<p>ingerp- thanks for the OWU report. We are weeks away from visiting all the Ohio schools and any report on that school is welcome. We hear so much about Wooster, Kenyon and Denison, and I was beginning to think it wasn’t in the same league.</p>
<p>I guess if you’re looking strictly at academics, you’d have to put Kenyon first, DU a little below, and COW and OWU just a tad below those. However, as you’ll see, quite a bit of difference in the students. Kenyon–those smart, arty kids from high school. Lots of piercings, tattoos, smoking, intentionally mis-matched shoes, . . ., but also really engaged and smart. DU has the rep as being a little preppy–can’t say I disagree, although as DH pointed out, that’s not the worst thing you can say about a group of young people. I’d say both OWU and Wooster were really regular kids. Wooster was my personal preference (have heard amazing things about it from an OH college admissions counselor who was a former NACAC president), but there’s a lot to like about OWU. (I assume you’ve read up on them in CTCL? All but Kenyon are in there.) (FWIW–I don’t know what your kid is interested in but I believe OWU is particularly strong in the sciences–they send a lot of kids to med school.) (And DS got a bigger merit aid offer from OWU than DU–something else to consider.)</p>
<p>My son was applied to Wooster, OWU, and Denison. He was accepted to all 3. His biggest merit award came from Wooster. We did qualify for some FA. I do recall that after FA, OWU was going to cost us quite a bit less than Denison, although OWU came in too pricey for our family. We were not all that comfortable with Wooster’s bottom line either. OWU and Wooster ended up being in the middle of the pack as far as cost to us. Denison would have cost us more, but our son did get merit aid from all 3 schools. He had to say good-bye to all 3 because of cost. One school did contact him to see if they could work it out financially, but by that point our son’s heart was with another school. It was really sad for me to say good-bye to these schools, but at the end of the day it was our son’s decision between his more affordable options.</p>
<p>UCONN, my D had a great experience there, plenty to do & lots of kids with cars to get off campus. Buses to football games & the basketball games that were held in Hartford. </p>
<p>Yes, sometimes she would make jokes about smelling cow manure while walking to class!
Agriculture is very big there, the barns are attractive, they make their own ice cream and sell it at the Dairy Bar. Wonderful ice cream! (and I am not an ice cream person) :)</p>
<p>D crossed Princeton off the list. Tour guide was so unbelievably egotistical. I enjoy hearing about the guides - what they do, what they like, how they chose the school - along the tour, but this gal basically said “I am a brilliant engineer and I manage to do a sport too; you should all be so lucky to be me.” The tour was not event that informative or interesting. Quite a shame, because - on paper - and based on some wonderful alums I have known over the years, it should have been near the top of D’s list. </p>
<p>The school should know better than to have this socially inept and unappealing personality of a student giving tours! Maybe with 35,000 apps, they are trying to make the place less attractive!</p>
<p>my nephew transfered from UCONN after first year. Sports aren’t on campus but in Hartford, most kids went home during the weekends and he had to fly to get home. Liked the kids but…</p>
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<p>It is sometimes that gut feeling. Although my older D got into Middlebury, it wasn’t her type of people. She felt it was too granola/birkenstock-y. I thought it was beautiful. She ended up at Colgate. So many kids there couldn’t understand why she had turned down Middlebury for Colgate. It’s just a fit for your kid.
Next kid wanted smaller and applied to one big school. He was sure he wanted small. Barely was excited when the big school (Purdue) accepted him and called me from school excited about the small school acceptance. He would only visit the two schools in the end, even though he got into others. On visiting both, he fell in love with Purdue and is thrilled to be there.
