Boulder, dude--it's gnar gnar

Introduction
Visit campus--I guarantee you'll fall in love with it. I was a Colorado native (about 50%+ of CU is), and though I had scholarships at other schools, I didn't want to go anywhere else. Coming from out of state, you have to ask yourself: does cost matter? partying? academics? the outdoors? What is most important to you? If you're coming from in state, you get a great bargain--tuition is pretty cheap. From out of state, it's a bit pricey. If you're up for having fun in college, you can't go wrong; if you want to do nothing but study, this school isn't for you, considering the sororities streak through the library during finals week. There is a good education to be had here as well, if you take advantage of the opportunities CU has to offer. It's all about balance---finding a way to party, have fun, be social, do the outdoors stuff like skiing/snowboarding/hiking/biking. You can do it all here!

Campus Life and Social Life
There's a lot of diversity in terms of what people do. It's very dominated by social life---the Greek system is huge, and on weekends there's plenty of stuff to do. A typical weekend starts Thursday night, at frat parties and bars if you're 21. (Boulder bars are tough on fake IDs, so be careful with that). Most kids who can make it work try to schedule classes to have Fridays off (or skip it pretty often!) to take advantage of the outdoors stuff--mostly skiing and snowboarding. Boulder Freeride is a huge club on this campus. Friday night, everyone comes back down from the mountains for more parties and bars. Saturday: wash, rinse, repeat. Weekends are big nights for going out, but there's always a crowd to go out during the week, too and lots of great live bands and bars and clubs all week long. There are a lot of clubs (like Boulder Freeride) that meet all through the week and it's easy to start your own--honors groups, community service, political groups, intermural sports, etc etc. Oh, and during football and basketball season, just about everyone goes to the games. If you want to get away for a day or two, it's really easy to go down to Denver (30 minute drive) and do stuff in the city, or trek up to the mountains (1 to 3+ hours drive, depending on where you're going) for the weekend or just a day trip. It seems like lots of kids have family cabins somewhere, so befriend those Colorado natives! Denver also has an international airport, so it's easy to get to and from school easily, if you have friends that are going to come visit or want to go home for a break. Advertisement
Academics
I had a great academic experience at CU. Workload was fine--it really depends on the class and professor. Your entry level classes freshman/sophomore year tend to be large--100 to 400 students, with smaller "recitation" groups of 20 or so and a TA. When you get to upper level classes and within your major, they'll be much smaller. There are also honors classes if you have--I think--a 3.0 or maybe a 3.3 or better. I took some, and those were great, actually. They're limited to 15 kids and aren't necessarily harder, they just allow you to get into more specific topics with a smaller group. The political science, philosophy, art history departments always had good classes. I wasn't a fan of the English classes I took, or math/science for that matter. Astronomy is not as easy as it sounds...

Student Body
See above. Students are a mix of in-state kids from all over Colorado, and pretty wealthy out-of-state students that seem to mostly come from California, Texas, and the east coast. Most kids that come from out of state come for the sports and the outdoors, or because of the tolerant attitude toward partying, drinking, and smoking pot. In state kids just know how lucky they are to live in Colorado and don't want to go anywhere else. In terms of boy/girl ratio, it's about even. And for some reason, everyone is really good looking. Seriously, I don't know what it is about CU, but it's ridiculous how many gorgeous people there are. Unfortunately, it's not very diverse racially and ethnically. It's primarily white, but they are working on increasing diversity.

In Closing...
College is what you make it, but you can't really go wrong when you're in a place like Boulder. I recently moved away from Colorado after graduating last year, and I miss it so much! I had such a good time at CU, got an education that prepared me for the real world, and made friends that are like my extended family. I only now realize how lucky I was to go there and really hope I can move back to Colorado in a couple years after graduate school--there's just no place quite like it.