<p>I like the analogy!!!</p>
<p>I was pleased to read the positive posts about Brandeis. I know it is a great school. My son has had some athletic interest from the school. We have not done the tour or info session. We drove through the campus and walked around on our own. We thought it was the ugliest campus ever! Son did not want to spend any time on an info session or tour because he thought the campus was so unattractive to him!</p>
<p>US Naval Academy: Son spent a week at a Navy camp. He lived on campus so it was a 24 hour info session & tour of sorts! Happened to be the start of plebe summer. He liked the camp. Did not like the school. According to my son, all the plebes did was get yelled at during all hours of the day and march (and march some more). He can not figure out why anyone would ever go to this school (this does not go over well with family members who are officers and academy grads). I happen to think it is a fantastic opportunity for the right person!</p>
<p>UPenn: My son went to the visit already enthralled with Penn (his grandfather is an alum). After the info session (horrible) and tour (so bad we left) he is even more in love with the school! Go figure! Since the visit his Penn sweatshirt can only be found in one of two places - on him or in the wash! The info session was monotone and bland - full of kids asking obnoxious questions to one up each other. The tour was lead by an incredibly boring, lifeless young lady who was very into poetry and had disdain for anything that was not poetry! At the time of the tour (over the summer) Penn’s football team was the current Ivy League champions. When we were standing outside of the Penn Stadium the tour guide points to the stadium and says “They play sports in there. I hear we won something pretty big and everyone was really excited for some reason!” This when we decided we were going to seperate from the tour and come back at another time!</p>
<p>@ circuit- you wanted to know which other schools:</p>
<p>I ended up applying to: UPenn, Brown (deferred ED), Columbia, Georgetown, Boston College, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Yale</p>
<ul>
<li>I doubt I’ll get into any- I’m just testing the waters</li>
</ul>
<p>But I had originally looked at in addition: Wellesley, Barnard, American, GW, Syracuse, McGill, Boston University, McGill, Northwestern, Dartmouth, NYU, Duke, UNC</p>
<p>The campus just had a dead feeling, although I’ve known kids who have gone there and loved it, so you’re right. You have to visit. Neither of my kids like Harvard either, or Penn, so it’s not a matter of reputation but really all about fit.</p>
<p>But they do game the rankings like no other! Of the students I’ve know who chose Wash U though, they have all loved their experience there.</p>
<p>I have to laugh at all the times Tufts has popped up here. We had visited Cornell, Bowdoin, Williams, Amherst, BC, Yale, and others. Within about 10 minutes of setting foot on Tufts campus, S1 was asking if he could apply ED. He had researched the IR Dept, but really it was just some intangible ‘click.’ The campus was nice, but nothing special. The kids we met were friendly and helpful, and it also didn’t hurt later when our tour guide turned out to be an animated, pretty girl who happened to be a runner as well. S graduates this spring and has loved his experience there. His sister is a HS junior and it is at the top of her wish list.</p>
<p>S2 had the opposite reaction to his school - GW. The first time we arrived at Foggy Bottom he looked around at the cement and businessmen and said ‘no thanks.’ He ended up heading back to DC because he liked American. He took another look at GW, and his affections started to shift… and he is now a happy freshman there.</p>
<p>“…An animated, pretty girl” as a tour guide, or any pretty girl that showed interest in my son during any of his college tours put that college on the list of his possibles as well! I have said so many times during son’s teenage years that if we could just harness the power of a pretty teenage girl we could get him to do anything…chop wood, clean his room, get a job, anything! :)</p>
<p>LOL Storytimes - that’s my greatest concern as we embark on the college visiting circuit (or circus). I can just hear him now “Susie was very cute, wasn’t she” “Yes, but what did you think of the college?” “what college?”</p>
<p>We’d been reading about Carleton and the wonderful academics and quirky sense of humor possessed by the student body. When S and H visited they reported that the staff were aloof and unfriendly and that the students they encountered on campus looked sad. S said that the majority of the students he saw were bent over carrying the largest backpacks he’d ever seen in his life. Carleton came off the list. </p>
