<p>Zippyzo - What was wrong with Harvey Mudd? Did you look at any of the other Claremont colleges?</p>
<p>Boston CollegeâŠreligious aspect didnât fit with our Protestant/lapsed Catholic familyâŠalthough the tour guide went to great lengths to say that theyâre very open minded about other religionsâŠ</p>
<p>My daughter was really unsure of what she was looking for in a school. We started late on visits, which caused her to maybe âover-applyâ just to keep her options open. As a Wisconsonite, she wanted to stay within a half days drive of home - so WI, Northern IL, IA, and MN.</p>
<p>She applied to our top two state Uâs , being Madison (where she is now) and LaCross (in case she did not make Madison) and about 10 smallish LACs. After getting Acceptance letters and FA offers back, she visited several of the LACâs that offered good FA packages and re-visited UW Madison -again.</p>
<p>Her original thoughts on UW-M were that is was big, hilly, spread out, and a bit intimidating. But, on each visit that got to be more and more indepth, she seemed to like it more, and we did too.</p>
<p>As for the LACâs, she did not get accepted to Carleton, Grinnel, or MacAllistor, so those were off the list. Poor FA offers from Lawrence, Beloit, and a couple others in the Twin Cities area so they were off the list. </p>
<p>The LACâs that she did seem to like were St Olaf and Coe College in IA. </p>
<p>Coe is tiny, not a great location, a pushing her half day drive limit. What DID draw her is that they have one of the best Creative Writing programs in the country, with string ties to the Iowa Writers Workshop, with writing being one of her main interest. They also offered her, as a 3.9 GPA, 28 ACT and great writing skills, a package that would have only cost her about 6-7K out of pocket per year - so about a 25K of grants and scholarships. This could be a great choice for a top student who really need a close to full ride. Good rates of kids going on to Grad School, getting PHDâs, etcâŠ</p>
<p>St Olaf we all LOVED. It is an incredible setting, although a bit rural (Carleton is in the same great little town of Northfield MI). Beautiful architecture, top notch new science labs, great art department, etc. Also a very interesting philosophy of having their Chapel, Dining/Commons, and top notch Library and connected to eachother in the heart of the campus - with the symbolic meaning of connecting the 'mind, body, and soul." As someone else mentioned, they also mostly leave backpacks laying around in the open at lunch - the honesty/trust thing seemed very evident. They also have a great music program, one of the highest numbers of Rhodes Scholars, PHD placements and similar. Also one of the highest Study Abroad rates. Professors were great too. I would feel VERY safe having my daughter go here, especially if (not my case though) my kid needed lots of direction, watching over, etc. Side note, they are a âdryâ campus - meaning no alcohol. The vast majority of kids are living on campus. </p>
<p>I am not sure WHY she crossed St Olaf off. It was clearly down to UW-M or St Olaf for her. On the way home (she does not remember saying this) during our 5 hour drive, she said, to paraphrase, âIt (St Olaf) is just too perfectâ. When I asked her to elaborate she more of less said âeverything is PERFECT, the buildings, the trees, the view, etc⊠And the people are all perfect tooâ meaning beautiful, not too many âout of norm onesâ etc⊠She loves social diversity and I think did not see enough of it there maybe. </p>
<p>And UW Madison is less than an hour away, vs 5 for St Olaf. As said, âUW is only and hour away, but it IS an hour awayâ. Just right in her eyes I think. And UW is HUGELY diverse racially and economical background wise too, which she loves.</p>
<p>djd</p>
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<p>Love the beautiful people at St. Olaf comment. When I was in college in Iowa, I always thought the people of Minnesota were the most attractive I had seenâŠ</p>
<p>Most interesting thread on cc. Some of of my kidâs impressions:</p>
<p>West:</p>
<p>UCSD - hated the Brutalist architecture passionately; off list</p>
<p>UCLA - campus felt big, beautiful, somewhat intimidating, feels like a reach; still on list</p>
<p>USC - campus stunningly beautiful, students stunningly beautiful, a bit worried about the seemingly strong frat vibe; still on list</p>
<p>UCSB - expected to love it, was underwhelmed; off list</p>
<p>UCSC - loved it. Fascinating student life, definitely not another cookie cutter campus, âchillâ information session. Went from âmight as well check it outâ to âIâd be envious if I knew one of my HS friends went here.â On list.</p>
<p>Midwest:</p>
<p>Northwestern - guides were great, every student seemed friendly and thrilled to be there, sat in on an interesting class; but: did not like Evanston (no I have no clue why however it was January) or the architecture; off list</p>
<p>East:</p>
<p>UNCW - did not want to get out of the car, hated the color of the bricks. Forced to attend information session anyway; off list</p>
<p>UGA - loved it from the campus to the town, tour guides were sensational; on list</p>
<p>My parents arenât on CC, so Iâll speak for myself 
these are schools I crossed off my list after visiting:</p>
<p>-Johns Hopkins: despite being a great school, the schoolâs area didnât seem to appealing to live or study in.</p>
