Not the Best...

Introduction
I chose Colorado State because it was a better alternative to going to an in-state, public school than attending Boulder. I wasn't impressed from the start; registering for classes is always a big issue due to high enrollment and not enough teachers, the buildings are from the 60's and don't create a feeling of home at all, and the dorms (Corbett Hall) felt like a prison with terrible heating/cooling issues. I graduated from high school early, expecting to attend college with people who were done with the high school mentality, but generally you are surrounded by shallow partiers. You have to make the best of the school, and I suggest getting out of the dorms as soon as possible. If you're expecting maturity, Colorado State isn't it (which is probably true for many colleges, however).

Campus Life and Social Life
The social life is only as good as you make it. If you're looking to drink, then you already have friends. Most of the people who are down-to-earth an interested in "at-home" things like movies and video games avoid the general public and stick to their rooms, so they're harder to find. It's lucky if you can find good friends like that. There are plenty of things going on, especially on the weekends, if you get in with the social groups of people. There are plenty of clubs to help you find your niche, including clubs for anime-watchers, sci-fi fans, pagans, GLBT community, degree-related clubs. If you do go to CSU, look on the website for their student organizations list to find some things to check out. The town itself doesn't really have good "hang-out" places except bars and a ton of restaurants. There are two clubs - one stereotypically "urban," and one that's stereotypically gay. You also hear a lot about how bad drinking and smoking is on campus, but then again there are frat houses shut down for having alcohol parties after the CSU Greeks declared all of their houses non-drinking. Advertisement
Academics
The vet school at CSU is really good, so if you're looking to go into pre-vet, CSU's a good choice. The math department is really rude, and will not make exceptions for anyone - it's best to just avoid them. The engineering program I've heard doesn't actually teach you well - there are companies that have stopped hiring CSU graduates entirely as a result of a few CSU-grads being incompetent. The chemistry department is full of teachers who are hired more for research than teaching, so unless you check on ramratings.com and see your teachers, chances are you're going to get a Professor who can't teach undergraduates worth anything. The biology department has been really good in my view, but I have met a few people who don't like their classes at all and transfer schools because the teachers are so unhelpful. Like I said, ramratings.com is the way to go to search for potential teachers and prep yourself for what's to come. The Microbiology department was fairly impressive in the lower division classes, but they get really hard on you in your later years. If you're a smart person, the workload really isn't that bad overall. If you're a person who takes a while to grasp onto things, you're obviously going to have to put in a lot of work. Basically attending class is a key - lots of teachers have powerpoint notes online, and there are always resources to help you outside of class.

Student Body
The "typical" student is from Colorado's white suburbia. Many of them are groups of friends that have followed each other from high school, and typically the ones who are grounded to the drinking identity. In classrooms you'll hear quite a bit about who got in a fight that past weekend, what's in fashion currently, and what parties were happening. You will easily find the minorities, though, and especially if you join student organizations. Most people aren't the type of people to strike up a conversation with the person next to them, but generally they're easy to warm up to by the end of a semester.

In Closing...
CSU is not the school I would choose if I had to again, but it has been adequate enough to make me feel like I learned something after a few years. The classes, in the science departments especially, tend to go over the same material throughout your years, so you get restless after 4 years. Fort Collins is an hour or so away from Denver, so it's not that bad of a trip to take if you want to get out of town. It's a college town/retirement town, so you have to deal with a mix of that. The town seems dead when there are school breaks.