Ranking the Big Ten Campuses

[Landlord]

Big Cities are great:

"A revitalized [Columbus] downtown offers more to do than most typical college towns."

"If you like big cities, few places in the world compare to The Windy City."

"East Lansing could be one of the quicker developing cities on this list."

"The Twin Cities offer plenty for visitors and residents alike."

OTOH, Small cities suck:

"State College isn't easy to get to..." "Bloomington has a time-capsule feel."

"There isn't a lot to do in Lincoln..."

Seems like the judges gave bonus points for campuses in big cities that have more to offer outside the campus than smaller and midsized B1G cities.

When a school is in a smallish/medium sized city[SIZE=11pt]—[/SIZE]say, a quarter million or so[SIZE=11pt]—[/SIZE]the activities of the city center around the university. But in a city of a million or more the college scene is just an afterthought.

What? No they didn't.

Chicago, the largest city in the conference, is 7th. Columbus, the second largest city in the conference, is 4th. Minneapolis is 9th.

Further, there are 9 cities in America with a million or more people, and none of them has a blue-blood college program. That's pretty obvious and also reflected by this list.

There is a lot more cities in America with at least a million people than nine. How bout LA, I think UCLA and USC qualify as blue blood college programs. I think Washington would be considered blue blood for a college and it is in Seattle. I am sure I could come up with some more if I think real hard.

LA is the exception.

New York

Los Angeles

Chicago

Houston

Philadelphia

Phoenix

San Antonio

San Diego

Dallas

Anyways, bale, the narrative was "oh they just like big cities and hate small college towns", but that's not at all a reasonable conclusion from actually looking at the article, since the major metro areas are all over the list ranking wise.

 

[SuperBigFan69]

NUance, I agree with you in that I think it's cool to be in a town/city that the focus is on the college/university. I don't know if I would want to be at Northwestern, because Evanston is basically just part of Chicago, which is HUGE. The actual college gets lost in that city a bit.

I think specific college towns that are close to big cities make the best cities for campuses. Now, I hate the city of Boulder because of the people there, but I think it's cool that it's only 30-40 minutes from downtown Denver. KU is relatively close to Kansas City. Athens, GA is within 1 1/2 to 2 hours of Atlanta.

I agree...that would be like saying that DePaul is a great campus...because it is in Chicago. The problem is you don't even know you are on the freaking campus!

I have heard amazing things about UGA and Clemson. I also like the idea of the campus being tucked away (like Buffalo Bill's junk) and almost hidden. I think it gives the campus a totally different feeling.

I think that MSU is way low...that campus blew me away now it might have been because it was one of the first campuses (campi?) that I ever visited with the intention of possibly attending.

Personally Lincoln is just okay, I could see it ranked more in the middle but its not a big deal. I do think that Lincolns O street and Rail Yard are better than anything I have seen at Minny, NW or Madison.

 

[ColoradoHusk]

Lincoln's campus is pretty nice, but Lincoln is a complete dump. Take the university out of it, and Lincoln is a Hastings/Council Bluffs hybrid.

They don't call it Stinkin' Lincoln for a reason. Yeah, the city of Lincoln is kind of lame, but when I was a student I spent most of my time on campus and the surrounding areas.

Lincoln basically gets it's residents from the University and the Capitol. Then when western Nebraska people come to college in Lincoln, a lot of them stay in Lincoln because it's big enough, but not "too big" like Omaha.