<p>I wouldn’t give it another second’s though, laughtwith me. </p>
<p>In ages past, Jews were encouraged by their religion to look different from the Gentiles they lived among in part so as to be able to identify other Jews and to avoid intermingling with Gentiles: hair forelocks, dangling threads called tzittzit or today all black wearing Hassidim.</p>
<p>Today, most kids of all religions, backgrounds and nationalities often initially identify other kids who they choose to become friends with by similar, subtly coded and often invisible to parents and adults, things: clothing, hair, accessories, music. </p>
<p>Religion never enters into it, isn’t cared about and is often not even known until it comes up at a holiday.</p>
<p>p.s. - This long thread is 99% overly protective “Jewish Mothers” and Fathers, more than half of whose kids would either be affectionately teasing, indulgently disdainful or mortified by it. But still probably used to it by now from their parent.</p>
<p>laughwithme - my son has many non-Jewish friends. I doubt he would wonder about someone’s religious background upon meeting him/her for the first time. As many others have mentioned - while we want our child’s college to have Jewish students and Jewish life - we are not looking for a Jewish bubble or a situation where he only socializes with other Jewish students - not at all!</p>
<p>Laugh welcome to the thread. I grew up the only Jew in my HS and had lots od friend. Went caroling, attended mass and had my friends over for holidays. Ur S will have friends of all backgrounds. Tulane is a great school, congrats. </p>
<p>Pamom ur family is welcome to come to our him in central jersey for rosh hashanah. I have a small family and we have always invited friens who aren’t Jewish. Consider urself welcomem</p>
<p>Day 1 College of Charleston</p>
<p>Sam not loving the city in terms of going to college. Nice city to visit but didn’t feel the same as an enclosed campus. </p>
<p>Today S went to a marketing class. He was surprised that they sent him to this since the teacher was boring. Biz school was very very busy. Exciting BUT loud. Many kids in suit and tie. Not sure if this is normal or if this is due to final class presentations. </p>
<p>Tomorrow is the official tour and eve at Hillel. Will have more to report then. </p>
<p>Spoke nj rep who said to stop by after for questions. She said the tours this week were way too big, noisy and can’t hear. She wanted to make sure we covered everything. C of c 250 families a day not enough guides. The days at Elon 300 families. Interesting. </p>
<p>Just not feeling c of c, but love the shopping on King St.</p>
<p>Rvm. Woohoo. Yippppppeeeeee. So happy for u. Plz be careful the rollercoaster ride isn’t over til the ride stops! Is he thinking ED? Deep breath :)</p>
<p>Who knows? I just feel like I have whiplash. My guess - and this really is just guesswork on my part - is that having now seen small campuses, large campuses, urban, suburban and rural campuses - he is returning to his starting point - a year ago - when he said he liked Elon. Here’s the funniest part - I said to him that he did not seem very happy when we were at Elon for the Junior Open House. His response - he was “fine” - I was just stressing him out! Oy!</p>
<p>Aieee! If you weren’t on the other side of the country, I’d invite you to our seder next year. Just about everyone I know who hosts a seder is more than happy to invite more people to their seder. And I love having the opportunity to help decorate Christmas trees. Maybe you should move to the West Coast? ;)</p>
<p>Rosh Hashana is a different kettle of fish. Yes, there’s a big dinner, but then many people leave to go off to evening services. We’ve invited non-jewish friends to come to our home for Shabbat dinners, meals during the fall festival of Sukkot (where we build outdoor temporary shelters and decorate them with what we call Sukkah lights but you would refer to as something else ), and latkes during Chanukah. I’d not put Rosh Hashana dinner on that list, since it has a far more solemn feel.</p>
<p>Easter we pretty much ignore, and I suspect that most Jews do the same. While Chanukah is relatively small potatoes, allowing us to be aware of Christmas, Passover is a huge enough holiday to banish all thoughts of chocolate bunnies. The only time my kids ever did anything Easter-like was when my eldest did an egg hunt at her preschool. Hilarious, since she had no idea about hunting for eggs, and she ended up with maybe two, total. It often overlaps Passover, which means that for us we have issues of not being able to eat food that’s not kosher for Passover (not true for all Jews), or that we’re frantically getting ready for the holiday, or recovering from Seder. However, I do adore Cadbury Creme Eggs, and a talented baker friend made me hot cross buns one year when Easter and Passover didn’t intersect.</p>
<p>We are in the middle of our spring break trip and wanted to post a few updates. I glanced at the posts from the past few days and saw a bunch of Miami Ohio vs. Delaware posts.</p>
<p>We visited Miami this week and my D loved it. Campus is just beautiful. She had a tour with a professor from the department she would be studying in. What a wonderful, warm woman who truly seemed to care about her students. She stopped and introduced us to a few other professors along the way, who all were so welcoming and chatted with us. She took us into the class that she was about to start teaching and the kids asked if we had any questions that we wanted to ask them. </p>
<p>It was a cold windy day and my D said even with that all of the kids on campus seemed happy, some just said “hi” as the tour group walked by. We did not visit Hillel. Per my D’s request, she doesn’t want to do this at this stage of the visits. All of the colleges on her list have a decent Jewish population and an active Hillel. </p>
<p>When we left I asked her how she viewed this as compared to Delaware. She said she prefers Miami to Delaware. </p>
<p>Next stop was the University of Illinois. D did not like it at all. It is off of the list. </p>
<p>Hope everyone else is having a great break.</p>
<p>mdmom - glad the visits are progressing well. I have definitely learned that finding out what they dislike is as valuable - maybe even more so than what they like. But just curious - what was it about Illinois that she did not like?</p>
<p>I certainly would hope that wherever our children are in college, that they make friends with and keep an open mind in dealing with everyone! That’s how prejudice and stereotypes could eventually become erradicated…if everyone just got along and tolerated each other’s differences. Actually more than tolerated…learn about each other’s religions, cultures, backgrounds, etc.,etc. which would hopefully bring in more understanding.</p>
<p>Good luck to your S, hope he has a fabulous experience at Tulane.</p>
<p>RVM, Samtayla, mdmomfromli, socaldad and whomever was away on college trips this week…wow, sounds like full, productive visits with lots of decisions regarding keeping on or off the lists! Just did this last year, so it’s still very fresh in my mind!</p>
<p>pamom: I’ll dub you honorary Jew, since you know what a mensch is! I believe Passover would be the most likely Holiday to share with non-Jews…and Slitheytove is right that Sukkot and Chanukah could be two others.</p>
<p>Still interested in hearing whether ShawD is going with big u or small u! :)</p>
<p>Just visited Skidmore today. Was great to see a separate Passover station in their main dining room. Hoping that D’s art portfolio and vocal CD will help out with admission. Right now she has about a 90 average, but in our school that is roughly 35th to 40th percentile. She has a 29 ACT and 1290/1950 on SAT’s.</p>
<p>Anyone visit or have any personal experience with the school?</p>
<p>Mdmom sounds like an awesome visit. Ur D really connected with the prof. I have found that meeting someone one on one, whether it be a prof or students can make a difference. The tours are just a big intro overview and missing the personlization. Socal’s D had that feeling with the admissions rep at del.
