Best Skiing College

okay so some people are saying maine schools, so i guess i'm gonna have to defend the alma mater and say UNIVERSITY OF MAINE(ski areas: SUGARLOAF/USA and that other guy someday bigger, plus awesome ass saddleback). yeah colby and bates are cool and all but they're sucker ass liberal arts schools. if you wanna continue to ski your whole life, get a practical education(unless mother and father, well um, you know). The UMSSC(umaine ski and snowboard club)is definitely the up and coming premiere ski/board club in the nation no doubt(okay we try) but for reals, good people and we are working on buses at least every other weekend from january till april. plus there is the outing club which has a 30ish or so person, OG cabin that the kind folks of kingfield maine rent out the land for a DOLLAH A YEAR BUB. so its kinda sweet deal if you join that club, plenty of opportunity to practice ski bumming for post college life...

anyway,UMAINE

Top notch engineering school(business isn't too bad either, if you're a PUNK) and mere 2 hours away from the BIGGEST ski area this side the mississippi with skiing(w/ a bit of a hike) until late may almost every year, lift service the first week of may all 4 years of my college experience to say the least.

I packed 45 days into my senior engineering schedule which included 19 hours in the fall and 17 in the spring(hours of class that is, to avoid any number confusion)


GO BLACKBEARS, LONG LIVE SUGARLOAF/USA

TL;DR
go to UMaine, cheapish for outta stater, well respected educational facility, everyone skis and its easy as hell to get to the mtn every weekend if you're determined enough. good luck

Jahawsyeah colby and bates are cool and all but they're sucker ass liberal arts schools. if you wanna continue to ski your whole life, get a practical education(unless mother and father, well um, you know).

Don't understand the hate for Colby/Bates/Bowdoin dude. Yeah there are some wealthy kids here but there are a lot who are probably a lot less well off than you. Try not to generalize so much.

There are tons of great schools in Maine and most are very feasible driving distances from great skiing. Check out Colby Freeride's fb https://www.facebook.com/colbyfreeride/timeline

BASEDJAHDon't understand the hate for Colby/Bates/Bowdoin dude. Yeah there are some wealthy kids here but there are a lot who are probably a lot less well off than you. Try not to generalize so much.

There are tons of great schools in Maine and most are very feasible driving distances from great skiing. Check out Colby Freeride's fb https://www.facebook.com/colbyfreeride/timeline

Colby bates and bowdoin are practical if you are really rich or really poor. The middle class is generally the kids out of there fucked for life with 200+ Thousand of debt

Honestly it depends on what you are looking for because CU boulder does have one of the best engineering programs in the country and you can join the club ski team or ride team and ski or ride as much as you want. Unluckily there are no college blade teams...

Michigan Tech is ok skiing in the U.P.

I don't know if this is the best way and it depends on the circumstances, but for me I had to worry about money. I really wanted to go out of state (from MA), only problem was how every school was so fucking expensive for an average grade level, no scholarship, only child, average house-hold income, type of kid.

I decided the thing to do was to attend (will be in less than 1 month) Utah State University. For someone out of state it cost me around $23K per year with only receiving a fafsa loan of $5,500. Many people just say "go to UofU or Westminster", but look at how god damn expensive those schools are for people out of state! You are most definitely paying 40+K a year with either choice. Screw that.

Utah is allegedly a very easy state to obtain instate residency after just one year. Can not leave the state for over a month, transfer over to a Utah license, get a job + cheap ass apartment for a small time in the summer and you are set for residency.

Then my plan is to hopefully transfer to UofU paying for instate and saving myself that 20K from last year. While all in all still skiing in Utah.

That's my plan, someone will probably call me out on it. Hopefully it works for me.

Foxxy-BangMontana State University in Bozeman is the way to go. You got Bridger Bowl 25min away which has great backcountry and expert terrain. Then you have Big Sky which is about an hour away, and big sky is hands down my favorite resort I have ever skied. Has a sick park and great pow days. The powder in Montana is unreal too, they call it the cold smoke. The problem I encountered when looking at CU Boulder was that it was too far from the bigger resorts, I didn't want to drive over an hour.

im going there next year. if academics are important to you their honors college is good and they have good engineering. if you're in the honors college you get smaller classes w/ smarter people and you graduate w/ an additional degree w/ little additional work. I went to orientation a couple weeks ago and I can't wait to start!

