Grass is Greener

With march madness upon us and alma mater pride in full effect, it's always interesting to reflect on whether one would choose the school they went to if they had to do it over again.

I attended an undergraduate institution in the Midwest. It had a prestigious name and good academics but the social life was well, socially retarded.

It ended up working out - I enjoyed my classes, made some best friends for life and even met my wife. But would I do it again knowing what I know now? And aren't I a different person at 31 than the one I was at 18? Or am essentially the same person at the core?

I jokingly told my wife that I should have based my college choice on where I wanted to party for 4 years b/c as we become working stiffs and our friends spread out across the country or to the burbs to start families, college was a pretty good time in retrospect. Little responsibility and you get to live amongst your best friends and significant other in the same place? Not a bad deal.

So what schools sound like they might have been a good time to me based on location and prestige?

-Georgetown (Washington, DC)
-McGill (Montreal, Quebec)
-UCLA (Los Angeles, CA)
-UC Berkeley (Berkley, CA)
-Columbia (NYC)
-Brown (Providence, RI)
-Northwestern (Evanston, IL)

Getting into these schools would be another matter but if I ever have kids maybe I'll strongly suggest they look into these institutions.