<p>-Northeastern: I love Boston for its social life, so I thought I was going to apply to northeastern for sure⊠Donât know, now I just canât picture myself at a place with such boring architecture and such plain walls (cafeteria)</p>
<p>There were police, drugs, and alcohol at Harvey Mudd. And the campus is not very attractive.</p>
<p>Visited with tours: USC, UCLA, UCSD, Chapman, Northwestern, NYU. Visited without tour: LMU.</p>
<p>Off list Chapman, UCLA and UCSD.</p>
<p>Went with S2 during summer to:</p>
<p>USC - Great Campus Vibe, on list
Santa Clara - Good all rounder for us, on list
UCLA - too big? Son liked it
UCSC - Did not like the âruralâ feel - did not tour
UCSD - Mixed feeling
UCSB - Not sure
Pitzer - Liked it somewhat
LMU - Eye Candy, will apply
Oxy - No</p>
<p>Looking for Physics/CS/Engineering in CA.</p>
<p>pixeljig,
did you check out Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo ??</p>
<p>[Cal</a> Poly Engineering Top-Ranked - Cal Poly](<a href=âhttp://ceng.calpoly.edu/articles/cal-poly-engineering-top-ranked/]Calâ>http://ceng.calpoly.edu/articles/cal-poly-engineering-top-ranked/)</p>
<p><a href=âhttp://ceng.calpoly.edu/academic/departments/[/url]â>http://ceng.calpoly.edu/academic/departments/</a></p>
<p>Pixeljig, what was wrong with Oxy?</p>
<p>Menloparkmom, oops! yes we did visit Cal Poly Slo and liked it somewhat, but dinât have time for a tour. </p>
<p>Londondad, nothing was wrong with Oxy - I liked it, but son did not think it was a good fit. Too âprettyâ? The physics major is tiny there, no Engineering. Too much focus on writing that scared him off I think.</p>
<p>Okay, thanks</p>
<p>Amherst. Just an all -around negative experience. Visited on a Sunday. The tour guide did his best, but the second tour guide did not show up. There was a very large group of visitors and it became difficult to hear what the guide was saying. Most buildings were locked (including the library?) and could not be entered. No buildings were open when we arrived and several families had to squeeze through gym turnstiles to use the restroom. Did not feel very welcoming. The town was very small, not impressive, food at the place we ate lunch was not impressive and the service was very slow, and the college and town are in the middle of nowhere. </p>
<p>Tufts. Again the tour guide was fine. The school just did not come across as having any particular character or unique identity. There are too many required general curriculum courses and D thought it felt like a big high school.</p>
<p>I commented briefly earlier on this thread about how DS lost interest in Princeton because of a visit this summer, though I did not provide much detail and context. The problem appeared to stem from the experience the day before at MIT with a tour guide who was a true live wire, a young man full of energy and enthusiasm and with a charm and polished manner we had not expected to find at the premier engineering school in the world. The contrast with the Princeton tour guide, who though quite bright gave an exceedingly dull and scripted performance, could not have been greater. It was particularly difficult when he droned on and on about the hours and days of research he had done, through every kind of holiday break, at the library in various liberal arts subjects, which DS could not have been less interested in. And Princeton did not appear to have anything like the Infinite Corridor, which seemed to be a source of unbounded energy. That is why I thought DSâs impression was strongly influenced by the timing of the visit.</p>
<p>Summary of summer trip:</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon: Expected to like it, did like it, but not very excited about it.<br>
Cornell: Expected to like it, did like it, but reservations remained about weather and size.
MIT: Expected to love it, did love it, but small reservation was born â âIt is sooo urban!â
Princeton: Expected to like it, but did not like it, probably because of contrast to MIT, particularly the tour guides and the Infinite Corridor.
Williams: Expected not to like it, but absolutely loved it, in significant part because of the tutorials but also the size and environs, and it moved to the top of the list.</p>
<p>University of Chicago. The info session was interesting and informative. The tour guide, while earnest and informative, did nothing to make UChicago come to life for us â other than telling us repeatedly about the number of reseach opportunities available. We left with absolutely no problem believing that UChicago was âwhere fun goes to die.â Like austinareadad who had a negative experience at Princeton after a positive experience at MIT, we had visited another school (Northwestern) the previous day where all aspects of our visit were overwhelmingly positive.</p>
<p>Student is crossing off Clark UâŠ</p>
<p>The gender neutral housingâŠsounds like too much dramaâŠ
couples of all stripes can room together
and the whole ânot a genderâ, âwhatâ gender, mixed gender, âI donât identify with genderâ etc etc etc</p>
<p>eliminated the schoolâŠ</p>
<p>Iâd probably feel the same, fogfog-- so when D said to me at dinner, âgender is such a superficial thing,â â well, I guess I should have suggested Clark!</p>
<p>My son crossed Clark off, too. Too much âsave the worldâ vibe. I, OTOH, really liked it.</p>
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<p>Visited Washington University in St. Louis in the summer of 10. Itâs the only school we crossed off after visiting. We left with the impression that the school was a little âtoo eagerâ to be respected as a great (i.e. top tier) school.</p>