<p>Next they stopped at Macalester, where everybody seemed happy and chatty and very welcoming, Macalester went on the list.</p>
<p>Re: those pretty girls (and great tour guides in general)–</p>
<p>S1 was already hooked by then, but it certainly didn’t hurt! I DO think, however, that colleges should put more care and review into choosing their student guides. In plenty of posts here you can see what a difference they can make - for good or bad. If your child’s first impression is unsure or just “eh,” a poor guide can be the nail in the coffin. </p>
<p>Same goes for information sessions. Of the schools we visited with S2, the one given by a young woman at American still stands out as the best, and really helped the school move up his mental list. I have to admit that after a few sessions, however, many start sounding somewhat alike to me.</p>
<p>We visited Pomona a couple of times, and each time, we noticed students walking not in pairs or groups, but alone. Nobody seemed to be talking or laughing with each other. This happened on both visits, so D took it off her list.</p>
<p>Quick thoughts on visits last week:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Wake Forest: in need of repair; lots of mud and chipped paint. Grass struggling to survive. None of the blinds in the windows were aligned. Even on a bright, sunny day, not many people outside. Way quiet. Could not get a feel for any there “there.”</p></li>
<li><p>Elon: Wanted to be impressed, but wasn’t. Your basic garden variety quad-centered college in the middle of nowhere, tucked behind some railroad tracks. Who was this “Khoury” guy? His name is everywhere on everything. He must have been buds with the “Robins” guy at URichmond (see below). Went to student center, where everyone looked glum – mostly girls huddled over laptops. “meh.”</p></li>
<li><p>High Point: Like Elon, High Point is someone’s idea of a mock college plopped down in the middle of nowhere (High Point, NC). It certainly is all fresh and nice, but almost in a Stepford wives sense (looks like a college, but is it really a college?). A nice touch was putting the name of visiting students on electronic signage in the parking spaces at the entrance to the college. Another nice touch was girls in bathing suits out sunning themselves next to the pool at the Student Center. It is a very compact campus, so much so that the golf team was practicing by hitting golf balls from mats placed in the baseball stadium! Girl/ guy ratio is 65 - 35, which isn’t good.</p></li>
<li><p>Guilford College: Looked a bit like a down-sized Elon without the Khoury bits. A series of red brick buildings and nice little football stadium made for a comforting feel. Air conditioners hanging out all the windows – didn’t like.</p></li>
<li><p>UNC - Charlotte: Vast and impersonal. All the new construction seems to be parking garages, so clearly this is a commuter school.</p></li>
<li><p>UNC - Chapel Hill: Also a bit shabby and worn, like Wake Forest. The various buildings on the two co-joined quads did not “sync” up – different architectures were off-putting. Students were happy, even after loss to Duke, and lots walking together and laughing. Again, here, grass struggles to survive: tufts of green like a bad haircut. Remains on list by a fingernail.</p></li>
<li><p>Duke – yes! Everthing fits together in this mock-Gothic grey fortress. West Point does it better (same stone, better fortress, nicer and larger parade grounds, and the Hudson view is awesome) but not a bad copycat. Nice rhythm and feel to the campus. Wondered why the new fashion for girls (saw at UNC-CH as well) is tight jeans with knee-high leather boots and a sweatshirt.</p></li>
<li><p>University of Richmond: clearly, a striver college, looking to upgrade student body. Place looked very nice. This “Robins” guy was everywhere: “Robins” School of Business, “Robins” Stadium, “Robin” this and that. A couple of million more from Robins and the school will become Robins University. Beware! Heavy concentration of mid-Atlantic (felt like 75% of the school population). The Adcom talked about the COA, but that people should expect to invest this here, given “the quality of a Richmond education.” If I have the chance to invest the same amount for “the quality of a Yale education,” I think I might upgrade.</p></li>
