What laptop to get for school/LAN party

I am going back to college for the year and I need a new laptop.  Was previously using an Asus Transform Tablet which works but I would prefer a windows OS laptop.  I also game reguarly with friends at their houses and would like something that I can run games at an acceptable frame rate (30 fps+) on high or ultra settings in games like World of Warcraft or Battlefield 3 to name some.  Would prefer to stay around $1000 dollars on the budget but $1200 is the most I am willing to spend.  Any feedback would be appreciated, Thank you.

A lenovo y500 or y510 with sli  and an ssd upgrade would be perfect for you. If you wanna step it up a bit you can get an msi ge40 for $1300. 

My friend just got this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231136 Asus ROG gaming laptop and its a refurbished model and its the older asus model so its cheap.  How do you think this stacks up to the ones you recommended.

nvm didn't realize how heavy it is it's almost 9 pounds and it has like no battery life, a little too big and not enough battery for school.

I found this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231238 anyone have any thoughts or experience with it.  It's an i5 instead of an i7 so does anyone know how much more performance I'm losing with the downgrade?

I7s main feature over I5s is hyperthreading. which...

http://www.overclock.net/t/671977/hyperthreading-in-games

Lenovo Y510P.

GT 750M SLI, only $800.

It's not that heavy but it isn't light either. It's more of a price:performance notebook because I can't suggest any powerful light notebooks.

With all of the Lenovo recomendations, let me just warn you that Lenovos are notorious for terrible cooling. I cannot play a game that uses my dedicated GPU without an external cooling pad. I have a lenovo Y570.

But they have amazing batteries. It's been a year and mine is still getting 8 hours if not gaming.

Solved:  Appreciate all the advice and the suggestions, decided to go with the MSI Ge60.  Was a tad big high in my price range but parents decided birthday + christmas present plus a little cash thrown in by me, everything worked out :) .  I moved away from the Lenovo because I didnt like the sli card in the drive bay, was a little wierd for me, and a 17" laptop was a bit on the big size to be lugging around all day so I went with the 15.6" ge60.  It had a lot of great reviews, and I like that I can turn off the gpu when I dont need it to save battery, got the gtx 765 model instead of the 750 so it should have plenty of horsepower and its running haswell i7 so I get the benefit of multithreading.  Ill let you guys know how I like it, and again thank you for all the advice.