Western Washington University

1. Cannabis use is common, but plenty of people don't smoke it.

2. Bellingham is a great place itself, and Seattle and Vancouver are close enough that you could make a weekend trip if you need big city life.

3. They like to play up the fact that there's no Greek system; in effect, it's replaced by the "sports houses".

4. Students in physical sciences receive a lot of individual attention and the computer science department is exploding due to in-state students getting sick of UW CSE's cutthroatness; the perception of Western being a liberal arts school in everything but name is fading away, but as long as there is the glaring lack of an engineering school, I doubt people's minds will fully change.

5. A fair amount of dumb and unmotivated people manage to get in here. Admissions standards are essentially the same as WSU, and the only thing keeping Western's reputation better is the lack of the "party school" label.

6. This is not a PhD-granting institution (another reason people find it difficult to gauge Western's prestige), and so there is a distinct lack of international students.