Lawrence University Visit Report by bonesrock

Visit Activities:

Campus Tour: Yes - Very nice senior showed us the campus. She tailored the tour to our interests and answered many questions. She was down to earth, positive, and sincere.

Classroom Visit: No - I was scheduled for one, but no class was actually happening. I went into the Chemistry lounge and found a fantastic Biochem prof who showed med around and talked about science/trimesters/research.

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Campus:

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Serious, mature, bright, well-rounded, and friendly. Very diverse.

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Can't say enough good things about the staff we met. Very informative, friendly, and the students seem to have a great relationship with them.

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OMG! Are you kidding??? How the heck does this small of college have this fantastic of facilities. Beautiful older buildings with modern buildings well designed and cohesive.

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Super clean, super nice.

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Good variety. Upper class only dorm is A+. Other dorms older. Freshman not grouped together but distributed throughout. Nice common areas and study spaces. Clean bathrooms, warm water, pay wash/dry.

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Dorms locked, signs warning not to leave valuables unattended in library. However ... everybody leaves their stuff sitting outside the cafeteria and the guide said it was perfectly fine.

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WOW! Tons of great study areas everywhere. Gorgeous facilities throughout. Shockingly awesome. No wonder students flock here from both coasts and all over the world!

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Off-Campus:

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Residential/main street. Nice shopping and good variety of restaurants within walking distance. Campus on river with beautiful views.

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Appleton is a thriving small city (~75K) in a great area of Wisconsin. Really nice mall. Well-maintained residential areas.

Campus Visit Notes for Lawrence University

Visit Description:

Let's start with the science buildings - HOLY COW! Wonderful lab spaces, central lounges with professors offices opening to them. Smart classrooms, comfortable seating. many areas perfect for individual or group study. Professors offices predominantly open. Social sciences building similarly well equipped. Anthropology lab has glass walls on both sides with skull/bone specimens and human origins displays. Classrooms comfortable and flexible seating.

New indescribably beautiful campus center with best cafeteria I've seen at any college. Gotta see it to believe it. Quirky art building that is the only non-matching structure on campus ... go figure ... Old Main is a lovely old building with wood floors and nice woodwork, big windows, and a great place for humanities. The library is huge, has a couple old-style wood-paneled reading rooms, but is otherwise four floors of stacks and zillions of tables and carrels. Deathly quiet with lots of students hard at work.

Music conservatory is an amazingly nice facility with two theaters for stage productions, many, many practice rooms, a recording studio, and a radio station. Students hanging out making music everywhere. The Lawrence Memorial "Chapel" (non-religious) is so pretty it takes your breath away, but with an orchestra rehearsing it is over the top wonderful.

Admissions schedules visits, and our ultimate schedule was different than the one emailed to me. This is a lower-touch operation. The college sells itself. You are sent off to find things on your own, coming back to the admissions office over and over again for lunch, tour, and visiting a dorm room with different student guides each time. This was just prior to an audition weekend for conservatory hopefuls, so it was a bit of a zoo with 21 individual visits scheduled in one day. We will need to visit again to actually attend a class and to speak with a professor in my area of interest.

Hotel/Lodging Recommendations or Comments:

Settle Inn just north of the mall is one of the best places we've stayed ... comfortable bed, nice suite, popcorn and cookies in the lobby, convenience store, hot bfast, and a very good price.