<p>kttmom - A typical Williams student tends to be active (everyone seems to be in shape) but only a few are star athletes. It’s much like Dartmouth without the frats though D had the same impression of Amherst as Doonerak’s D and painted Dartmouth with the same brush. She is at Williams (science major) though loved Wesleyan as well.</p>
<p>One reason I like college reports on general thread is I can compare one person’s perspective on various colleges. It helps me to decide if I would agree in general.</p>
<p>kittmom - Drive fast from Middlebury to Dartmouth is what we have to do, too.</p>
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<p>Which is why I suggested duplicate posting. A trip report with several schools is nice, but the individual school reports can very easily be put up in the school vibe section.</p>
<p>^^^^^^
Good idea, kathiep! The best of both worlds. When checking on some future school prospects in the vibe section, I noticed that some of the schools hadn’t had any trip reports newer than 2 years. It would be nice to get more updated reports there, also.</p>
<p>Keep in mind the thread’s title- colleges crossed off the list after visiting. Should be a fun, head shaker thread for parents- even those long past this stage.</p>
<p>kittmom,</p>
<p>For the Middlebury-Dartmouth day, we stayed the night before in Middlebury because D1 was more interested in it and wanted to see if the small town vibe was ok. Its a pain though, because we had to drive past Dartmouth from Bowdoin to Midd, do the tour at Midd the next day and then drive back to dartmouth. The tour at Midd went on and on and we actually dropped out about 10 minutes early- our tour was easily 1:45 long. I think we could have bagged the tour a few minutes earlier (we missed very little), driven a bit faster and made the whole info session at Dartmouth. We could have attended the Dartmouth info session, but D1 didn’t want to make a grand entrance, so we just waited till the tour started at 2:15. </p>
<p>Summary: you can probably make both info sessions and tours at both places. I wouldn’t recommend the reverse though because the AM Dartmouth info session starts at 10:30 and the tour is at 11:15- hard to get to Middlebury for its tour- maybe someone else tried that and knows. </p>
<p>Also recommend the pizza at American Flatbread in the Marbleworks at Middlebury, good pizza great desserts.</p>
<p>Actually, the OP wanted both- colleges crossed off and colleges particularly liked- and why. IMO the best of the many posts in this forum (I have read them all) do both.</p>
<p>Of all the top colleges in the country, the one that seems to get the fewest good reviews on collegeconfidential is Amherst. Is there anybody out there who has a good opinion of Amherst?</p>
<p>My S, who’s a junior, and I took a good look at Amherst over spring break. Luckily, we met one of the tour guides on the way to the Admissions Office for our tour. Based on the great info we got from her and from the tour we went on (we went with the other guide to get a different perspective), we walked away with a favorable impression of the school. For now, it’s still on his list. </p>
<p>On the other hand, my S couldn’t see himself going to any of the schools we visited in Philly, including UPenn, Swarthmore and Haverford.</p>
<p>D’s BFF is at Amherst and loves it. It is fitting with D at Williams as, since they live across the street and grew up together, they have a sibling like rivalry. For some reason, both Dartmouth and Amherst came off the list based on first impressions. She enjoyed her extended snowed in visit with BFF but was happy to get back to her Berkshire “home.”</p>
<p>pcaz - Care to elaborate why?</p>
<p>To expand on my earlier post, S loved the Amherst campus, the 5-college consortium and the school’s open curriculum. He felt very comfortable there and liked it even better than Vassar, which was an early favorite (and still on his list).</p>
<p>As for why he took the Philly schools off his list, it was more a gut feeling than anything else. He said he just couldn’t picture himself as a student at any of them. It wasn’t about not liking them; it was more about the fit and the vibe he got from each campus.</p>
<p>We took our son to see it and my husband said, “This looks like a nice little prep school” which frosted me because my alma mater only had 1200 students, but our son said the weather was a no-go.</p>
<p>
I (having gone to a girl’s boarding school) had that reaction to a lot of small colleges. My kids didn’t cotton to small colleges for different reasons - they’d gone to a large high school and felt like it would be too confining. I tried to remind them that the college population is more homogeneous than high school - particularly in the sense of having engaged students (at least at the schools they were looking at), but they couldn’t get past the size issue - especially the younger one.</p>
<p>^^^yup. S2 was originally interested in LACs, but as time went on, he realized he wanted a larger school (but not a huge one) with more resources and grad opportunities.</p>
<p>Southern Illinois University. My son connected with the music people there, but the music program is tiny compared to the rest of the school, the campus felt “blah”, and Carbondale (the city) felt VERY blah. It seemed like uffalo Wild Wings was wear students hung out, and that’s just wrong for a college town.</p>
<p>I am interested in The Catholic University of America. However, my family and I never had the time to visit the campus. I was kind of curious to know what people thought of the campus, surrounding area, academic rigor, and the staff. </p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>allegheny - depressing surrounding area, spoke to students who “wished they could leave”</p>
<p>bard - we bailed after 10mins of the tour - bad vibe. pretty location though.</p>
<p>ended up LOVING the vibe at college of wooster – anyone else 1) heard of it, 2) have a kid who attended, or 3) any feedback/impressions regarding this lovely school?</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>^^^Have you read about Wooster in CTCL? I’ve heard truly wonderful things about it, including from a past president of NACAC. (It was my top choice for DS#1, although he ended up at a similar school nearby.)</p>