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mominva
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Posted: Fri Jan 4th, 2008 08:32 pm |
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Way back when, D1 dropped Lafayette because the info session focused on athletics and the new expensive fitness center. She wondered about the quality of academics if the people in charge of info session were mostly concerned with sports. Also went on an Ivy tour with school and didn't apply to any, mostly r/t weather.
S dropped VCU-too urban; Mary Washington-too close to home; JMU-the I-81 campus divide (same for all of my kids); Winthrop in SC-was the shortest stay of any visit of my 3 kids-couldn't find the words to explain why; Guilford-too small and too quirky.
D2 dropped Trinity in San Antonio-the folks she asked were speechless when she asked where they went for fun; Wake Forest was in the adjacent state!, Pepperdine didn't offer anything her other schools did.
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Deja
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Posted: Fri Jan 4th, 2008 08:52 pm |
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Great thread!
We don't have the time (or money!) to fly ds all over the country to visit colleges before applying. He doesn't seem to be particularly interested in going more than 6 or 7 hours away. He will probably apply to UChicago, though, and I admit from what I've read about it that it seems that it's a great fit for him in several very important ways. If he's accepted, he will visit it.
The pull to go to a state school is very strong, particularly since we have outstanding public universities in my state. But, still...I wonder if he should stretch himself, and attend a college with more geographic diversity.
As a double legacy for Cornell (University), he will *probably* apply there. There is a brand-new feature of Cornell admissions where the applicant can apply to two colleges within Cornell -- one is the primary choice and the other the alternate choice college. As the Political Science/Economics junkie that he is, he will probably apply to Cornell's Arts & Sciences as primary and the Industrial and Labor Relations school as alternate. The legacy aspect of his application would really only help if he were applying ED, but he's not doing that.
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kdmom
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| Location: | Washington USA |
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Posted: Sat Jan 5th, 2008 01:09 am |
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Deja, both of my sons are at Cornell U. They're also legacies -- hmm, I wonder if you and I were at Cornell at the same time. Anyway, my younger son is in ILR so if you'd like any information about what it's like for him, feel free to PM me.
Back on topic: Each of my sons had a school where they bailed right after the info session and refused the tour. The older one's was NYU. He said it just didn't feel like a college. The younger one's was Penn. He couldn't even give a reason, he just said he wanted to leave. I was quite surprised on both occasions, because both sons had previously sworn up and down that they wanted to go to urban schools. Given where they ended up, I guess they changed their minds about that 
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Canadian
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Posted: Sat Jan 5th, 2008 02:37 am |
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Dropped without a visit:
Earlham (which I loved on paper): "Sounds more nurturing than fun"
All the midwest CTCL schools because of, well, being in the midwest.
Dropped after the visit:
Clark: Shoddy outdoors club. Also, when we asked one of the guides what she liked least about the school, she said, "Poor funding for athletics".
Colby: TOO nice, too grand, felt pretentious.
Bowdoin: Pretentious, long boring talk by guide about famous students who fought in the Civil War (and this matters because....?)
(Nearby Bates stayed in, felt warmer, less preppy.)
Guilford (NC): Sweet campus & kids but not enough oomph to be remembered.
Dickinson: S couldn't say why, but the campus and kids left him cold.
It is interesting to me to look back and see the evolution of my son's college sensibilities. On our first tours during early spring of grade 11, he liked UPS, Willamette, and L & C pretty indiscriminately. He applied to them as well as Bates and Allegheny, the only one we were not able to visit.
By the end, he really only wanted Colorado College, with Whitman an acceptable second, and Trinity U (TX) a somewhat distant third.
I "knew" before we started that CC and Whitman would be his faves for their athletic, outdoorsy cultures, but--being the queen of "lets explore the options" (not to mention safeties)--I trotted us all over the country. Expensive and exhausting. The good news is that he is TOTALLY sure of his CC choice.
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frazzled1
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Posted: Sat Jan 5th, 2008 01:41 pm |
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This is one of the funniest threads I've ever read. Really brings home the meaning of "to each his own."
Oldest d took CMU off her list after visiting because I liked it too much. At this point I resolved to apply duct tape following any and all college tours.
Middle d took UNC-Chapel Hill off the list because it was the fifth school in a forced death march of junior-year tours and we literally could not go another step, even on that very beautiful campus. She could have applied after an abbreviated tour, of course, but never did.
Younger d is fussier and removed two schools from her list - JMU because it was just too big, and Mary Washington because of a horrendous experience with the tour guide. (Note to tour guides: there may be stupid questions, but prospective customers never ask them. This even applies to mothers. I was dissed in a majorly embarrassing way, and my kid just walked off the tour. We were the third family to do so. And I really like Mary Washington!)