I'm surprised nobody has said UBC. World class university, 3 local mountains under 30 mins away, whistler is about 2 hours away and students get great deals. Not to mention it's close enough to the border to shred baker. I'm pretty sure international student costs are still cheaper then most american colleges.

If your into snowflex...you could go to liberty

jensenCan't tell if troll or serious??

Bozeman blows Missoula out of the water on skiing.

not trolling man tell your friends

SimplyCleanEveryone from CU will tell you it's the best school ever and it's certainly not. To top it off...if you're from out of state it'll cost you a wonderful $40k a year to attend...that's a $100,000+ investment my friend.

This, in all of these threads about which colleges are good for skiing I always see CU. It's a good school with some great programs, but the skiing situation itself isn't too great. It takes 1.5 hours to go to Keystone (the closest resort). Navigating between Boulder and the ski areas is a challenge from December-March due to high traffic volume and icy roads/accidents. And the terrain in Colorado doesn't compare to Utah, California, Montana, etc.

ohmyglob8if u like alcohol, drugs and sluts plymouth state is a decent school

PSU - Party State University

Sierra Nevada College on the north shore of Tahoe. Diamond Peak is like 5 mins away and if you get to know the right people you could find some pretty fun back country skiing

Champlain College Baby

Jahoe_StuyveChoose your schedule wisely and know when to study your ass off, UNR is a great school for skiing and is becoming a really good school. They're adding 3 new student buildings in the next couple years and everything on campus keeps getting improved. Fall semester is for academics and spring semester is for skiing. I got around 50 days this season between alpine/squaw and boreal. SNC is great for being close but they don't exactly have a diverse education. As far as club teams go SNC shits on UNR and the club at UNR is the hardest to get a hold of (not sure if they even have a freeski team anymore).

I don't think they actually have a freeski team anymore. I'm attending UNR in the fall and I was looking around for one. not even a snowboard club came up so I think it's safe to say they don't have one anymore. not like it matters, though, it's relatively easy to find park skiers to ski with (especially on NS.)

UNR is incredibly underrated in my opinion. it's actually a really decent school with a beautiful campus. people like to shit on it for some reason, but the fact of the matter is it's actually becoming a pretty big university. I think people just like to hate on reno for being a small town and a little janky. but it's under an hour from freaking tahoe- what could be better? not to mention mount rose and boreal are 30-40 minutes away from the campus. (don't forget about woodward at tahoe too, if you're into that.)

hughlorinI don't think they actually have a freeski team anymore. I'm attending UNR in the fall and I was looking around for one. not even a snowboard club came up so I think it's safe to say they don't have one anymore. not like it matters, though, it's relatively easy to find park skiers to ski with (especially on NS.)

UNR is incredibly underrated in my opinion. it's actually a really decent school with a beautiful campus. people like to shit on it for some reason, but the fact of the matter is it's actually becoming a pretty big university. I think people just like to hate on reno for being a small town and a little janky. but it's under an hour from freaking tahoe- what could be better? not to mention mount rose and boreal are 30-40 minutes away from the campus. (don't forget about woodward at tahoe too, if you're into that.)

If I didn't to go MSU I would have probably gone to UNR. I agree, it is left off the ski college radar too often. UU is the other one I would consider. All three of those schools have awesome skiing within an hour.

smellsthat's where i'm going next year. one of the reasons i decided it over CU Boulder is because I hear that the traffic getting up to the mountain at CU sucks. Also it's like 45 minutes up to Baker not an hour and a half.

man you're soooooo lucky I just went on vacation in the PNW and we checked it out, I would love to go there but my college savings has to go to a Michigan school so that sucks

Here is an article that came out I believe my senior year of HS. "10 Best Colleges for Skiers"
http://xgames.espn.go.com/skiing/article/7186883/espn-freeskiing-picks-10-best-colleges-skiing

I think step one is to narrow your search to schools out West. In general tuition and cost of living is cheaper, and the mountains are steeper and deeper. You will fall in love with the mountains on the West side!

