Colleges you/child crossed off the list after visiting

Parents Forum
2361

<p>Eastcoastcrazy: </p>

<p>Your Son #1 list is very similar to my Daughter #1’s list.</p>

<p>(Ursinus, JMU, Penn State, St. Mary’s College of Maryland and U-Md.)</p>

<p>My daughter has visited or is about to visit:</p>

<p>UMD- Visited several times. We had a great tour guide. We’ve also been to MD Day. Daughter loves it, top choice.</p>

<p>Penn State: Was super cold and windy in our November visit. Tour guides emphasized football way too much. Not many trees to cut the wind there. It’s still in the running, but might be too much $ OOS. </p>

<p>St. Mary’s College of MD: She liked it, but she thought it was too isolated, with not much to do in the surrounding area.</p>

<p>UMBC- Liked it. Tour was not great, but info session was very good. The campus isn’t as nice as some of the others.</p>

<p>JMU - Going to visit this April</p>

<p>Va Tech - Going to visit this April</p>

<p>Pitt - in the summer</p>

2362

<p>We just finished a week long northeast college tour- 10 colleges in 7 days over 2200 miles for my oldest daughter (junior) with younger daughter, wife and me coming along. Here is part one!</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Swarthmore: this was a second look as D1 and I had seen it in Feb but my wife had not. Beautiful campus with the trees of the Scott arboretum blossoming. Was on list at beginning of tour but now dropping after seeing other places. My totally subjective grade: B+.</p></li>
<li><p>Yale: visited Monday AM in the rain. Good info session, tour guide was entertaining at first but got tired of “all about me” anecdotes. D1 had high hopes for Yale but did not like urban campus and surroundings. Didn’t feel like a good “fit” in terms of elitism. My grade: My totally subjective grade C+.</p></li>
<li><p>Wesleyan: all we did was drive around the campus on the drive from Yale to Bowdoin. It looks like a nice place but we hadn’t planned to stop to tour, just to look from the car to see if it warranted a look this summer if other school possibilities didn’t pan out. We agreed it looked promising but didn’t stop. Might come back later. My totally subjective grade: Incomplete</p></li>
<li><p>Bowdoin: interviewed Tuesday AM, heavy fog, piles of snow all about, chilly misty rain. In short, a dismal sort of very early spring day. I thought the weather alone would be a turn-off, but daughter loved the school- had that immediate “good fit” feeling for her. We liked the expansive green quad, recently renovated science facilities (her interest), dorms look plain from outside but nice inside. Now on the list. Grade: A</p></li>
<li><p>Middlebury. Drove there Tuesday through snowstorm in the Green Mountains with 2" snow on the road through Middlebury Gap- “This is spring, Dad?” but only rainy on Midd campus with a few scattered old snow banks. Toured the school next AM (Wed) with poor quality info session by two students who rambled on about language and international studies to exclusion of much else. (We found that info sessions conducted by the admit staff +/- student much better than student-only run ones). However, the tour was great, the sun came out, the facilities looked good, including recently completed science center. Gorgeous rural location a plus for D1. She has grown up in Charlottesville around UVA so that is our comparator, any school that isn’t as attractive or attractively located as UVA is bound to suffer. She is pretty clear now that she does not want to go to school in a big city. She wasn’t sure Middlebury had the good fit initially but was convinced by the end that it did. Totally subjective grade: A-.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Stay tuned for later post for Dartmouth, Williams, Amherst, Vassar and Hamilton since this email is already so long!</p>

2363

<p>I visited UVA, quickly realized I would hate the traditional college experience in a college town, and promptly lowered it on my list. Seems like I’ll end up at NYU.</p>

2364

<p>Doonerak … while you’re visiting Hamilton you might want to swing by Colgate which has a drop dead gorgeous campus and might fit in with the profile of the other schools you are visiting.</p>

2365

<p>Doonerak - I am looking forward to the rest of your report. It seems like our kids are looking at the same set of schools. We are headed to Middlebury/Dartmouth/Bowdoin/Bates/Colby next week.</p>

<p>Already visited Hamilton/Colgate (agree with 3togo - you should add Colgate; it is only 1/2 hour from Hamilton - both beautiful campuses, but slightly different vibes)</p>