<li><p>College of William and Mary: Very nice campus, one modern side, the other (with the “sunken garden”) quite old but balanced. No real complaints here. Just wondered if the students chose W&M or whether it was number 2 after UVA? Thought the film shown in the information session was pretty lame (a guy on a moped goes around to various locations and events and classrooms and ties some sort of theme all together). For an indication of how an info session film can be both inspiring and educational, see Harvard’s (nice background music, Tommy Lee Jones and Yo Yo Ma).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is so funny. When DD looked at colleges, she looked for students walking alone–not always big groups. She likes to think when she walks from place to place.</p>
<p>
That may be true of some, but I think those who chose W&M are probably looking for more of an LAC-type experience.</p>
<p>Agree with Hunt. W&M is many students first choice (both in and out of state). </p>
<p>All the talk about Tufts reminded me (and I know I have shared this before) about our tourguide who was actually quite personable and good, but got very ill about 2/3 through the tour and never could come out of the restroom. We were on our own after that. It was an EXTREMELY hot day in July (up to 100), but I’m not sure exactly what happened to her.</p>
<p>Did anyone tour U. Michigan, McGill, Kenyon, UMD College Park or UT Austin? These are on our list but are fairly far away, so I would love to get input before making the trip.</p>
<p>Akapiratequeen - I visited McGill 2 yrs ago with D1. She loved the hustle and bustle of being in the middle of a great city. I could understand that but the tour left me cold. The group was too large, so it was often hard to hear the tour guide. Many of the buildings looked the same to me - lots of 1970s concrete. The lack of student housing after first year was an issue for us as well. That said, it’s a great school academically.</p>
<p>We visited Michigan- it’s the top on my D’s list for MT although it’s pretty high up for academics for her too. She loved it going in, and loved it going out. We talked with an admissions guy that was a waste of time. If we were going to judge it based on him, we would have run for the hills. He never asked her name or asked her questions. I understand it was mid February and he was probably in the midst of reading apps but still, we were there. Be communicative.
The campus is big and they only show you around the main campus and a fake dorm room. It’s a big campus, split in two with most of the freshman living in North campus that you have to take a bus to get to the main section. The kids we talked to said they never minded it- it’s a huge complex of freshman and married student housing. It has a great college town in Ann Arbor and it’s only 25 minutes from the Detroit airport. The info session was good, talking about the top group of kids they get there. They discussed all of the options with a big campus and lots of opportunities (I have heard that at every campus- They made a point that you can make a large campus small, but not a small campus big) We met two girls from home and as a sophomore and senior, they love it. We toured the sorority house. We also met an MT kid who loved it who does nothing with Greek.
Personally, I like UW-Madison better of the campus as it’s all in one place with dorms/houses on both sides. But as I’ve said often, this is her journey not mine. S ended up at Purdue which was a last minute throw in as we wanted small engineering schools.</p>
<p>Thanks! Sounds like we’ll be heading to both places. Given that her first choice so far is NYU I don’t think the city environment is a problem. And given that NYU costs nearly twice as much as McGill, it’s definitely worth a look I think!</p>
<p>Re: Michigan, she’s very anti-Greek but seems like there’s room for all types. I’d love for her to check out Wisconsin, too.</p>
<p>My S1 did a 2 week summer program at NYU @2 years ago and said he could never go to college there. (Grew up in a small town and wants a college near a city but with lots of grass) My nephew, who is from Miami, fell in love with NYU, but he is used to the bigger city living!</p>
<p>lspf72: LOL, my S1 also fell in love with Tufts and applied ED and will be a freshman there this fall! 
He had seen about 5 or 6 colleges before Tufts, and immediately liked everything about it, the course selection, the people, the location, it’s proximity to our home, etc.</p>
<p>He was very turned off to UPenn, liked Cornell, but felt it was too big and nowhere near a city…did not look at Dartmouth for that reason too. Ruled out Middlebury for same reasons. He DID like Univ. of Rochester, but we didn’t have a chance to look around the city much, and the city may have been too small for him anyway. Would not even consider BU because it was too much in the city!</p>
<p>For him, Tufts seemed a perfect match…near a big city, but with lots of grass…and he is also really into Languages, which Tufts is very strong in as well.</p>