<p>MIT definitely wins in the amazing department. Online app was the only one that was nicely formatted, although there were a few things to be desired. I’m definitely a long shot for admission, but I love reading the blogs (would be a sin to still be reading them if/when I end up going to a different school? :P), my EC was friendly and helpful despite my inability to talk over the phone, and the admissions officers were very forgiving to all of us ridiculous, freaking out early applicants (oh no! I submitted my app an hour late rather than an hour early because I’m on mountain time instead of eastern!). Basically, its an awesomerifous school!</p>
<p>As for the bad, Stanford is known within my school for being rather snobby (apparently they’ve told some people that our school “isn’t good enough” for anyone to be considered for admission…I guess that’s why they rejected the guy on our forensics team who won extemporaneous speaking at the national level).</p>
<p>Gettysburg College had a personal tour guide just for me and my parent. They said that it wasnt a slow day but infact they gave every student a personal tour guide. The admisions officer i spoke to in my interview really went out of his way to seem like he wanted ME. In general all the staff was very nice. I went in thinking gettysburg would be a safety school at best, if I was even going to apply. I left wanting to go there more than even the top schools on my list such as Carleton and Macalaster. Dont get me wrong I enjoyed my visit to both of those schools but Gettysburg was just amazing.</p>
<p>My worst expirience of all was at Vasar… I was ready to leave seconds after walking into the admisions office. A nasty expirience!</p>
<p>Brown’s tour was great, both the tour guide and info session leaders were very personable and answered questions earnestly instead of repeatedly listing the perks of attending an Ivy league school. </p>
<p>Amherst’s was also very good for many of the same reasons.</p>
<p>Harvard’s was better than expected and was suprisingly personable, but it still didn’t completely shake my preconseptions about the stereotypical harvard snob.</p>
<p>I had a bad experience with Dartmouth, but that very well could have been due to having to trek around campus in freezing cold temperatures.</p>
<p>The worst by far was Tufts. For the info session they piled us into a room with peeling paint and glass cases filled with porcelain elephants. The session director then spoke almost abnoxiously fast and seemingly fudged answers to a lot of the more serious questions that came her way. I guess its not completely fair to judge because I was so turned off I didn’t even stick around for the tour.</p>
<p>The school that my kids both got bad tours and info sessions was BU.
My first daughter was interested in film…we got a business / hockey guy in the info session that knew nothing of the arts , and made it clear he thought it was of no value.</p>
<p>I fell asleep in the beginning of the tour ( during the video presentation )
I can’t even sleep on a plane…</p>
<p>Emerson was awesome, upbeat and made it 1st choice for first daughter.</p>
<p>NYU was so good that I wanted to go there.
American was good.</p>
<p>Northeastern was great too.
BC was good though the dorm tour wasn’t included and it was wicked cold.</p>
<p>We did go to a few schools and though we got good tours, the general feel of the environment left much to be desired…</p>
<p>One school had a tour guide that told us that the food was so good she gained 25 lbs…not appealing to a young girl !</p>
<p>My son is a junior and we are starting our college visits in two weeks at Wooster and Allegheny. The comments here remind me that we have to go in open minded regardles of how the tour etc goes. Does anyone have any helpful hints for us, he does have an interview at Allegheny and he has gotten conflicting dress code info - suit vs sweater & khakis. This is our oldest so words of wisdom would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Admissions Team: United States Naval Academy- for the amount of applications and steps to each application (nomination, fitness assessment, recs, medical exam, etc) they keep you extremely updated and provide a positive look to your application. Always try to help you improve while emphasizing that the Academy picks the best qualified candidates.</p>
<p>Information: Notre Dame- Provides crystal clear campus outlook, curriculum, majors, etc. Good outline for education and future in the form of tours or college material.</p>
<p>Worst:</p>
<p>Admissions Team: Tulane University- Very limited correspondence. Received two pieces of mail total- an application, and an acceptance letter. Did not try to sell its appeal.</p>
<p>Best: Bates-very friendly/gave us vouchers for food/Dean of admissions mingled with parents in the waiting room while the kids were interviewing.
Bowdoin-the food was excellent-student gets to eat free/parents just had to pay $5.00 for some of the best college food anywhere.
