If you could choose...Stanford, Georgetown or Princeton

In terms of the towns being "boring", I can quantitatively demonstrate that Princeton is worse.

Go to google maps, and search for "food" at both places at the same zoom. This will tell you where the busy neighborhoods are:

http://goo.gl/maps/V9WgB

http://goo.gl/maps/NSoQV

Downtown Palo Alto is at least twice as large as downtown Princeton and possibly denser. Just look at the number of red dots.

Then zoom out. Princeton has NOTHING nearby. I guess there's a strip mall to the southwest if you zoom out. But there are a few more busy streets in/near Palo alto.

Outside of the universities, more people live in/near Palo Alto than Princeton and they tend to be younger more urban types as well.

All of this doesn't mean it's going to have what she wants, but it's ridiculous to me that she thinks Palo Alto is more boring than Princeton. I guess Georgetown is in a more urban area and is known for having more bars, but I haven't spent much time there.

Just to let you know,Princeton is MUCH easier to get into as a recruited athlete than Stanford. I was recruited by both and didn't even have to fill out an application for Princeton while at Stanford all recruited athletes had to be accepted before even taking an official. Unless she is extremely involved in activities and community service I would say go with Princeton or Georgetown because i don't think that score and GPA would be accepted to Stanford.

^^She has a sub 4:50 1600 not 1500. Princeton is the only school I have actually seen in person recently. It actually seemed like a fairly nice college town with Nassau street. The problem with Princeton is...she comes from a fairly well off family so aid is unlikely. Her parents are not to crazy over the idea of spending 50k per year when she has full scholarship offers.

agfsdefadsgad wrote:

In terms of the towns being "boring", I can quantitatively demonstrate that Princeton is worse.

Go to google maps, and search for "food" at both places at the same zoom. This will tell you where the busy neighborhoods are:

http://goo.gl/maps/V9WgBhttp://goo.gl/maps/NSoQV

Downtown Palo Alto is at least twice as large as downtown Princeton and possibly denser. Just look at the number of red dots.

Nice idea - nice analysis.

And maybe I'm nitpicking here, but downtown Palo Alto is actually some distance from where undergrads live. A Stanford undergrad friend told me he felt horribly cut off from city life during his four years.

Palo Alto and especially San Francisco may be nice places to hang out, but in practice most undergrads don't get out to see them very much. And this is a very expensive part of the world - much more than most "college towns." The local dives aren't just catering to undergrads - they have multi-millionaire and billionaire regulars. That tends to raise prices.

Basically, she should visit. Other schools, too.

Is food your definition of fun?

Palo Alto has the worst downtown for a college (well, your description of Princeton sounds a bit worse). I would choose Georgetown in a heartbeat.

Better cross country team

Better environment

More things to do (bars, food, etc)

And the education is fine. Doesn't really matter in undergrad.

East Coast is a lot better than Palo Alto

She should join the athletic and academic powerhouse that is the University of Oregon.

The problem with the question posed by the coach is that it really doesn't matter if any of us could choose - because we aren't the ones choosing. Everyone is going to have different values and different things they might be looking for. A kid from the desert southwest might want a change and really love Princeton's campus with the green grass and big trees. Others might prefer Stanford for weather, or campus architecture, or places to run, or whatever.

This athlete will be able to do recruiting visits to all of these places and should be able to form a pretty good idea of which one feels right. All of them are obviously very good colleges and she really can't go wrong with any of them.

She gets 5 trips, so she might as well explore a few other while she's at it - Dartmouth might be interesting - great academics and more rural. But again, no scholarships.

Good advice is to look at colleges and imagine being there if the running thing ended (from injury or change of interest or whatever). Would you be happy if the team was out of the picture?

Stanford was just rated the number one Happiest Campus, by the way, for what that is worth. I think all these ratings are sort of dumb - Harvard was ranked 11th, I think, and it most definitely is not a happy place, at least around exam time. But for what it's worth, here's the link

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/galleries/2012/08/05/college-rankings-2012-25-happiest-schools-photos.html

Why not apply to all these places, take your visits, and see how things shake out? Some people hate rural campuses, and some can't stand living in the city. I know my school got a lot of recruits who thought they'd love NY, but changed their minds when they visited.