2366

<p>New England Small College Tour Part 2- to recap: 7 days, 2200 road miles, 10 colleges. After visiting Swat, Yale, Wesleyan, Bowdoin, and Middlebury, it was on to Dartmouth, Williams, Amherst, Vassar and Hamilton.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Dartmouth: We wanted to love Dartmouth- it always seemed ideal as our family is into the whole hiking/whitewater/wilderness adventure stuff and it seemed like the perfect place. Got there Wed PM, missed the info session. BTW it is tough to make the earliest info session and tour at Middlebury and get to Dartmouth in time for the 1:30 info session. The 2:15 tour was not as comprehensive as some but we did go through the library and the new math building, did not go into any dorms, did go into the student center which was nice too but not spectacular. Clearly as strong frat/sorority presence if that is your thing. The architecture and grounds are nice but not as spectacular as hoped for. I’ve been there in the summer though and it is gorgeous with volleyball nets all over the green and people having fun; at the same time then (mid summer) the frat house across from the math building was blaring loud music on a weekday afternoon. D1 thought it could be good but overall totally subjective grade was B+, i.e., did not quite live up to her hopes.</p></li>
<li><p>Williams: drove there Wed PM and stayed in room 117 at Brookside Motel, next to the 1896 Pub. Hotel is simple but comfortable and free breakfast next AM at the 1896 (we did not try it though; had yogurt and cold cereal in room). I would stay there again. Williams was fabulous; great tour, many new facilities, loved Paresky and the Science Center & Library, the Monkey carrels in the library, surrounded by gorgeous mountains, liked the first year entries, just had a great feel with plenty of stuff to do, despite the fact that Williams is totally NOWHERESVILLE, even more than Middlebury, which has Burlington just 45’ away. However, thats the vibe D1 is looking for, so totally subjective grade: A+. Only downside is the road running right through the middle of the campus. You better love cows (purple and otherwise) if you plan to visit Williams, though.</p></li>
<li><p>Amherst: From Williams we drove to Amherst and disappointment. It’s not easy to put into words but the spark was not there for D1 or the rest of us. It is pretty, on a nice hill, but seems kind of disjointed somehow. They showed us a fabulous dorm based in a restored gym (even had hardwood floors) but don’t think thats typical. Student center unimpressive. Amherst plans to renovate the science facilities (not clear why since they didn’t take us in) piecemeal to avoid disrupting labs, but why go to a school thats renovating science if you want to do science? I say go to a place that just finished renovating instead! My grad school roommate loved Amherst as did my cousin, but our totally subjective grade was B, just a plain old average B. Would be a good place to study geology and liked looking at the dinosaur skeletons in the museum,tho.</p></li>
<li><p>Vassar: Friday was Vassar. I’d never been to Poughkeepsie, but after visiting it the description of it as a “tired city” seems apt, and that same description seemed to fit Vassar (with one exception). Perhaps we were too influenced by the town, but, hey, the surroundings matter to D1 which was why Yale was a bust too. Back to Vassar: the buildings look big and castle-like, a somewhat medieval feel. The main library has gorgeous stained glass windows. We went into a classroom that had warped furniture (three massively warped tables) and peeling paint. The lamp in the dorm common room had a shredded shade. The whole place seemed like it needed a serious scrub and paint job. And the vegetarian coop dorm next to the admissions building- tear it down, the ugliest thing I’ve seen yet. Exceptions: the performing arts space is first rate and the chemistry building looked good. Totally subjective grade: C. I enjoyed hearing the Jane Fonda pearls and glove story from the tour guide, though.</p></li>
<li><p>Hamilton. From Vassar we made the drive back up the Hudson River valley and across to Clinton, NY, home of Hamilton (no, Hamilton is not in Hamilton NY, thats were Colgate is, go figure). We went for the Junior Preview Day not really sure of what to expect. Hamilton was the sleeper on the trip, D1 really liked it. It helped that Ham pulled out all the stops with great tours and info plus free lunch in the dining hall (food was quite good). Good science building, the quad dorm room we saw had a nice common room but the 4 bunk room seemed claustrophobically small. The darkside (Kirkland) is not pretty with its industrial concrete look but D1 felt that she could overlook it. Good gym facilities for working out. The whole campus layout just felt very comfortable and well maintained. Seems like Ham is isolated (the village of Clinton is cute but not much happening). However, there is all the suburban stuff one expects (Panera, Barnes & Noble and Wal-mart) about 15 minutes away. Grade: A-. Other recs: the Park Street Coffee place in Clinton is good; since it was the last night of our trip we stayed at the Harding Farm B & B in the Barnside Suite which was nice after a week of Courtyard Marriotts. Its at the bottom of the hill below Hamilton and was the home of the first president of Hamilton College.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>D1s current list: Williams, Bowdoin, Middlebury are on the list as is Hamilton. Swarthmore has dropped down/off after visiting the other 4 but could be resurrected. Dartmouth a possible as is Princeton but worried about eating club elitism there, Yale out, Vassar out, out, out as is Amherst. Wesleyan a maybe but needs a visit that we probably won’t do. Based on other previous visits, Duke, William & Mary (instate) and UVA (instate) on the list as is Kenyon, but U of Richmond is out. Still looking for a safety or two.</p>

