The University of Vermont

Your experience will depend on what you put effort into; nobody is going to hold your hand and guide you. However, no matter what, it is easy to get lost in the crowd. It can be difficult to get to know your professors and to make close friends because there are so many people.

Academics, in my experience are surprisingly good. There's so much variety that its really what you make of it. I took a lot of hard courses, and felt pretty adequately challenged. If that's not what you're looking for, you'll find a lot of fluff courses here too. From what I hear, most of the departments are good; bio is great. My biology profs have all been very knowledgeable, though you can tell many are far more invested in their research than in teaching. And, if you are an environmental science major, you should absolutely come here.

You may hear UVM is a huge party school, and that alcohol and drugs are very prevalent. This is true, but its easy to completely separate yourself from that aspect depending on who you associate with, as i did. There are plenty of students who don't partake, and other activities to get involved in, and frankly the parties will get monotonous quickly.

There's a lot of activism on campus with regard to political and social issues, however sometimes i feel like it is just talk. Students here LOVE to voice their opinions, but not necessarily live by them.

Some dorms are nice, others aren't. I lived in the honors dorms and these rooms have their own bathrooms and are new and lovely, but many students are extremely disrespectful of common space which is often a total mess despite the great cleaning staff. After sophomore year there are many good housing options both on and off campus.

Both UVM and Burlington are beautiful. The views are breathtaking and downtown is a cute and easy to get to with a unique culture, but there's certainly plenty of drug use and homelessness like any other city. The area is also completely shut down by 10 pm each night.

Overall, if you are a very easy going earthy person, go to UVM. Go to UVM if you are a rich, pretentious, and arrogant (you'll meet plenty of your kind), if you like smoking pot and/or drinking, if you don't mind being just a number in a crowd, if you care about nothing except skiing/snowboarding, if you are looking for an extremely liberal student body, or are into environmental science/studies. However, if you are shy, apt to be overwhelmed by a huge place, hate the cold, don't care to be woken by drunk neighbors coming home at 4am, or want to really make a difference in the world and not just talk about it, I'd suggest you consider other (especially smaller) schools.