There is such a thing as gut feeling that you can’t see on paper or stats. If you have the luxury to visit, you can find that out</p>
<p>I completely agree with fourkidsmom. Sometimes a school just feels right to a kid when they visit. I like pretty, serene campuses, but both of my daughters fell in love with noisy urban ones. My favorite story about a school just clicking is from one of my friends. When she and her daughter pulled into the parking lot at JMU, her daughter said “I love it here.” She’s now a very happy junior there.</p>
<p>Love this thread!</p>
<p>We’ve just started–D is a soph. CMU fell off the list as soon as she saw the new “green” dorms. She’s all for environmental consciousness in theory, but when she realized the rooms were TINY (maybe 11 x11) and held 2 people – because it is much more energy conscious to have large common areas and small bedrooms – her face was quite a study. Plus she hated the industrial vibe.</p>
<p>She’s probably going to major in math but wants strong humanities as well. Going to be an interesting search.</p>
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<p>Thanks everyone for info on OWU! I love this thread too-- these quick impressions are fascinating.</p>
<p>Simplelife: I guess it’s just a matter of how you look at things. I think that a lot of people have a negative impression of the JHU campus and Baltimore, so I feel the need to defend the area. Most peope are pleasantly surprised when they visit.</p>
<p>The reason why visits are so important is that the school which is perfect on paper might not feel like such a great fit after actually seeing it and getting a sense of the people and campus vibe. W&L was great on paper, S liked it fine after a brief visit, but after an over-nighter (and subsequent huge scholarship offer) said “No way!” His sentiment was so strong he actually mounted a funny protest (Confederate flag pictures placed strategically around the house…) because he thought we might make him go there because the money was amazing. </p>
<p>Princeton–same feeling as expressed in post #2065 above. We visited for admissions-related reasons once for S; once for niece; and twice for D, one of which was an over-night recruiting visit. These visits ranked up there as our all-time worst college tour experiences. We kept saying to ourselves, “If this weren’t Princeton, we would so walk away now and never look back.” But then you realize it doesn’t matter that it’s Princeton–you can, and should just walk away! We did walk away, but with some regret because on paper it was a great fit for D and offered the best FA offer of the schools which recruited her.</p>
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<p>This thread cracks me up…so interesting to hear what the kids think and all so different! At Sewanee my son wanted to leave almost immediately but I told him we had to stay for LUNCH before we made the trek down the mountain! I think it was the students flapping around in the Oxford robes that turned him off. Occidental he fell in love with campus-wise, but when he returned for an overnight felt it wasn’t the right fit for him…a bit too laid back, I guess. All of us loved Rhodes and Trinity U. Centre was crossed off the list because of its isolation and size. Pretty campus, though. Denison just didn’t do it for us, not sure why. Odd sort of buildings and layout and we’d heard that it was so incredibly beautiful. I guess we were expecting something different. The receptionist in Admissions had an attitude like, “aren’t you lucky that you get to come tour DU” which I didn’t appreciate.</p>
<p>re Carnegie Mellon:</p>
<p>akapiratequeen, the green dorm has AC big plus in my son’s eyes. Of course only a tiny percent of freshmen end up in that green dorm. My son didn’t get in, but instead he had an ENORMOUS room freshman year. It wasn’t directly on campus, but it was a one bedroom apartment for two kids. Bedroom was at least 12x15, living dining area at least twice that big and it had a full kitchen. He liked it so much he stayed in the same room his sophomore year.</p>
<p>I’m a little baffled by the industrial vibe comment - maybe because our tour guides were in the drama department and I spent some time checking out the art and architecture building while my son checked out comp sci classes.</p>
<p>We visited Vassar in August and arrived in Poughkeepsie after dark in a rain storm. The town seemed very run down and bleak, with the dirtiest McDonalds we’d ever encountered. We did stay at a pretty comfortable motel and found a nice little cafe for breakfast. We drove to Vassar for a tour and info session, the campus and buildings were quite grand, a stark contrast to the town. We had a nice enthusiastic young man as a tour guide. As we were walking through campus past some amazingly huge old trees, he made the comment that the entire campus was designated as an arboretum and that tree climbing was forbidden. As we drove away my son said he would never go to a school that forbade the students from climbing the trees. I asked him how often he planned on climbing trees in college. He said that he really hadn’t planned on climbing trees in college, but knowing there was a rule against it would drive him nuts.</p>
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<p>Very cute story!</p>
<p>Mathmom, </p>
<p>Unfortunately, that was the only dorm they showed us. No idea where she got the “industrial” vibe–I loved the campus. As someone else said, what she really wants is a campus like Williams plunked down in the middle of Boston or New York.</p>
<p>Sorry, Alabama is off the list do to the fact that we will not be able to afford it. We did not even visit do to that, We recieved a nice package with dvd from them and we would have loved to send him there but just can’t swing it.</p>
<p>bopambo… LOL!!! I think my S would have had the same reaction to the tree climbing thing… maybe that will scratch Vassar off his list… he needs to do some trimming anyway.</p>
<p>akapirate, it’s the only dorm we saw too. They are very proud of it! My son did see other options when he overnighted though. </p>
<p>bopambo, one of the things we liked about Tufts when we visited for accepted students weekend was that members of the outing club had slung hammocks from one of the big trees on campus. The campus was neither too pristine nor too dirty, but seemed well used and well loved.</p>
<p>My son saw Vassar right after Bard and was just so relieved to see signs of a city it made a good enough impression that it stayed on his list despite not filling any of his criteria really. (It was more a case of - if I decide in April I want an LAC after all this could be an option.)</p>