I am posting from a computer from the Admiral's Club at Chicago O'Hare International Airport. My flight from Lincoln was cancelled, so we drove to Des Moines for a flight, but that got cancelled, so then we drove through Iowa City (again, had dinner), and then on to Chicago, and our 6:45AM flight was just cancelled! What the hell is going on? :steam I have not been to sleep yet!
Anyway, my trip report, since I have all of this ridiculous time on my hands:
The final conclusion, out of Iowa, Missouri, and Nebraska, was...
... Iowa.
I hope I don't hurt too many feelings here on this message board. I will give a review of the schools in a few categories:
Campus Aesthetics & Architecture
Iowa: 7.5/10
Nebraska: 7.5/10
Missouri: 4/10
Iowa - To be fair, Iowa doesn't really have so much of a campus as it is mostly just integrated into the western half of downtown Iowa City on the eastern bank of the river, though it does have some dorms, health and research facilities, and athletic facilities on the west side of the river. The river seems to be a minor inconvenience if you happen to live on the west side when 95% of your time is spent on the east side. I did the walk myself and it is only about 5 minutes longer to get to the Pentacrest(center of campus)than the east side dorms. The Pentacrest itself is beautiful. From the river side, it looks a lot like the view of MIT in Boston. From downtown on Clifton street, the whole area actually seems like Paris or Washington D.C. with its architecture and uniformity and broad avenues. The academic buildings blend in nicely and some are very beautifully styled, although there are some odd ones that have been damaged by the 2008 flood and are being rennovated.
Nebraska - Nebraska has a very nice campus. The landscaping of the area outside Selleck reminds me a lot of Central Park in New York. The land is actually nicely contoured and has a natural looking placement and selection of trees. The buildings are uniform in their academic red brick and they look very well kept. I don't think this campus had the natural beauty of Iowa's on the river, but it was very smartly designed and the campus was easier to get around and had more green areas. The campus did seem surprisingly small for such a large university though. I did get to visit Memorial Stadium and I was very impressed! The seats rise at a generous angle so it would seem that everyone gets a good view.
Missouri - The irony about this campus is that unlike the other schools, I heard so much about the beauty of this campus and how it is a "botanic garden" and all that jazz. Well, Missouri does not have a nice looking campus. The campus is divided into "Red" and "White" Campuses, which is supposed to separate brick from stone or some nonsense like that, but there are all sorts of out-of-place buildings all over both campuses. Nothing about it looked uniform. The land was not as well kept or designed as at Nebraska. The only real "university-looking" parts of this campus were looking out from Jesse Hall at the columns and looking east down the Memorial Union. Otherwise the whole place seemed very, very dull. I will credit Missouri for having the largest and most luxurious looking fraternity houses, but I think that comes with the territory of being a school located in the Confederacy.
The College Town
Iowa City: 9/10
Lincoln: 8/10
Columbia: 7/10
Iowa City - I fell in love with this city. The pedestrian mall they have is really lively and has tons of exotic restaurants to chose from. Makes me feel sort of at home in New York. The city seemed very sophisticated. On the north side of the Pentacrest was a large walking mall that led to most of the academic buildings and dorms on the east side of the river which seemed very convenient for this purpose, but it also ran parallel to the main strip. They have an ordnance in town that severely limits the amount of chain restaurants in the area, so everything is pretty unique to the community. The only chain food places I saw was Subway, Buffalo Wild Wings, and in the indoor mall they had a Taco Bell. The city city is very clean and is very accessible thanks to the ped mall network. Crossing the river is also very easy since there are several bridges.
Lincoln - I was honestly surprised by Lincoln, particularly the Haymarket District. I thought it would just be an Anytown USA, but it was just awesome. We ate a place called Lazlo's because a lot of the other places were packed with people arriving for the state basketball tournament and it was delicious. The Haymarket on its own easily rivaled Iowa City's ped mall, but it had fewer overall choices and the rest of the city sort of felt lacking beyond the western end of O Street. Not as diverse overall as Iowa City (apparently nobody eats breakfast at restaurants in Lincoln; we had to go to this mediocre chain diner on the outskirts of the city to get a meal) but it definitely had a charm and liveliness I didn't expect.
