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After a pretty miserable year at a large state university, I was looking to transfer to a smaller college because I felt like I would be more comfortable there. I looked at Beloit College, a tiny liberal arts college, less than 1500 students, and UW-Stevens Point, a smaller state school with 8500 students. I loved both of them but ultimately ended up attending the University of Wisconsin, which is obviously a huge huge school. I was apprehensive at first but I've ended up loving it. I think that bigger universities offer you the best of both worlds if they're run correctly, because they have fantastic academics and a wide range of choices academically (especially a good choice if you're undecided on a major as a freshman, because basically no matter what you end up majoring in you'll have a great education), but via things like the Greek system, clubs, the "house" system in my dorm, etc. -- it offers a lot of smaller communities so it's never too overwhelming. I think Wisconsin is perfect socially, because when I want to hang out with the same people (people within the Greek system, people in my dorm, people in my best friend's dorm) as usual I can, and this is great for developing meaningful friendships -- but if I ever get bored with hanging out with the same few groups of people, there are thousands and thousands of new people to meet. That's definitely a luxury that a smaller school can't offer you.
I do have to admit, though, that smaller schools often offer you more opportunities to get involved -- if I had gone to Beloit, for example, I could have been involved in theater productions there even though I'm not a theater major. I can't really do that at Wisconsin.
And yes, the atmosphere at football/basketball/hockey games is AWESOME at a big school -- I'm not a big sports fan, but I go just to hang out because it's so much fun.
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