Best College Towns You've Visited

I was there for less than a day once. I talked to a college professor who said she had left a much bigger university to go there and "would never go back."

Seemed like a decent town. Did I miss the really good stuff?

 

Having lived in too many college towns, Norman ranks up there, especaily on football Saturday

 

Baton Rouge would not fare well, then, if the criteria of the first post on this thread were applied:

The places that, if not for the school, would probably be just a little more than a wide place in the road.


Granted, Baton Rouge is the state capital, but remove LSU and you don't have the campus/tailgate/stadium scene.

 

Ann Arbor
Madison
Tuscaloosa

 

Haven't been to many, but I'll put Ann Arbor atop my list. Great mix there.

 

Berkeley
Athens
Charlottesville
Boulder
Chapel Hill
Oxford
Auburn and Tuscaloosa are growing on me

 

Athens, OH
Amherst, MA

Cities that have the college feel
Madison, WI
Boston, co-eds start arriving next week 8)

 

Definitely like the college towns in the strict sense.

But then there are cities with colleges. Boston (Boston College), New York (NYU), Chicago (Northwestern).

 

I did not apply that filter. Hell, I didn't read the first post. That changes everything.

Scratch Athens, Gainesville, Tuscaloosa and Baton Rouge. They are much too big.

The list begins with Oxford and ends with Auburn. Won't find two better college towns.

 

Hanover, New Hampshire (Dartmouth)

 

Can't speak for Dartmouth...but I had a great time once in Durham, N.H. at UNH.

 

I've been to Athens, Ohio, on Halloween and I've been to Athens, Ga., to see Georgia-Auburn and Georgia-Georgia Tech football games.

There's no comparison when it comes to the two as best college towns, bitches. The Bobcats win in a romp (and I say that as a proud Southerner).

Followed in order by Gainesville, Ann Arbor, Oxford and Columbia, S.C.