilities. The super rich kids all know each other and shuttle between Philadelphia and NYC for their parties but to be strictly fair the colleges aren't their purpose in life or source for networking. But for your typical college kids, his or her social life and academic experience will be very much focused on their campus. [/quote]
Do you think MIT students hang out with Harvard students? Do you think the proximity of the two colleges is an advantage to the student population of those two colleges? 
What about the Claremont Consortium, do you think the proximity of those colleges is an advantage to the student population of those colleges, over isolated rural/suburban SLACs?

Having multiple colleges in near proximity is an absolute advantage. Many students will take advantage of the opportunity, some won't. That doesn't change the fact that objectively, having multiple colleges in close proximity is better than having no colleges nearby. [/quote]

I get the impression you have a Hollywood vision of a bright and eager kid going off to Boston and falling into a crowd of bright and eager kids from a bunch of colleges and all hanging out at their favorite dive bar all the time. It's practically a sitcom (any scriptwriters reading this, please send my royalties to collegesitcom@gmail.com).

What I have done, and others too, is to patently try to explain why this vision rarely becomes reality. I'm sure you can find a kid who went to X college and became good friends with students from a range of schools. But it's not something a high school kid should reasonably expect to happen or base his college decisions on. Most college kids are focused on their college and their college experience. Not other colleges. The whys are quite simple. Even Harvard students don't hang out regularly with MIT students. Two very different schools with quite different student bodies. [/quote]
Do MIT and Harvard kids take the same courses and take part in the same organizations or not? Perhaps after you answer that question, you will finally figure out what the conversation on this thread has been about.

Answer: Yes, they do. Harvard has a weaker engineering program and the proximity and collaboration programs allows Harvard SEAS students to take part in both MIT courses, undergrad research projects and engineering organizations/clubs.

[quote]Even Harvard students don't hang out regularly with MIT students. Two very different schools with quite different student bodies.[/quote]
This is such a sheltered soccer mom assessment, it's pathetic.  [/quote]

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