Hello, I wold suggest calling the undergraduate admissions office for advice on getting a tour of the Business facilities and the dorms. I would think that they might not have very specific tours like that due to them receiving upwards of 38,000 applications this year. This is one of the slight inconveniences of large schools such as UMass Amherst and NYU. All i can tell you, is that the business school as well as the entire campus has been on an upward academic trend lately and that as far as the residence halls go picking the right dorm should be easier once you know what each area’s “personality” is like.
Dorms:
North Apartments: Likely the nicest residences on campus besides the Commonwealth Honors dorms, but are only available to upperclassmen. (Juniors and Seniors)
Northeastern: This is where a lot of the business students + engineering/STEM students go. These are the oldest, but sill nice/renovated, dorms on campus. They look like something out of the Ivy league as they are all brick and built well over a hundred years ago.
Central: This is a very sociable dorm with a balance between fun and academics. Some partys, but truly you get a large mix of personality types.
Southwest: These are the stereotypical “Party Dorms” on campus, but from what I heard they are less crazy than their reputation portrays them to be. (Perhaps because the average student at UMass has been (somewhat) less partyparty in recent years)
Orchard Hill: Where the quiet people go, and hobbits. Just kidding…well kinda, I don’t know much about Orchard hill besides it’s quiet and the people tend to keep to themselves.
Lastly, Sylvan, arguably the cheapest out of all the dorm areas, it has a bad reputation for being… well… boring. This being said I have lived here and it’s actually pretty good considering you have friends living in your little Quad. (This is the best positive besides being cheap there is quad living there) The negative is it looks quite ugly from the outside.
BONUS! -The new honors dorms are quite nice and new and depending on how well your son does he can switch into the honors program. (Unless he is in there already, I think you didn’t specify) This area, like north and northeast, is full of driven, and smart students. (Some of which got accepted to ivy league but want to save $$$ for graduate school) So this overall is a great place and I hope to move in here next year as my GPA is up lately.
PS- Best of luck with the college picking process! UMass is a great option especially if you’re paying in-state tuition. (It’s also a pretty good choice for OOS students as well) Please appreciate the deal you’re getting since he got into Isenberg, which is near impossible to switch into. (Need a 3.8+ GPA at UMass to have a good shot) Hopefully you can get the info you need.