8 Colleges in 4 Days: How I Spent My Spring Break

Parents Forum
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<p>I will post full visit reports, but I wanted to sum these up in thumbnails if this might help anyone. My keywords reflect the students and the institution’s values (as best as we could discern them).</p>

<p>TUFTS. Students: Intense. Values: Global justice, making an impact.
Didn’t care for disorganized, overly large tour, but S got a good vibe. H and I (both Northwestern alums) spontaneously agreed that it reminded us A LOT of Northwestern, which we hadn’t expected (or heard).</p>

<p>BRANDEIS. Students: Outgoing and charismatic. Values: Social justice, highly welcoming to prospies. Campus doesn’t look like a traditional campus, but it had its charms - both my kids enjoyed it. More impressed than expected to be.</p>

<p>CLARK. Students: Collaborative, not competitive with one another. Values: Being interesting and offbeat. Worcester not as downtrodden as I had been led to believe. Best food in a college cafeteria I’ve ever had. But neither kid got a good vibe.</p>

<p>WELLESLEY. Students: Achievers. Values: Academic excellence for its own sake. Absolutely beautiful and top-notch facilities, D was drooling. Only issue is whether she can get in!!</p>

<p>MT HOLYOKE. Students: Interesting mix of pearls-and-sweater-sets and Carhatts-and-piercings. Values: Personalized education. Beautiful quintessential small town New England campus setting.</p>

<p>SMITH. Students: In your face / push the envelope. Values: Exploration. D liked the campus, but not as traditionally beautiful as Wellesley, Mt H, and Bryn Mawr.</p>

<p>CASE WESTERN RESERVE. Students: Earnest and studious. Values: Preprofessional. We bagged on the tour. Undoubtedly a good education, but didn’t feel well rounded to us.</p>

<p>KENYON. Students: “Chill,” mainstream, smart but not cutthroat. Values: Warm and welcoming. An unbelievably beautiful find – very favorably impressed.</p>

<p>BTW, 2 schools in one day wasn’t really problematic whatsoever. We tend to find more value in the tours than the info sessions. Anyone interested in more detail, don’t hesitate to ask.</p>

<p>The “A list” so far, subject to change: For S - Tufts, Brandeis and Kenyon (along with Grinnell and American, previously visited). For D: Wellesley, Kenyon and possibly Smith (along with Bryn Mawr and Colorado College, previously visited, and Lawrence as a safety).</p>

<p>Thanks to all CC’ers who helped - I feel really good that we’re shaping up with some good choices, many of which I wouldn’t have fully realized if it hadn’t been for all of you!</p>

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<p>Great list Pizzagirl. You have great choices. Good luck. I have learned a lot here too and am excited for my S to start his college career at Grinnell in the fall. Keep us posted. Have a great day.</p>

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<p>d’s mom - Congrats on Grinnell. That was the second college we visited and we were all highly impressed. A fine choice!</p>

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<p>Sound exhausting to me! Surely you didn’t travel the 600 miles between Smith and Case Western by flue powder!</p>

<p>For what it’s worth, my kids have three pretty good friends at Smith, and not one of them has ever pushed an envelope or gotten anywhere uncomfortably near your face. They are really nice women, and two of them ranked in the top five students at my kids’ school when they graduated.</p>

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<p>Thanks, we are really excited and can’t believe our S is going off. We still need to work on where our D will go in two years. I like your list and may ask you questions down the road if you don’t mind. What a journey huh?</p>

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<p>Pizzagirl: Great summary! I wish I could have your D move in with my brother - he lives in Wellesley and I think his D would get to go for free (if she could get in). He’s already thinking about that… but she’s only 11… and based on her personality even at this age, I think she will be going away, away, away!</p>

<p>You are so organized! Surprised to hear about Tufts reminding you of NU. I visited it when I was a HS senior and didn’t get that impression. But I will be going back with my S within the next couple of years. (He actually said he might apply to NU - music to my ears! - but he’s got plenty of time to change his mind - he turns 15 next month!). Will definitely read your visit reports. Thanks!</p>

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<p>PG, I see the NU-Tufts similarity, although I think NU feels “bigger” - in part because the campus is more spread out. My son who is a soph at NU had Tufts on his list, and it’s pretty common for kids in our neck of the woods to apply to both of these schools.</p>

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<p>JHS- we flew to Boston, did the MA schools and flew back from Hartford. Then we had 2 days at home and then drove out to Case and Kenyon. So it wasn’t 4 continuous days. We had been planning to take a day in May to fly up to MPLS for Macalester and Carleton but I think we are going to wait til the summer - even though summer visits aren’t optimal, there’s too much pressure on the kids with SAT IIs, APs and finals, plus figuring out summer plans.</p>

