I always went for battery life as the biggest thing for a college student, considering you'd be taking it to class and such. That said, you cant have battery life and performance for gaming.
MSI makes a decent spec laptop for $1500, before tax.
MSI - 15.6" Laptop - Intel Core i7 - 16GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 - 1TB Hard Drive + 256GB Solid State Drive
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/msi-15-6-lap...Id=5712735
ASUS ROG, a disgrace to laptops as it is 17 inches, but is well speced and in your price range. While the GFX are better, doesn't come with a SSD and only has 12GB
Asus - ROG Strix GL702VS 17.3" Laptop - Intel Core i7 - 12GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 - 1TB Hard Drive
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-str...Id=5712361