The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

There is great music and culture, good times, and lots of smart people. There are lots of distractions and things not related to higher learning per se. There are great teachers and terrible ones focused on their research.

The program I started in, chemistry, was a zoo full of pre-meds who wanted the grades over all else. Switching to the earth sciences was great because the department was much smaller and full of wonderful teachers and students.

There were lots of bad grad student teachers. That hasn't changed. There are lots of fun people and a vibrant life outside of class. It takes a very focused student to do well and graduate on time.

It wouldn't hurt to plan to take a year off in the middle of your student career and just live around the town. this holds true at UNC as well as some of the other great lifestyle schools like Colorado-Boulder, UVM, Texas, U of Colorado and many others. One woman I knew was 28 and still an undergrad. She had a steady job at Tijuana Fats (a great Mexican restaurant now long-gone), and she just picked-and-chose classes that really interested her.

She wasn't the only one doing that....
If you want pure education, this is only one of many things that UNC offers. There are definitely other schools that would be better. Pick a crappy town with long gray winters, or a crucible of super learning.

But my wife went to Harvard and she has lots of regrets regarding the social life there, so it goes both ways.

One thing to consider: UNC has long semesters (or at least it did back in the late 70's). I found it hard to stay focused on classes that lasted 17 weeks. If you do too, think about a school with shorter terms, such as a quarter or trimester system, or Colorado College with its one-class at a time style.

I took a few classes at Duke and NC State (intermural scheduling was available then, but I'm not sure if it still is). Duke was exceptional, but then I cherry-picked really well-reviewed classes and teachers.

If you are open to developing your own curriculum, you can follow the best teachers at UNC and get an amazing open-minded education. Some of my best (and smartest) friends did that and they were very happy and inspired their entire four (or five) years.

If you're locked into a particular program such as journalism or chemistry, you may end up feeling like a body in the great digestive system of state-run higher education. That is probably true at any big college/university.

If you're a very serious academic, consider going to a school that really focuses on what you love most and is small enough to give you the saturation you want.UNC was a great, great experience for me, and an amazing value at the time. I would gladly have passed on the foreign-language and disrespectful grad student teachers in the big classes (like organic chemistry, calculus and English), but what great memories!