Columbia - I liked Columbia, but I don't think that with its size that it could rival the sophistication or diversity of Iowa City or the raw Great-Plains liveliness of Lincoln. It had a bunch of neat little spots, but that is pretty much all you could say about it. I think this one place called The Blue Note looked particularly interesting for live shows and such. Don't get me wrong, I think Columbia is very nice town and better than most college towns I have seen, but not as good as Lincoln or Iowa City.
Academics
Iowa: 8/10
Nebraska: 7.5/10
Missouri: 7.5/10
All pretty similar, but clearly Iowa was a step above with its many highly ranked programs (medicine, business, writing, geography, to name a few), but I have to say some things about the others too. I had an academic appointment with a professor at Missouri (Dr. Lupo, Atmospheric Sciences) and he seemed totally apathetic about being at Missouri. A very nice guy, but it seemed like he was disatisfied with the size and funding of his department. I think if I were really serious about atmospheric sciences, I would just go to Oklahoma, Penn State, or Florida State. However, I do not think that is the case anymore, as I think I have passed over that interest for a degree in Geography (a liberal arts/science degree), which isn't as limiting career-wise and has more interdisciplinary fields of study which may include environmental things like atmospheric sciences. Also, I recently got promoted where I work (surprisingly) into a management position, and I can go back to into business with geography, which is a social/political/environmental/historical lense that makes sense for business. Not so much with atmospheric sciences.
The Students
Nebraska and Iowa seemed pretty similar except that Iowa ahs a 41% out-of-state population and seems more diverse, but Nebraska students seemed slightly more spirited. I felt very comfortable in both places.
Missouri is another story. Everyone there seems happy to be a Tiger. Everyone we met actually seemed to go out of their way more to show how happy they were to be at Missouri than at either Nebraska or Iowa, which seemed great - at first. Sites like studentsreview would seem to confirm this super-happy mindest of the Tigers. The unusual thing, upon closer inspection, was that Missouri students seemed far more clique-ish than at the other schools. The school seemed very much like high school. That was my gut reaction to the scene I saw. I also did not feel as comfortable eating among the students in the dining hall as at the other schools, probably due to this perception.
The Dining Hall Food
I am comparing the food in the campus dining halls to all of the campus dining hall food I have ever had, which is maybe about a dozen different unviersities.
Iowa: 10/10
Nebraska: - (Did not eat in dining hall, sort of unfair...)
Missouri: 2/10
Iowa - Clear and away the best campus dining hall food I had, replacing NYU and Cornell for the best food I have eaten at a university. I ate in the Hillcrest dorms. My meal ticket was actually approved for either Burge or Hillcrest, so I knew they couldn't be setting this up. Lots of healthy options, but also a lot of hearty home-style or midwestern options, and foreign foods available too. (THEY HAD BITE-SIZED CORN DOGS. WHISKY. TANGO. FOXTROT.)
Missouri - The only reason this food doesn't get a 1/10 is because I have eaten at USC, and USC food is inedible. Who would have thought, Southern California, inedible food? The options at Missouri: You can have a greasy hamburger (sh#t) or a greasy hotdog (okay) with some fatty side dishes or what they pass as "pizza" and then you get to chose to sit in a cramped and awkwardly arranged dining hall.
Final Thoughts
I know some of you folks may be annoyed by reading this post. I want to say that I went to each school and gave each school a fair judgment. I think Nebraska lived up to all of my expectations and I actually had a physical ache in my chest when I had the discussion with my father and knew I had to turn down being a cornhusker. You guys have a great school and unique city and you guys should all be very proud. My personal liking was just more to Iowa City and the Hawkeyes and I hope you folks respect that choice. If the Hawkeyes ever play in Lincoln, I will definitely go to Lincoln for that game even if I don't get in the stadium. If the Huskers ever come to Iowa City, I will welcome Husker fans as I would like to be welcomed in Lincoln. I want to show a good name for the fanbase of any school I go to. Now, I am still deferred from Ohio State and I am pending hearing from them as well, but I don't think I will end up being accepted, and if I am, I don't know if Columbus can sway me away from Iowa City.
My flight from Lincoln to Chicago was cancelled so we had to drive back on I-80 and we stopped in Iowa City for dinner. A sign? Maybe. We continued on to Chicago and now I am at the airport where my third flight yet was cancelled. I still don't know what I am doing.
In my future at this board, I will continue to post here no matter my allegience. I really like this community and hopefully can offer my cents as a Hawkeye in the future.
Respect,
Manhattan