Dartmouth-a very happy, upbeat and friendly place-the staff around the campus in the libraries, museums, gym are so helpful and nice.</p>
<p>Worst: Chicago; We traveled half way across the county after son was accepted last spring (with a very nice merit scholarship); no one seemed to care that we were there- and the bathrooms were very hard to find!</p>
<p>We learned that the only effective way to reasonably learn/judge a school is to get as far away from the admissions folks as possible. </p>
<p>I was sure that Middlebury would win my daughter’s heart, but after meeting with admissions, she couldn’t see the campus past the arrogance she felt from the admissions session. When she asked a question about what the school did well and what areas the school could improve, the response was "we are Middlebury and everything we do is GOOD.</p>
<p>Hamilton was also a challenge for us until we got out on the campus and did our own discovering. It wasn’t that admissions people were rude, they just had a impression they wanted to leave us with that didn’t work for us. Touring campus on our own and asking random questions of staff, students, professors gave us tangible information to make a decision.</p>
<p>I would encourage anyone visiting schools to spend time away from admissions people and try to get to know the real campus.</p>
<p>@GoNavy- I’d give you some of the stuff Tulane sends me any day. I’m STILL getting stuff from them. I have no intention of going whatsoever, and I don’t think I’ve ever even replied to any of their stuff. I’m pretty sure the only time I’ve responded was to tell them I wasn’t going to some prospective weekend. They’ve wasted at least 20 dollars just on postage sending me stuff.</p>
<p>@b’smom- The UChicago bathrooms ARE hard to find, I’ll give you that.</p>
<p>I’d like to see stats on how much the admissions team is a reflection of the school. I could see free ice cream, soda, lunch, and a hot air balloon ride but then hell when you matriculate…</p>
<p>Best Information Session: Johns Hopkins, though I didn’t even consider applying. The rep gave what I believe was an extremely candid view of the school that was informative enough for me to know that it was NOT the school for me. I wish all of the schools I had visited were so honest, without saying “you should NOT apply here because of so-and-so”.</p>
<p>Worst Information Session: Probably Wake Forest. The presenter was very pretentious, and spent most of the time bragging about the school in a non-informative way. I didn’t apply there either. In second place is WashU. They gave a lame presentation that was a silly staged conversation between an admissions officer and a current student. Give me a break. Despite this, I applied and its one of my top choices.</p>
<p>Best Tour: University of Washington. The campus is HUGE, yet the guide manged to show us almost everything undergrad related. He was very honest about the school, and even took me inside the Biology building after the tour was officially over. I was extremely impressed, and I applied. Runner up is UVA for simlar reasons. Also applied.</p>
<p>Worst Tour: Johns Hopkins. The guide lacked any personality at all and complained most of the time.</p>
<p>Syracuse was really great. they had a number of visiting days, where they would have a couple thousand ppl and they provided small touring groups, free doughnuts and coffee, and free lunch/dinner the whole day you visited. VERY accomodting.</p>
<p>My D interviewed at Allegheny this summer and wore what I would consider casual and she would consider dressed up…slacks, blouse, close-toe shoes. I don’t think a suit is necessary…just my opinion. I saw several students coming in/out of interviews and all seemed dressed in business casual.</p>
<p>Despite what I noted about my daughter’s unenthusiastic report about her summer interview experience at William & Mary, her overall experience with the W&M admissions office was more positive. She actually made two trips to W&M. Her first visit was for an information session and tour. The info session was held at the University Center for about 50 prospects and parents and was led by a young, dynamic and amusing member of the admissions staff (I think he was a recent W&M grad). Our tour guide was a freshman, and we were her first tour group, but she did a great job, answered questions honestly and appeared to be extremely well trained. So our W&M experience was not the worst, nor was it the best.</p>
<p>Best: Tie between Wesleyan University and Kenyon. Wesleyan’s info session was the most thorough and interesting, as the presntors included an admissions officer, two current students and a professor. Kenyon’s tour and interview were the best in my D’s opinion.</p>
<p>Worst: Dickinson College. It wasn’t really that bad, but my daughter is interested in biology and chemistry and the admissions rep gave short shrift to her questions about Dickinson’s science programs and spent much of the time promoting the school’s study abroad programs. While my D wants to spend a semester abroad, she was really more interested in what her 3 1/2 years on campus would be like.</p>
<p>The best I’ve seen was probably U Pittsburgh; I went up with two relatives, and we showed up for the campus tour a little early. Since there were two tour guides, they actually had the three of us go on a tour all by ourselves. The student who showed us around was knowledgeable and enthusiastic, and most of my worries heading into the visit (I have since mailed in my tuition deposit and decided to attend) were dispelled. I also had a conversation with a faculty advisor in the PoliSci department, and heard an insightful presentation by the dean of the honors college. </p>
<p>What’s more, the Pitt staff never made a mistake with my application and I didn’t get any really stupid mail. They were quite efficient and helpful throughout the process.</p>