Thanks to all your insight, I'm getting a clear picture of Western geography!

Approaching this from a different direction, here is a subset of the 'top 100' math schools. THIS IS NOT THE COMPLETE LIST! I've removed the schools we've discussed already, and teased out only those locations which my (limited) knowledge of U.S. geography tells me are quite far from high country.

Can we safely say the following are beyond a bike ride from significant mountainous or hilly wilderness areas?

• Yale University (New Haven, CT)
• Cornell University (Ithaca, NY)
• California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, CA)
• Northwestern University (Evanston, IL)
• University of Wisconsin--(Madison Madison, WI)
• University of Minnesota--Twin Cities (Minneapolis, MN)
• University of California--(San Diego La Jolla, CA)
• University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign (Urbana, IL)
• University of Maryland--(College Park College Park, MD)
• Duke University (Durham, NC)
• Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD)
• SUNY--Stony Brook (Stony Brook, NY)
• Pennsylvania State University--University Park (University Park, PA)
• Purdue University--West Lafayette (West Lafayette, IN)
• Indiana University--Bloomington (Bloomington, IN)
• Ohio State University (Columbus, OH)
• University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC)
• University of California--Davis (Davis, CA)
• Brandeis University (Waltham, MA)
• Washington University in St. Louis (St. Louis, MO)
• Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI)
• University of California--(Irvine Irvine, CA)
• University of California--Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara, CA)
• University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, IN)
• University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA)
• North Carolina State University (Raleigh, NC)
• University of Georgia (Athens, GA)
• Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN)
• Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY)
• University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA)
• Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ)
• University of Massachusetts--Amherst (Amherst, MA)
• University of Missouri (Columbia, MO)
• University of Rochester (Rochester, NY)
• Claremont Graduate University (Claremont, CA)
• Iowa State University (Ames, IA)
• University at Buffalo--SUNY (Buffalo, NY)
• University of California--Riverside (Riverside, CA)
• University of Kansas (Lawrence, KS)
• University of Nebraska--Lincoln (Lincoln, NE)
• University of California--Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA)
• University of Delaware (Newark, DE)
• University of Kentucky (Lexington, KY)
• University of Oklahoma (Norman, OK)
• University of Tennessee--Knoxville (Knoxville , TN)
• Syracuse University (Syracuse, NY)
• Tufts University (Medford, MA)
• University at Albany--SUNY (Albany, NY)
• Binghamton University--SUNY (Binghamton, NY)
• Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, OH)
• Kansas State University (Manhattan, KS)
• Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA)
• Oklahoma State University (Stillwater, OK)
• University of Connecticut (Storrs, CT)
• University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, NM)
• Washington State University (Pullman, WA)
• Clemson University (Clemson, SC)

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