She was all excited about Dickinson before we visited. The tour guide wore pearls and carried a designer handbag and that was a deal breaker for my kid, not just for Dickinson but for all northeastern schools in one fell swoop, no matter how many times I pointed out that the other kids we saw at Dickinson were not wearing pearls.
Carolyn, this one made me giggle. Our tour guide at Dickinson, which we both liked a lot, was as opposite the pearls and designer bag type as it's possible to get. He was very cool, somewhat scruffy, and, as my d said, probably his floor's go-to guy for illegal substances.
Last edited on Sat Jan 5th, 2008 01:48 pm by frazzled1
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bc
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Posted: Sat Jan 5th, 2008 01:54 pm |
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Dropped by D immediately after the tour and overnight visit:
William and Mary "too much khaki and too many sorority girls"
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HijinksAndSue
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Posted: Sat Jan 5th, 2008 05:20 pm |
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I guess if it's OK I'll expand on the other schools dropped from DD's original list even though we didn't visit any of them (unless you count NYU which we never "officially" visited but spent a lot of time around since her grandparents are in NYC and we hung out in the Village pretty much every trip up)
Please keep in mind that several of these probably would have been reachy for her anyway or at least certainly not safe.
NYU: Loved the urban setting, LOVED the neighborhood, loved the idea of being in NYC where there are a lot of opportunities to perform. However, ironically, when she really studied the program offerings and curriculum she found there was not a music major that fit what she wanted. She didn't feel she could meet the bar for Tisch or Musical Theatre (and though she was very active with leads in HS, it wasn't something she felt she would pursue past school), and the Clive Davis program is a non-performance program. And other than that the music majors were pretty much classical/theory-based which isn't her thing. Also too big.
USC: Wanted a good LAC that was an LA-based option because she has working relationships with LA-based musicians and producers, and it's the first choice of one of her collaborators ... however the whole purpose of going to school in LA would have been so she could continue to gig/perform/pursue her music and this wasn't someplace we could see her coming "home" to alone at 2 a.m. (Replaced on her short list eventually by Occidental).
ITHACA: Good music and performing arts program, good liberal community where she'd probably fit in well. But the whole audition/application process for music majors was way too elaborate and required a repertoire that she doesn't have and didn't have the time to develop for a school that in the end was just too remote for her. If she's not in a city she either wants to be close enough to one to be able to go in to gig or else for it to have enough of a well-respected and established program right up her alley to be able to be happy within its confines.
MARYLAND: Too close. Too big. The music performance major options didn't match her needs/desires. Too close. Too close.
Funny thing is that when I first suggested Berklee to her, maybe during her sophomore year in high school, she wasn't interested at all. Eventually I guess she got bored and checked out the website and that changed her mind in a hurry.
However she ended up applying to four schools where she says she feels she would be happy and fulfilled at any of the four (Berklee, Oxy, Miami and UArts). All have a lot to offer in different ways. (Berklee's curriculum is EXACTLY what she wants to pursue with her life, Oxy is a wonderful small LAC with good music in a great location, Miami has an outstanding music program and is adding a minor that she very much would want to take, and UArts has great vocal jazz major, is close enough to home and NYC to be convenient but not TOO CLOSE and Philly has as thriving a singer-songwriter scene as any city in the country). But Berklee was the only one on the list when the official active full-court-press search began. Now we wait and see if she gets in to any of them 
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Canadian
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Posted: Sat Jan 5th, 2008 07:00 pm |
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This is one of the funniest threads I've ever read. Really brings home the meaning of "to each his own."
Frazzled, I totally agree, and your post had me rolling!
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Sat Jan 5th, 2008 09:29 pm |
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mominva wrote: Way back when, D1 dropped Lafayette because the info session focused on athletics and the new expensive fitness center. She wondered about the quality of academics if the people in charge of info session were mostly concerned with sports.
Now that I think about it, the schools that made my son's final cut were all ones where they DIDN'T show us the athletic center on the tour. He also threatened to withdraw his applications from two schools (Macalester and Beloit) when their football coaches called to ask if he'd be interested in playing football (Son played football in his freshman and sophomore years, but now considers himself fully recovered from that momentary lapse of judgement  ).
He also had a penchant for schools where the tour guide made any sort of positive reference to hippies, 1960's music, protest marches, or the fact that a Beat poet was a member of the school's alumni association or was/had been on the faculty. Heck, if the tour guide could just name a Beat poet, son moved the school up a notch. 