Top 4 in my Opinion:
All of these schools support a big time ski culture, you will have a full crew ready to go before the end of Sept!

-University of Utah:
extremely cheap (tuition & housing), steep'N'deep+some big parks, best 5 resorts to go to are all within 25 min (Alta, Snowbird, Brighton, PC, Canyons), weather is excellent (its either snow or sunshine), and academically the best on this list, Utah is not your big time party school, we still rage but if you plan to just absolutely and utterly party your ass off this is not the place.

-Western Washington University
Not nearly as cheap as Utah but still reasonable, Mt Baker is unreal for skiing steep&deep with a higher annual snowfall then any other mountain. Baker has a park... and it's the snow equivalent of my back yard setup. Baker is an hour and 1/2 from school, still a pretty good school academically, but the weather sucks ass (it rains once a year, starts in Oct and goes through May)!

-Montana State University
Bozeman is awesome (college towns always are), cheap tuition & housing, Bridger Bowl is a smaller yet still extremely fun mountain 20 min away, Big Sky is even better except an hour and 20 min away (both are steep&deep), However there is not much in the way of park skiing, Big Sky's has a decent park but it definitely leave more to be desired, Bozeman is fucking cold, and oh yeah if you are looking to party your ass off, BROz'man can facilitate that!

-University of Colorado, Boulder
Boulder is the definition of a PARTY SCHOOL, any day of the week you will find a party on the hill. Boulder is expensive thats for damn sure. The big ski resorts are almost two hours away but then you factor in the horrendous ski traffic on I-70 and it is not unusual to spend more then 3 hours in the car both ways just to go ski some park @ Breck (I know a number of kids @ CU that after Freshman year now only ski a hand full of time in a season because the drive sucks and they end up parting to hard). Colorado definitely has the biggest park scene but the all mountain skiing is not nearly as aggressive as @ UofU or WWU (unless you've got a sled). Weeds legal but that doesn't matter since there will be at least 2 kid on each floor of your dorm building slanging the green carpet at all of these schools!

My Credibility: I'm from Seattle, was damn close to going to WWU but chose UofU in the end. All my friends from home go to WWU and i visit the place a couple times a year. Ive only skied Baker 6 or 8 times but it definitely doesn't disappoint. I chose UofU and never looked back, Utah has the perfect combination of steep aggressive skiing at the Bird then PC for those sunny park days. 2 of my roommates are from bozeman and we go up to MT a couple times a year to ski, rage, have food made for us. My other roommate is from Denver so we usually end up going out to Boulder a couple times a year mainly just to rage... and we might ski if that works out. Finally if I had to do it all over again and the UofU was not an option I would definitely pick MSU in Bozeman.

NatePiazziThere ski club takes you to a lot of the major hills and most kids are from Vermont so you could probably get rides to hills easy.

i also heard when I toured there that they have some sort of Facebook group or something along those lines where you can just post looking for rides to the mountains. Like a carpool forum of sorts

FreeskiThe603UVM is a very good school. It's not a cakewalk to get in. Not ivy league or super hard, but still above average. Don't overlook it, it's a great school.

quoting for emphasis. People think uvm is shit. It's a great school.

Western State University in CO. Literally 30 mins from Crested Butte. That or Colorado Mountain College which is a 2 year comunity college with campuses all around the mountains, including breck and steamboat.

Tanner-DUNR in Reno is really pretty sweet. I know that Reno doesn't have the best image but it is actually a really sweet place to live. My friends and I get around 80+ days a year and are full time students. Great access to Squaw, Alpine, Sugar Bowl, Northstar, and Boreal. Also there are great south lake resorts as well if you want to drive a bit more!

Nahhh Reno is a shithole. Go to Lake Tahoe Community College, or Sierra Nevada College.

kshaughnI picked Bates because I wanted a good school in New England that I could ski at (and I played some other sports for Bates).