<p>Overall, it took a chunk of energy and change to do these visits, but it turns out that for D1 the visits have been critical. You just can’t get a feel from a virtual tour on a website, and the “feel” of a place is so subjective. As they say, its all about finding the match, so of course many like lullinatalk above will have different ideas!</p>

<p>Last note: why not Colgate if we liked Hamilton? No great reason-its a little bigger, we heard rep that it was more conservative/party school. Our family is fairly liberal in our views and we had to draw the line somewhere. Agree that Colgate is also a beautiful place based on visiting there while passing through to the Adirondacks a few years back. Also not keen on school named after toothpaste, although could adjust. The reasons we sometimes pick to like/not like schools are as apparently arbitrary as the admissions committees decisions to admit/deny students at the top schools.</p>

2367

<p>Nice writeup… but I have been enjoying this thread more as a discussion of what turned people off to campuses rather than a whole list of everyplace everybody visited and what else they might like… it would be great if we could stick to that going forward. :)</p>

2368

<p>My daughter surprised me by being one of those “I don’t want to go to school in the middle of nowhere” people. Not that she needs endless entertainment, but she doesn’t want to go to a school where she’d have to take a shuttle bus to get a tube of chapstick. </p>

<p>We had planned to attend a junior day at Kenyon College, but at some point during the lonely five-mile ride from our hotel to the school, my child uttered the words I’ve come to dread: “I’m not getting a good feeling.” When we got to campus, I said, “Well, let’s pop into the coffee shop to talk.” The coffee shop wasn’t open (8:40 a.m. on a Saturday). I absorbed the blow and then said, “Let’s drive to Denison.” </p>

<p>Different strokes, etc. Kenyon is gorgeous and an excellent school that doesn’t need our good opinion to ratify it. But we were both much more attracted to Denison as a campus and Granville as a town. </p>

<p>Other schools crossed off the list based on a drive-by: Earlham, Allegheny, Bard, Grinnell (color me heartbroken; it was very hard for me to let go of that one).</p>

2369

<p>thanks doonerak-- this is very helpful!</p>

2370

<p>"Hello parents, since we cannot visit, I was wondering if you care to talk about your experiences and if after visiting with your child there was a change of heart.</p>

<p>Similarly, if you absolutely loved the place also it would be good to know.</p>

<p>Thanks for sharing."</p>

<p>I respectfully disagree with intparent, and thought doonerak did exactly as OP requested. Thanks doonerak and all the others. This is my favorite thread on CC and I hope folks keep posting both likes and dislikes. I find it fascinating reading, even with schools that won’t be on our list.</p>

<p>(I can’t wait until we start visiting, so I can post, also).</p>

1 Like
2371

<p>FWIW, I find the specificity helpful. Sometimes CC posters don’t reveal schools’ names which I find frustrating. Thanks doonerak. A great read!</p>

2372

<p>Even though the poster eventually enrolled at Dartmouth, he remained in love with Columbia:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/12392038-post18.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/12392038-post18.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I visited Columbia for an official visit (athletic recruit) a couple of months ago, so I don’t know that much, but I will share what I do know.</p>

<p>The campus is pretty small (still nice), but extremely crowded/busy with people who don’t even go to Columbia. People who work in Manhattan continuously cut across the campus to use it as a short-cut to get to wherever they’re going. And there are tons of graduate students sprawling about the place.</p>

<p>Classes are HUGE! I sat in on three classes, each with around 200 students. The professor had to use a microphone, lol. I felt a real disconnection between teacher and student, but maybe I just visited the wrong classes. A lot of focus seemed to be on graduate students, but I’m sure you’ve already heard that.</p>

<p>The dorm I stayed in was pretty crappy: the bathrooms were old/dirty, the main television was broken, and they were extremely small (again, I can only talk about the dorm I visited. I don’t know about the rest).</p>

<p>The food was awful! Haha, this may sound trivial, but I thought I should point it out. For the 3 days that I was there, I lived on granola bars and fruit. Even the students told me, “Don’t judge us by our food.” </p>

