Felicity Porter makes a very last-minute decision about where to go to college. On graduation day, when Ben Covington, the cute boy she has loved from afar in high school, writes something nice in her yearbook, Felicity decides to forget the pre-med program at Stanford (her parents' idea, anyway) and follow Ben to New York City. In the first episode of ''Felicity,'' the WB mini-network's new drama series, viewers will see the title character gazing at the application form. The letterhead says ''University of New York.''

Where?

When Felicity (played by Keri Russell) gets out of a taxi and carries her luggage into her dorm, the neighborhood looks like one of those Greenwich Village blocks near Washington Square. It looks a lot like New York University, but it's not: it was filmed farther uptown. Even though schools, just as Coke or Nike do, usually welcome a free mention of their name on television, N.Y.U. said no.

''I'm sorry that we didn't get N.Y.U.'s approval'' to use the school's name, said J. J. Abrams, co-creator and co-executive producer of ''Felicity,'' which is to have its premiere on Sept. 29. But, he added, he understands the reluctance.

''We're not showing the university as a place of bacchanal, of crazy, violent rampages,'' Mr. Abrams said. ''Our show is not about the maligning of higher education. However, if there were ever any drug use of any kind on the show, if there were a suicide, if there were ever a moral lapse in a professor -- these things that are automatically potential stories could somehow ruffle the feathers of N.Y.U.''