Translation: I couldn't get into Colby, Bowdoin, or Middlebury so I had to settle for Bates.

I jest, I jest (kind of). But, really, having recently graduated from one of the northern NE NESCAC's that isn't Bates, I can say that the times I visited Bates were always a blast and the kids there seemed generally much chiller than my school. Granted I only went for big events (80's dance, 90's dance, some concerts), but I always left wondering why it was so much more fun than what I was used to.

OP: if you're really looking for a strong academic school that also has decent skiings, it's narrows it down to basically this: Dartmouth, Middlebury, Bowdoin, Colby, Bates, and Colorado College. There may be one or two others that I'm missing, but I don't think many.

Now go do some research on these places, and next time just use the fucking searchbar.

WattsTranslation: I couldn't get into Colby, Bowdoin, or Middlebury so I had to settle for Bates.

Touche. I went early to Bates so I never actually got around to applying to the rest of them, but I did end up playing football and lacrosse for Bates. Colby was an hour further away and I would have had a tougher time playing sports at Middlebury. Bowdoin was my ED2 choice and hopefully I would have gotten in but who knows.

Either way, the NESCAC's are all somewhat alike and somewhat different, so it really depends on what you're looking for. If you're looking at a good academic school that you can ski at, any of them are a good option, but you really need to go visit to figure out which one that is.

kshaughnEither way, the NESCAC's are all somewhat alike and somewhat different, so it really depends on what you're looking for. If you're looking at a good academic school that you can ski at, any of them are a good option, but you really need to go visit to figure out which one that is.

Very true. Like I said, I was only joking.The difference between them all academically is small enough that it's almost silly to point out. It really is a matter of going up there and visiting and deciding which school seems like the best fit.

Ribss.Nahhh Reno is a shithole. Go to Lake Tahoe Community College, or Sierra Nevada College.

Reno has it's bad parts but overall it's actually sweet and not a shit hole. Snc is kind of a joke of a school for what you pay in my opinion. There is much more academic opportunity at unr.

hughlorinI don't think they actually have a freeski team anymore. I'm attending UNR in the fall and I was looking around for one. not even a snowboard club came up so I think it's safe to say they don't have one anymore. not like it matters, though, it's relatively easy to find park skiers to ski with (especially on NS.)

UNR is incredibly underrated in my opinion. it's actually a really decent school with a beautiful campus. people like to shit on it for some reason, but the fact of the matter is it's actually becoming a pretty big university. I think people just like to hate on reno for being a small town and a little janky. but it's under an hour from freaking tahoe- what could be better? not to mention mount rose and boreal are 30-40 minutes away from the campus. (don't forget about woodward at tahoe too, if you're into that.)

There is a free ski team my roommate is in charge of the snowboard program. There wasn't really a team this year as low snowfall left few competitions available and my roomy just decided to can the season. Hopefully next season there will be more of a team. The cool thing is anyone can join because it's a club team. Pm me if you want more details and I can get you in touch with the right people at unr.

Hey if you're considering private schools you should look at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. It's probably the best school academically that's also in a great skiing location. I'm a current student so if you have any questions feel free to PM me

hughlorinbut it's under an hour from freaking tahoe- what could be better?

If tahoe gets screwed with snowfall like it did this year... a whole lot of places.

nutz.If tahoe gets screwed with snowfall like it did this year... a whole lot of places.

soooo much this but we still had a couple good days

VT_FLODartmouth. 40 minutes from Killington, 5 minutes away from a small local yokel resort. + its ivy league.

As recently as last year, people at Dartmouth generally split between Killington & Stowe passes, plus sneaking in runs on the campus hill. I ended up getting into AT / east coast backcountry as well. Anyone interested in learning more about the Dartmouth ski scene, or the school in general, please don't hesitate to message me.

Probably going on a visit at UVM Saturday. yeaaaah

Anyone go to or went to University of Wyoming it seems to have a good engineering program and is cheap out of state. And it's 2 hours from steamboat.