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Consolation
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| Joined: | Mon Apr 9th, 2007 |
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Posted: Mon Jan 7th, 2008 07:57 pm |
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Shennie, what were his results at Middlebury and Rochester, if you don't mind saying?
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orchestramom
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Posted: Mon Jan 7th, 2008 08:42 pm |
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orchestragirl's thumbs-down assessments...
Williams: "too small and in the middle of nowhere but otherwise the perfect school" (we live 40 miles away and know and like "Billsville" very well). Actually the tour visit to purple cow country helped her confirm her desire to avoid small LACs. oh well.
U-Chicago: visited, loved it, ("it met my expectations and they were very high"). It stayed on the list until maybe Thanksgiving, then mysteriously and inexplicably dropped off without much comment. "I just don't think so, mom." I think U-C is a place one must really feel passionately about, and as the weeks passed after our visit, I don't think that excitement was sustained for her.
Northwestern: too preppy, too Greek, "not distinctive enough," suburban Evanston a little too manicured (translation: not quite quirky enough for her, and this is a kid who likes a little urban grit)
Ithaca: dropped off the list after she decided against a performance major
U-Rochester: would not go on the tour when we visited Eastman (also a thumbs down, but because of the change of focus). It was just, "NO." This one I really regret, but there was no persuading her at all. And I guess you can't argue with that kind of instinctive reaction.
Maryland: too big, music program not the right fit, too southern (?!!!), put off by the "plantation columns on all the buildings"
Columbia: found the guide snobby and arrogant, did not find the idea of living IN New York for undergrad appealing (though very familiar and comfortable with the city, she didn't think she needed the experience of going to school there)
(And then of course there are the schools she wouldn't visit or even consider...)
Her final list of five is a little odd but makes sense to her, and she says she likes them all: U-Michigan (top choice at the moment I think), Boston U, SUNY Buffalo (safety that she would be happy to attend), Brown and Penn (could they be any more different??) as lottery schools. She MAY add another Jan 15 app into the mix, but right now she's working hard on outside scholarship applications. So now we wait, and then we'll see.
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limner
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| Joined: | Sun Jul 16th, 2006 |
| Location: | Tennessee USA |
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Posted: Mon Jan 7th, 2008 11:50 pm |
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orchestramom, Brown and Penn were my son's #1 and #2 picks, and I had the same reaction as you. 
Carolyn, is that mom of the "smell test" kid still sane? I would have torn my hair out--but the story's hysterical.
S and H did "college tours" (aka guys' road trips) every summer from after freshman year on. Some of S's drops were inexplicable to us (Dartmouth, which drove H crazy because *he* loved it). Some, although the reasoning seemed skewed, were smart drops, such as MIT because the presentation was "boring" (but he's not a math/science guy anyway).
I also think the evolution of the kid's search makes a difference. S initially wanted a medium-sized school in an urban setting. They visited NYU, but that eventually fell off the list. And S ended up at a small school in a small town (although he can go to the Twin Cities when he has time).
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Shennie
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Posted: Tue Jan 8th, 2008 08:31 pm |
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| Consolation - Son was accepted at both Middlebury and Rochester. In fact, at UR he was flown out there to interview for a full scholarship. (The school awards 10 and they interview about 60 kids.) He was eventually awarded a half scholarship. I was quite surprised when he was selected to be interviewed. Also, through most of the process, Rochester seemed to be his second choice after Swat. When he got the Swat waitlist I told him he had to send a deposit to one of the other 3 schools. He didn't say anything. The next day I said, "Should I send a check to Rochester?" He responded with a sigh and said "I guess..." Not exactly the response I was looking for. He admitted that he figured he would be happy there but it wasn't really what he was looking for. So he and hubby made a trip to Oberlin for accepted student days where he attended a class and stayed overnight in the dorm. (His first and only visit was in the summer.) After that, he knew that Oberlin was where he wanted to be. Ultimately, Middlebury fell off the list right away. He loved the campus and foreign language program but finally decided it was too isolated and didn't have the kind of extracurricular music program that he wanted.
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Consolation
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| Joined: | Mon Apr 9th, 2007 |
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Posted: Tue Jan 8th, 2008 09:01 pm |
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Shennie wrote: Ultimately, Middlebury fell off the list right away. He loved the campus and foreign language program but finally decided it was too isolated and didn't have the kind of extracurricular music program that he wanted. This is pretty much why Middlebury fell off my S's list in the later stages, even though we had sent his scores and transcripts and so on. He and your S seem to have been interested in many of the same schools. 
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Canadian
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Posted: Wed Jan 9th, 2008 03:41 am |
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Carolyn, is that mom of the "smell test" kid still sane?
Killing myself laughing!!! But who knows, he may be on to something. Psychology Today says smell is a main way we select our mates.
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CarolynLawrence
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| Joined: | Sun Mar 5th, 2006 |
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Posted: Thu Jan 10th, 2008 06:00 am |
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WestrnMom wrote: 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.
I had a few smell test tours myself. You'll appreciate this, WestrnMom (and so will Lynda) but when we toured the Johnston Center dorm at Redlands, it had its own particular smell. Let's just say it smelled....decidedly weedy. My daughter was so enthralled with the center that she didn't notice, but mom did.
