A lot of schools have enormous research grants, endowments, dazzling libraries and big-name professors who increase their rankings. Yet most students won't ever have those professors in class or talk with them in office hours. The library seems dazzling because the Library of Congress isn't three miles away, and lax campus drinking rules exist because many of these places are in the middle of nowhere. Try Dartmouth or Princeton, or visit Middlebury sometime. Hang out at Notre Dame after football season or Duke after a basketball game.
Most people leave the real world when they go to college.
We don't, and are better for it. Here, we get the refuge of a closed campus where one step out the front gates is a vibrant city with endless opportunity. Carmela Soprano is willing to put her neighbor in concrete sneakers for acceptance to this university and we have forgotten why. For any prospectives or students I have discouraged in my own fight, I am sorry. I won't be on the wrong side again.