<p>I didn’t get a sense of school pride. The athletic facilities are a 20/25 minute bus ride from campus, so games don’t get packed. That said, there is a nice underground facility on campus that has gyms and stuff.</p>

<p>A lot of the students do go out into the city instead of staying on campus, but I’m assuming that’s a reason why they chose Columbia. On the floor I was staying on, pretty much every person was out on Friday night at a baseball game, restaurant, clubbing, etc. My host told me that’s pretty common.</p>

<p>In the end, I chose Dartmouth over Columbia because it seemed a better fit in terms of focus on undergrads (Teachers recognized their students by name walking around campus. The 2 professors I met even stopped me on the green to tell me that I should go to Dartmouth), opportunities, love for the school, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I love Columbia! They were my top two choices, and it was an extremely difficult decision. </p>

<p>All three of your choices are fantastic, and you should choose the one that you feel the most comfortable in. I get the sense that you will be happier at JHU (or maybe Penn?), but that’s just me lol.</p>

<p>I really hope I helped, and let us know what you decide. Good luck! and Congrats!</p>

2373

<p>Crossed off with no if’s, and’s, or but’s and couldn’t wait to get the heck out of town when we visited - Mercer. Words just can’t describe the experience.
Crossed off -
Wake Forest - it was ok. My daughter said it was beautiful, but boring.
Appalachian - Very quaint place in the middle of nowhere. My daughter was turned off by the distance to the closest shopping mall (no, not a little outlet mall, a REAL mall)</p>

2374

<p>

</p>

<p>I completely agree! Thanks to everyone for the thorough and informative trip reports.</p>

2375

<p>doonerak - Thank you for the informative post. My D and I were planning to do Middlebury and Dartmouth in a week on Good Friday. It sounds tough to fit them both in. Could you suggest what to cut? And any other tips?</p>

2376

<p>I don’t mind positive reports, as long as negative reports are included–the more negative they are, the better, and the more capricious the reason for disliking the school, the better. That’s what makes this thread fun.</p>

2377

<p>Doonerak - thanks for the great summary!</p>

<p>We are planning to go from the morning session at Middlebury to the afternoon session at Dartmouth - so I guess we better drive FAST!</p>

<p>Also, I just wanted to note that while we did visit Hamilton and Colgate on the same day, S really like Hamilton and Colgate… not so much. I hadn’t planned to add Williams to our list, but maybe we should (thought it was too much of a ‘jock’ school, and while son is active and loves sports, he is not a star varsity athlete, so I thought it might not be a good fit).</p>

<p>S is also planning to major in science so I especially like that insight into your visits. Thanks!</p>

2378

<p>Quick note on being turned off by the non-campus of, in our case, NYU. We were. We know New York City well and couldn’t imagine our son going to such a big school with no campus. He wasn’t so against, but wasn’t enthusiastic. Applied anyway, due to the specific programs, ust to see. And there he is now. Took some steps to mitigate the lack of campus (lives in Goddard residential college) and size (is in Gallatin, school of interdisciplinary study with < 1,000 students.) But overall, no complaints at all about the lack of campus and he “sees” his routes, buildings and surroundings as a campus. Plus, he loves exploring the city. I am really glad he (and we) did not cross off on the visuals alone.</p>

2379

<p>I really think that visit reports should be done here - [CampusVibe</a> - Recent College Videos, Photos, and Visit Reports](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/vibe/]CampusVibe”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/vibe/) and not on this thread. Not because they aren’t appreciated, but because you are doing the colleges and readers of this forum a disservice by not posting the information to a wider audience.</p>

<p>Posting both places would be fine, but I think the majority of the people (not just parents) look at the Vibe section when they want a visit report on a particular college. </p>

<p>The search engine for this site is not good enough IMHO to ferret out the very good visit reports that are buried on this thread.</p>

2380

<p>D turned her nose up at Montclair State, due to the architecture. (Spanish/california-- and I thought beautiful.) To her, it “seemed too far from home”. It’s very olde new england where we live…she says she needs steeple to feel at home. She’s an absolute atheist… </p>

<p>Goldilocks is decisive in comparison…though she has found one “just right”-- U of Arts in Philly. Is it because of their very intelligent theater program, or William Penn on the City Hall tower? I may never know. </p>

<p>(Yes, I’d hate to lose the ‘don’t likes’ too – and the crazy gut reasons. But I do like getting quick subjective visit reports, and since OP’s child has already gone off to college I don’t think we need to be too faithful to her intentions!)</p>