PS - quality of undergrad education may not matter that much, but the name absolutely does. Going to Princeton is a huge advantage in certain fields, just like going to Stanford is for CS majors.

ummm neither. Tell her to contact Gina Procaccio and go to Villanova....that is if she wants to become an Olympian.

1980 is pretty bad, what is her unweighted GPA, also, princeton and Stanford are very similar in academic standards, so you sound a little uninformed, thirdly, stanford is also a stretch athletically

If she is a sub 4:50 miler no school is a stretch athletically.

I went to Princeton for a BSE and to Stanford for a MS. The weather is much better in Palo Alto, probably as close to perfect as is possible. The team is better at Stanford. Both towns are rather insular, but also very close to NYC and SF. Stanford has much better running terrain, and women may be treated with a bit more respect. I only went to Georgetown once, for a track meet, and I seem to recall that it was at a local high school because there was no track at Georgetown. Academically, Princeton and Stanford are probably the best universities in the world, with Georgetown very far behind. Stanford has sports scholarships, but I think that it is a better deal at Princeton for a poor student because they will have 100% financial aid without ever having to compete. It is a tough choice, but I would lean towards Stanford just because of the weather and terrain.

I see that her parents are loaded, therefore She should probably go to Stanford. It is true that Stanford kids rarely go to SF, but at Princeton we rarely went to NYC either. A typical week for me at Princeton was go to class and study Monday until Thursday night, go to the eating clubs for drinking Thursday night, study Friday, go to the eating clubs for drinking Saturday night, study all of Sunday. For humanities majors, it was the same except they rarely went to classes or studied. Practically everything social involved the eating clubs.

I live on east coast and I would say go Stanford

I've only visited Stanford once but I loved it

Princeton is more inland

It is hot and humid during summer

Snowy winter

Georgetown is still excellent school but a step below both of them academically

I second that University of Virginia might be worth checking out -it's probably a safety academically with her athletic times too

But UVa has a great program, excellent running trails and training environment

Kosksk wrote:

Georgetown is still excellent school but a step below both of them academically

All of these schools are at the same academic level as far as undergrad is concerned

g(sub)fournandez wrote:

1980 is pretty bad, what is her unweighted GPA, also, princeton and Stanford are very similar in academic standards, so you sound a little uninformed, thirdly, stanford is also a stretch athletically

My kid is at Stanford. Athlete.

1980 is not 'pretty bad' - it wouldn't knock the socks off the admissions committee for a kid in the regular admissions pool, but for a recruited athlete it is fine. I'm assuming the girl has a good gpa if these are her college choices. And, if she wanted to, she could always take the SAT again this fall after a little study. She can make that decision after talking with the coaches.

I can 100% guarantee you that there are plenty of athletes there with this SAT score and lower - I know a couple with ACT in the 27 range who were accepted no problem, and are doing fine there academically.

Either I or my close coaching friends have coached at least one female at each of those schools.

Georgetown got great reviews from athletes and parents all the way around. Would be my first choice.

Princeton also is very well reviewed but the team chemistry is not as close as Georgetown. Obviously excellent academics and can get most of the girls to improve although not everyone. Close second to Georgetown.

Stanford. Hard to judge the new situation at Stanford by the athletes who have recently gone there. A lot more hit and miss with the girls than the other two schools. Seems like running is increasingly becoming the ugly step sister the the "revenue sports." Although we have had athletes happy there in the past, they have all been male. Females didn't work out as well. I wouldn't put Stanford high on my list, and do not as a coach.

This surprises me. I know a kid who's going to Stanford as a recruited athlete (one of the top players in his sport in the country, if not THE best) and although I don't know his test scores (but I doubt he even managed a 1980 SAT), he's really not a smart kid. I can tell you for sure he would have had absolutely no shot at getting in without sports.

She should use all 5 of the official visits. If she visits Stanford, it's over.