Indiana University Bloomington Visit Report by vinceh

Visit Activities:

Information Session: Yes - Well organized and the right balance of prepared presentation and question time.

Campus Tour: Yes - Well informed guide who was able to answer all questions though didn't have time to take us to our next stop (she had class) and we got lost on our way to the next tour.

Classroom Visit: Yes - Were able to sit in for 15 minutes of a large lecture.

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Campus:

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Students were friendly. A random one led our group to our next tour stop after our tour guide had to bail out to go to class.

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Everyone was very helpful.

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IU-Bloomington is absolutely gorgeous. Heavily treed, streams running through campus and all the grounds very well kept.

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In general the buildings we went into were very well maintained though the dorm we saw was pretty dated.

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The low point of the visit. Tour guide admitted that this was the oldest dorm not yet renovated. Seemed like a poor choice for the tour given that everything else was so nice.

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The campus and surrounding town felt very safe, plenty of blue emergency poles everywhere.

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Campus is just beautiful though it is a bit large.

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Off-Campus:

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Plenty of funky restaurants and shops along the edge of campus. Also more than a few chain type restaurants.

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Downtown Bloomington is within walking distance. Nice atmosphere, we felt perfectly safe walking around at night.

Campus Visit Notes for Indiana University Bloomington

Visit Description:

Visited on October 19, 2009. First and foremost the campus is just gorgeous, many mature trees in full color, streams running through campus and all the grounds were well kept up.

The admissions session was fairly standard, the presentation consisted of about 40 minutes of video and slide presentation. The last 20 minutes was left to specific audience questions. I wish more schools would do this, I can download videos and read online brochures, the Q&A sessions often reveal the best information.

The tour started immediately after the info session and was a pretty standard combination of information and PR presentation. The only sour note was that the guide had a class immediately after the end of the tour. So instead of walking us over to the dormitory tour she gave us directions with the obligatory, "it's really easy to find". Well 15 parents and prospective students proceeded to get lost on their way to this "easy to find" next stop. Thankfully a random co-ed walking by offered to lead us to where we had to be.

The dorm tour was the low point of the visit. The guide did a fine job but the Wright Quadrangle was a very old building in serious need of a refurbishing. When asked about the building the guide admitted that Wright is the one dorm that hasn't been recently renovated. Why would you show off your "worst" dorm during a tour? Maybe they feel if you can tolerate this you'll be pleasantly surprised when you get one of the nicer dorms.

Roommate assignments are random with little or no matching taking place. As a result the guide really talked up the special living/learning communities as a way to somewhat influence who your going to be living with.

We also toured the Kelly School of Business. This was very well organized and informative.

The only sour notes of the visit were getting "abandoned" by our tour guide and the indifference shown toward matching students in dorm living. The university was very impressive academically with especially generous merit aid (In-State & Out-of-State), for those that qualify, (The big scholarships seem to go to those with 3.8+ & 1270+ students, though there seems to be plenty of other aid options available).

In many ways IU came across as an overlooked gem of a school. We were very pleasantly impressed with the academic opportunities and would recommend it to anyone interested in a large school environment (30,000+ undergrads). Note: There is no engineering or architecture school at IU, you need to go to Purdue for that.

Hotel/Lodging Recommendations or Comments:

Stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn downtown Bloomington. Five block walk to campus. Clean, free breakfast, I used points so I don't know the cost.

Dining/Restaurant Recommendations or Comments:

Malibu Grill was good for dinner. Not spectacular food, but enough variety to keep teenager and parent both happy.