Anonymous wrote:Charlottesville is a short drive to some great national parks and hiking. I vote UVA.

I was just thinking the same. There are hundreds and of things to be seen just outside of Charlottesville, ….there are the vineyards, horseback riding, farm tours, many lakes, wintergreen from skiing if it gets old cold enough (it makes it’s own snow). Smith mountain lake. Day trip to West Virginia, etc. and uva has 900 clubs devoted to these types of excursions

Anonymous wrote:George Mason, Great Falls, Rock Creek nearby. DC a metro ride away.

??? Mason is not in a town. GF & RC are near Georgetown and GWU, not Mason.

Boulder, UNC Asheville, University of Kentucky, Ithaca, UC San Diego (town La Jolla)

Anonymous wrote:Any of the schools in the SF Bay Area would be nice since you have great nature nearby and some nice cities:

Berkeley
Stanford
Santa Clara
UC Santa Cruz

For Santa Clara, I wouldn’t say the nature is close unless you have a car or a friend with one. Stanford isn’t super accessible to nature. Santa Cruz you’re right in it but can easily take bus into town. Berkeley has good public transport.

Anonymous wrote:Duke has some nice nature. It has a Botanical garden on campus and access to hiking/running/biking trails and parks, mountains, streams, and some lakes nearby. They have 8000 acres of forest too.

There are no mountains near Duke.

Anonymous wrote:Working on the college list and child is focused on schools with access to both nature and a decent sized town. Examples, University of Vermont, some schools in Colorado. Others?

Columbia, NYU and New School. Ride the commuter rail for about 90 minutes to get to glorious trails and towns a few cabbable miles from lovely campgrounds.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Charlottesville is a short drive to some great national parks and hiking. I vote UVA.

I was going to type this. Charlottesville is a great town and the UVA is close to Shenandoah National Park. We would hike Old Rag, go camping, drive to Snowshoe, Wintergreen in winters for skiing. I took a snowboarding course while there that met on Monday nights at Wintergreen.

Wouldn't JMU be the same? Not all of our kids can get into UVA.

Same with Virginia Tech.

Also agree with the earlier suggestion of Cal Poly SLO. I went to college there, very active college town environment close to lots of options for hiking, beach, etc.

VCU

These are some great ideas. From the map, it looks like Sewanee is 45 minutes from the nearest sizable town. Looking at schools that include walking straight off campus to a town on one side and nature pretty close on the other.

Nature, meaning hiking, camping, birds & wildlife, fishing, etc. Not just a hike or walk in a park.

Sewanee: The University of the South

https://new.sewanee.edu/campus-life/sewanee-outing-program/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Charlottesville is a short drive to some great national parks and hiking. I vote UVA.

I was going to type this. Charlottesville is a great town and the UVA is close to Shenandoah National Park. We would hike Old Rag, go camping, drive to Snowshoe, Wintergreen in winters for skiing. I took a snowboarding course while there that met on Monday nights at Wintergreen.

Wouldn't JMU be the same? Not all of our kids can get into UVA.

Davidson College - 20 minutes from Charlotte plus a lake campus

Any of the schools in the SF Bay Area would be nice since you have great nature nearby and some nice cities:

Berkeley
Stanford
Santa Clara
UC Santa Cruz

Anonymous wrote:Charlottesville is a short drive to some great national parks and hiking. I vote UVA.

I was going to type this. Charlottesville is a great town and the UVA is close to Shenandoah National Park. We would hike Old Rag, go camping, drive to Snowshoe, Wintergreen in winters for skiing. I took a snowboarding course while there that met on Monday nights at Wintergreen.

University of Washington seems like the perfect fit.