The worst smelling dorms, however, were the one we toured at Hampshire. It was summer but an undeniable combination of sweat, weediness, and - I swear - urine permeated the air. But, again, my son didn't notice because he was too busy picturing himself in the Hampshire yurt.
Many dorms have that kind of stinky feet smell though.
And, yes, my friend with the sniff test son is still relatively sane. As unbelievable as it might seem to parents still going through the process, that "pull my hair out" feeling really DOES pass, just like they say you don't remember the pain of childbirth. (Although, I DO). LOL.
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scoop
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Posted: Thu Jan 10th, 2008 02:46 pm |
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| Ah, the yurt. I loved that school review! When we toured University of the Arts in Philly, I didn't care for the smell of the dorms. There is no food plan and all dorm suites have their own kitchen. The smell of trash that needed to be emptied and the leftover food smell bothered me. D did not notice.
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HijinksAndSue
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Posted: Fri Jan 11th, 2008 05:00 am |
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When we toured University of the Arts in Philly, I didn't care for the smell of the dorms. There is no food plan and all dorm suites have their own kitchen. The smell of trash that needed to be emptied and the leftover food smell bothered me. D did not notice
This is good to know since University of the Arts is on my D's short list (four schools). We're not going to go visit until she hears from her EA school on Jan. 31, but I like knowing these things about living situations for her to check out.
But since she is the queen of turkey-and-provolone Subway sandwiches and Easy Mac she'd probably be fine with this.
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Canadian
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Posted: Fri Jan 11th, 2008 08:23 am |
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I just saw that a movie is coming out about college road trips. A great idea, except for the small fact that the stuff in this thread is SOOOOO much funnier than the film:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/collegeroadtrip/
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scoop
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Posted: Fri Jan 11th, 2008 01:13 pm |
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| UArts is still on our list too, so I'll be interested to hear if you visit.
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CardinalFang
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Posted: Thu May 1st, 2008 07:39 pm |
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Grinnell: We drove there from just west of Chicago, spending three hours driving through flat cornfields. "No trees!" Fang Jr thought the location was awful.
Plus, the new admissions office is about as far from welcoming as possible. One enters on the ground floor, and it's a huge room with nothing in it but a staircase. So one goes up to the second floor, and it's a huge room with nothing in it but a few couches and a desk with a receptionist.
We were the only ones on the tour, yet the tour guide didn't ask what Fang Jr.'s interests were or show us anything he'd be interested in; he spent a lot of time in the new science center and the new theater/music center, even though Fang Jr. doesn't care about music and can't do science.
Pitzer: "It looks like the set of a 50's science fiction film." Fang Jr. had thought that even though he hates Southern California, he might like Pitzer. Nope.
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outwest
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Posted: Fri May 2nd, 2008 01:43 am |
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LOL. Kids are so funny! My D loved the rural nothingness of Grinnell. Pitzer is okay looking, but it is the students that make the place. Harvey Mudd is the one with the weird architecture. I will be interested to know which schools he does like. If he likes trees and is from California then UC Santa Cruz would be a good safety public. Lewis and Clark is loaded with trees and bushes. Whitman is probably too rural.
I know people always say Bryn Mawr is gorgeous (the school my D has fallen in love with), but my D found it decidedly lacking in bushes and plantings. It has stunning trees and lots of grass, but like a lot of other colleges in colder places, it seems to be short on the bushes. She still loves it, though.
Last edited on Fri May 2nd, 2008 02:08 am by outwest
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CardinalFang
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Posted: Fri May 2nd, 2008 01:58 am |
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He loved Beloit. He liked Macalester... he loves the city of St. Paul. He liked Carleton, though it's very reachy for him.
As we're homeschoolers and Fang Jr will have a LOT of community college credits, it is difficult to apply to Santa Cruz as a freshman. He doesn't want to go to a school that big, anyway, so it's moot. Lewis and Clark is definitely on the list of colleges to check out, and unlike almost all of the other ones Fang Jr likes, it's one we could fly up to visit for the day.
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outwest
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Posted: Fri May 2nd, 2008 02:05 am |
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My D thought Iowa was just like a postcard complete with red barns. She found it very calming and serene, not desolate.
It will interesting how the colleges treat the community college credits. On our high school transcript it lists the community college classes that are taken for high school credit. Maybe he could list them like that somehow (I don't know much about home schooling). Otherwise, he may have trouble wit them seeing him more as a transfer student. Because he has had so much college already, it seems he should be reaching a little higher then his scores and other things may say he should reach. If he went to somewhere like UC Santa Cruz then those classes really are equivalent to ones he would take at UCSC. You don't want him to be bored!
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CardinalFang
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Posted: Fri May 2nd, 2008 02:41 am |
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outwest wrote: My D thought Iowa was just like a postcard complete with red barns. She found it very calming and serene, not desolate.
There's no accounting for tastes. Fang Jr is perfectly happy at the prospect of a long, cold, snowy, dark winter, yet others can't face that.
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