And, his true test was whether it was OK to wear his standard black tee shirt and jeans to the interview. Any school where mom said, "you probably should wear a nice polo shirt" was doomed. Reed shot to the top of the list when the admissions interviewer showed up in...a black tee shirt and jeans. It also helped that she had her dog sit in on the interview. 
Last edited on Sat Jan 5th, 2008 09:51 pm by CarolynLawrence
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Canadian
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Posted: Sat Jan 5th, 2008 09:58 pm |
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Reed shot to the top of the list when the admissions interviewer showed up in...a black tee shirt and jeans. It also helped that she had her dog sit in on the interview.
This is also hysterical. I hope I get a chance to see Reed sometime.........one of the places I wish I'd known about 40 years ago.
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mackinaw
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Posted: Sat Jan 5th, 2008 10:17 pm |
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Back in the day, my daughter was only interested in visiting art schools, but we persuaded her to visit CMU as well. Her first rule, beyond that, was that the school had to be in a "real city," preferably on the East Coast. CMU thereby had one clear mark against it (never mind that Pittsburgh is a city), but she did ultimately apply and was admitted there. The big question about RISD, perhaps the main question when she visited there, was whether Providence qualified as a "real city." Though an urban place, mainly Providence's "urban" qualification was the ready access to NYC (3-4 hours by train or bus). The fact that Boston was just 1 hr away was less relevant to her.
I suppose there was a second rule, which dictated that she would not apply to our flagship university or to my own place of employment, even as a safety: she didn't want to find herself in college sitting in a class next to a lot of people she knew from high school. But the fact that a couple of her closest lifelong friends from early childhood were attending NYU was part of the attraction of RISD -- and she landed with them often on weekends over the years, and indeed lives within blocks of them now in Brooklyn (in fact 10% of her entire high school graduating class now lives in NYC). She didn't apply to any schools that were actually in NYC, however.
I think the spirit of her second rule was well captured when we went to the drop-off of our son at UChicago. Two first-year women were waiting in line to sign up for something or other, and my wife observed one of them surveying the room very carefully and then turning to the other (evidently a friend from high school) and declaring: "Isn't it wonderful? Nobody knows us here!"
Last edited on Sat Jan 5th, 2008 11:17 pm by mackinaw
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Sun Jan 6th, 2008 12:11 am |
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Mackinaw, some of that "no one from high school" rule also played into both of my kids' college preferences. My daughter is still considered slightly insane by most of her friends for heading to the depths of Wisconsin all by herself. Of her core group of 12 or so kids, she's the only one who ended up at a school with no one from her high school. Several of her friends are college roommates.
And, my son, well, he'll be the very first person from our conservative Catholic high school (where, as he explained in his Why Reed? essay, "Everyone wears uniforms and has uniform opinions") to venture off to the school where they sell sweatshirts in the bookstore with the motto, "Atheism, communism, and free love." On the other hand, he's already busy recruiting "intellectual rebels" for Reed from the classes coming up behind him at his high school, so the "no one from high school" rule might change to "no one from my high school that I don't like."
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mominva
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Posted: Sun Jan 6th, 2008 03:47 am |
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Ditto here on the attractiveness of a fresh start.
D1 had one HS peer (not really a friend) in her college. From HS only 4/430 even applied.
S was one of 2 applicants from his HS(350) to apply, but only he attended.
D2 had, I believe, one other applicant from her HS (350) to her college, but only she attended.
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ellenrch
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Posted: Sun Jan 6th, 2008 05:02 pm |
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Absolutely no school in any "adjacent states" (we are not a state, but of course no school in DC, either)
Northeastern: The huge number of kids who raised their hands in the info session when asked "who's interested in Business"?
Penn State and Indiana: "I wouldn't choose them over Missouri journalism." Good point. And he got in to Mizzou.
Wisconsin (sigh): He loved every bit of it, just not the journalism school (no photography, no convergence). Dropped it in mid-application.
Hampshire, his liberal arts mom's attempt to get him to look at a LAC that does have a journalism major. "It looks like a 1970s corporate office park." So much for that.Last edited on Sun Jan 6th, 2008 05:09 pm by ellenrch
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Consolation
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Posted: Sun Jan 6th, 2008 09:06 pm |
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Canadian wrote:
Bowdoin: Pretentious, long boring talk by guide about famous students who fought in the Civil War (and this matters because....?)