RVM, I am sure u know that sports and evemt mgnt is now in school of comm at elon? We met a few students with this major. One had interned with the Panthers another with Greensboro team; met 2 others who raved, but can’t remember where they were. Sounds like an awesome program.</p>
<p>Laughwithme: My d is a Tulane freshman who is Jewish from NY. Do not waste one second being concerned about your son fitting in on a campus with Northeast Jews. It just isn’t an issue. The culture on Tulane’s campus seems to be one of respect and tolerance of each other’s differences.</p>
<p>Although I am too tired to post details, we are currently visiting the following schools for D2: Elon, UNC Chapel Hill, Univ Richmond, James Madison and American. Will post our impressions soon.</p>
<p>D1 participated in Tulane’s Chabad seder. She is pretty secular and surprised me with this news but noted Chabad’s food is better than Hillel’s and she really likes the rabbi and his wife. Later that night, she texted me, “LONGEST SEDER EVER!!” LOL!</p>
<p>KANSAS
Our next stop was Kansas. I did not know what would happen here. As many of you know, Kansas is not a popular coast school. No one from our town attends. I am so glad we went.
We arrived late afternoon Wednesday. Stayed in- a cool old hotel downtown. The downtown was great. A perfect college town. I was surprised. IMO better than Bloomington. Great adult dining, tons of student food, plenty of stores, so many bars, and a good music scene.
I put this college downtown up there with Madison without the statehouse. We had a great dinner at a progressive restaurant.
We went to the STD house. My d1 set up d2 with a girl from Dallas. D2 spent over 90 minutes hanging out and talking to 8 girls. She really liked most of them. They were from Chicago, Minneapolis, Conn., San Antonio, and one from Kansas. She felt very comfortable, and saw that she could be a sister. That was a positive moment.
We also toured the private dorm Naismith. It was really nice. A few hundred kids live there. We were told that it ismabout 60% Jewish. All frosh. It appeared accurate to me. We talked to many kids there, and they were happy. More good.
This AM, we took the tour. A very well done presentation. The campus is very nice. It is situated up on a hill about five blocks above main street. The campus was really nice. Well laid out,easy to get around, magnificent vistas looking down from the top. If we hadn’t just seen Miami, Bloomington, and Delaware, I would have said it was a great campus. In light of our ridiculous visits, I would have to say it was very nice. Much nicer than I expected. The people had the Midwest niceness. My d was impressed with the friendliness.
After our tour, our ca. Admission’s rep, took us to lunch. He couldn’t have been nicer. My d had met this past fall at her HS. When she contacted him about our visit, he asked to take us for lunch. He answered many of her questions, and made her feel at home. He reviewed her HS transcripts, and told her she was anslam dunk for admission. He also told her if she applied sept 1st, she wouldnhave her acceptance in less than two weeks.
My d left very happy. She feels that she has found a school that she will get into, and could be happy attending. A very comforting feeling. She still dreams about Delaware, wants to see IU again if admitted, moved. Miami down to the bottom, and feels Fortunate to have Kansas as real option.
My closing thought for all. Kansas is a real viable school for REAL B JEWISH STUDENTS. If your child wants big rah rah state school, a great college town, 20 thousand students not 40k, a strong Jewish community, and really nice campus, …this is an interesting alternative. I think this is the new INDIANA. As IU becomes more of a b+/a- school, Kansas is a great place. When more east coast Jews wake up to this, it will really blow up. </p>
<p>Just my view. Now on to our last stop…Boulder. Report sometime this weekend.</p>
<p>socaldad, thanks for the Kansas trip report. I’m starting to look at possibilities for D2, and Kansas sounds like something we should check out. However, you wrote:</p>
<p>
:eek: What the heck is THAT?!?! </p>
<p>Sorry, but when I see “STD”, I think of a three-letter phrase where the last word is “disease”. :D</p>
Maybe you should move to the West Coast? ;)</p>
), and latkes during Chanukah. I’d not put Rosh Hashana dinner on that list, since it has a far more solemn feel.</p>
everyone on this thread is a mensch!</p>
I believe Passover would be the most likely Holiday to share with non-Jews…and Slitheytove is right that Sukkot and Chanukah could be two others.</p>