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<p>PG - can you elaborate on Case Western? Why didn’t it feel like a well rounded education there? This is on D’s list - we are planning to visit during our spring break.</p>

<p>Interesting info about Tufts and Northwestern. Took D to see Tufts one day - loved the campus, but didn’t like the school. Although she did say she “might” apply, it is sounding like it is now off her list. She didn’t like what she perceived to be an undue emphasis on globalization. She visited Northwestern the next day - she was by herself. She loved, loved the campus. Didn’t give us too many specifics about the info session/campus tour etc - but it definitely went on her list of schools to apply.</p>

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<p>Interesting observation on Tufts and NU. I know NU is the smallest Big 10 school, but isn’t the undergraduate student body much larger than Tufts? Oldest D and son-in-law are '05 Tufts alums. They met there and both had great academic experiences as well. They are off to grad school in August–D to Georgetown for an MBA and son-in-law to Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He was an IR and econ major; D was quantitative economics.</p>

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<p>Arisamp, Case Western is heavily pre-pro: engineering, nursing, medical and always has been. Research based institution. It has “traditional university” trappings and exchange classes with the local art institute, etc. but it does not have the “flavor” of the buccolic “life of the mind” vision that some have in mind when they think about colleges and universities. It’s a great school for engineering, biomedical, medical etc. and that is certainly the trend (pre-pro education) for many students (and their parents). And an interesting observation on Pizza’s because the kids we know that went there can be described as earnest and hardworking…and they do well. One I know is now at an Ivy in grad school.</p>

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<p>“KENYON. Students: “Chill,” mainstream, smart but not cutthroat. Values: Warm and welcoming. An unbelievably beautiful find – very favorably impressed.”</p>

<p>Pizzagirl - I still read here all the time, but haven’t posted in ages. I absolutely LOVE your description of Kenyon. My son is a freshman there this year and your words reminded me of why he (and I) fell in love with the place. You are really spot-on in your perception (as far as I’m concerned.) My kid couldn’t be happier there - for all the reasons you state above, plus even more!!! Thanks for reminding me how fortunate we are that we found Kenyon (having never heard of it before receiving a mailing), convinced our son to look at it (Ohio was further than he wanted to go), and then making the final decision to “go with his gut” and choose Gambier to spend the next 4 years.</p>

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<p>Pizzagirl, as a Grinnell alum and mother of a Brandeis first-year, I am following your journey with interest - thanks for the snapshot report. Btw, I agree about the Clark food - absolutely the best we had on any college campus!</p>

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<p>Pizzagirl should put together a Foodie Guide to the Colleges.</p>

<p>When I went on a few tours with my kid last year, I could not believe how over the top some of these dining experiences have become. We saw Mongolian Barbeque, wood-fired pizza ovens, omelette bars, ice cream bars, etc. I feel like I’ve missed a life because in my day basically you got a choice of Brown Stuff or Grey Stuff. Gooey or Lumpy. Now eating is part of the education, it seems.</p>

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<p>I love the Wellesley campus - the grounds are so beautiful and thoughtfully arranged. When we visited last year, I was taken with how well the buildings, including the interiors and the furnishings, are maintained. I guess it’s because there are no boys to trash everything!</p>

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<p>I agree on “college” food…the kids have no idea how we “ate” back in the day. I still remember how “excited” I’d get when the dinner was green bean caserole with hard boiled eggs added! We did have a soft serve ice dream machine which was the envy of every friend that came and visited me. These days…wow…no wonder we pay close to $10,000 for room and board at colleges between the suite/apartment style dorms and the food service.</p>

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<p>Good times, the big trips we made fro D1s college hunt. A long time ago. But I treasured that family time together, the heck with colleges.</p>

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<p>I think you’ve summed up all 8 schools remarkably well in so few sentences. Makes me wonder how my list might have changed if my parents hadn’t been staunchly opposed to women’s colleges at the beginning of my search, when we did 2-a-day visits. I keep hearing about people falling in love with Wellesley’s beauty.</p>

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<p>it is a really nice campus. D1 almost went there, but in the end decided she liked Oberlin better.</p>

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<p>The women’s college I attended had great food in the 1970’s. Before leaving for winter break, we had a sit-down dinner served by student wait staff - the menu was always beef wellington, homemade rolls, and some vegetables I don’t remember, followed by plum pudding with flaming brandy sauce. Even the everyday meals were very good, though students now have many more choices than we had.</p>