Ack! That would probably be not a student, but a professor and later president (and governor of the state): Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, hero of Little Round Top. Having been refused permission to take a leave and join the army, he pretended to be taking a sabbatical to study and joined the 20th Maine, which he eventually commanded. After his heroics at Gettysburg--if anyone has seen the movie of that name, he's played by Jeff Daniels--he was later severely wounded leading a charge but remained upright, propped on his sword until his troops had passed, at which point he collapsed and was saved only by heroic surgical intervention by a Maine surgeon after the army hospital declared him inoperable. While still expected to die, he was promoted to Brigadier General. Ultimately he returned to the command of his troops, although far from robust, and rose to the rank of Major General. He was chosen by Grant to accept the surrender of the Southern troops at Appomatox (And scandalized some Northerners by ordering his troops to salute the surrendering Southerners. There are some very moving accounts of that event.) In the 60s, the Army was producing a text book about the virtues of an officer, and looking through its history to select the person who best exemplified those virtues, picked Chamberlain (NOT a West Point grad, which was a big deal). Chamberlain is a huge figure here in Maine. Why, I could go on about him forever myself.
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Consolation
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Posted: Sun Jan 6th, 2008 09:36 pm |
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Schools we visited and he dropped:
Columbia... He enjoyed the Roman History class and the professor was welcoming and enthusiastic. Tour guide was pleasant, but the classic Asian astrophysicist and it was pouring rain...didn't like the campus, too much cement, too much NYC."It was too grown up."
Princeton...didn't like the whole concept of eating clubs, tour guide was a bit of a straight-laced boring dweeb who made a big deal of taking us into the chapel (aka, the kiss of death, type I).
Tufts...liked the campus, the Adcom who did the talk was hilarious, but eventually decided it was just "not exciting."
Amherst...said it all seemed "too new" (!) Lots of buildings were newly constructed or under construction. (Amherst does seem to tear down old buildings more than most of its fellows.) Also said it seemed "small" (although the campus is actually very large). Liked the history class he attended. School just didn't grab him for some reason. "It's like Brown, but Brown is better."
Northwestern...Visited the day after the U of C, which he loved, and suffered in comparison in his eyes. U of C tour guide was bright and amusing, Northwestern tour guide was a frat guy (kiss of death type II according to S) who used the word "phenomenal" about 300 times. Came across as too pre-professional, too much Big 10, too much Greek scene, not intellectual.
I have a friend whose daughter refused to apply to Middlebury because too many kids were wearing Patagonia. (She went to Williams, which to many people would seem very similar, but evidently there's a difference and she perceived it clearly! )
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Sun Jan 6th, 2008 09:47 pm |
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| I've told this here before, but I had a friend whose son gave every campus the "smell test." He rejected lots of good schools because "I don't like the way they smell." He meant that literally, not figuratively. My friend could never figure out what they heck he was smelling that was a turn off because they all smelled the same to HER. He ended up going to UC Santa Cruz, which she felt had a peculiar odor of its own.
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DesperateDad
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Posted: Sun Jan 6th, 2008 10:00 pm |
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for my two, it came down to the "look" test, literally. After driving a couple of hours to find one remote LAC, da boy refused to get out of the car: "Why? There is nothing here." Two years later, while visiting same college with D: OMG (spelled out), those dorms are sooooo hideous, how can ANYone even sleep in 'em? Or. my all time favorite: 'The buildings are all gothic.' Me: Is that a problem? Son: Yes, because they are all fake gothic. Silly me, I dind't know that there was a difference. Ok, back on the road again.
Last edited on Sun Jan 6th, 2008 10:13 pm by DesperateDad
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WestrnMom
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Posted: Sun Jan 6th, 2008 10:24 pm |
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Carolyn, that reminds me of the school we visited that had a beautiful campus, interesting majors, but the stinkiest dorms in the world. They smelled like mildew. That was a major turn off.
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Shennie
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Posted: Mon Jan 7th, 2008 07:51 pm |
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Son #2 is easy to please. He only dropped one school off his list after a visit - Reed. Too many smokers. And when he asked the tour guide if they had an outdoor club guide replied, "Sure, but who has time for that?"
Son #3 is very picky. We visited 14 colleges and he ended up applying to 4, and was only really in love with 1.
Carelton, St. Olaf, Macalaster - Didn't feel right (probably too close to home)
Chicago - only visited because his mom made him go
Haverford - too preppy
Allegheny - nothing to speak of for string players (besides, parents went there)
Wesleyan - just didn't do anything for him
Boston U - too big
Brown - nothing specific, but didn't like it
Ithaca - didn't like the campus
Ended up applying to Swarthmore (his #1), Rochester, Middlebury and Oberlin. Got waitlisted at Swat and currently attends Oberlin where he is quite happy.
Funny thing about Haverford / Swat - He loved Haverford on paper and really wanted to visit. He had no interest in Swat but I said if we were going to visit one, we might as well do the other as well. He fell in love with Swat and never looked at Haverford again.
Last edited on Mon Jan 7th, 2008 07:53 pm by Shennie
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