<p>My daughter is a junior at Rutgers School of Nursing - New Brunswick. She absolutely loves it! It is like a small college within a big one. The professors are fabulous. The new $10 MM nursing building is phenomenal.</p>
<p>Hated Harvey Mudd when I went there, but loved all the other Claremont schools. USC and UCLA are very city-like, but itâs definitely high end. Loved love loved loved Berkeley. UCSD is kind of boring and no school spirit. UCSB is a prototypical college town, but it is pretty awesome :p</p>
<p>jmgradon-Iâve been trying to get my history loving son to look at William and Mary but he doesnât want to go that far away from home. Do you know if a lot of kids from the school get to work at the Colonial Village?</p>
<p>Mudd isnât getting much love here. On trips this past Summer and over the Christmas break, we visited many of the same schools mentioned above, including MIT, CMU, Wesleyan, Princeton, UC-Berkeley, Caltech, Pomona, and Mudd, and Mudd was by far DSâs favorite of the group. It seemed to combine rigor and high-end quality with unpretentiousness and an abundance of humor along with a focus on the undergraduate student.</p>
<p>Crossed the following off my list after visiting:</p>
<p>Wesleyan-- male student tour guide was extremely strange, literally turning pirhouettes on the lawn while saying âwow, look at the weather!â seemed as if he might be high? info session emphasized âcreativeâ classes in which students considered the subtext of a stop sign and made an evening gown out of candy wrappers. </p>
<p>Harvard â too urban, too cutthroat a vibe. a very obnoxious prep student accompanied us on the tour, chatting about designer sunglasses and rowing crew. (probably not fair to judge on this basis, but unimpressed.)</p>
<p>Princeton â info session described the âwar on grade inflation,â the fact that junior papers and senior papers are piled on top of regular course load. just sounded like a joyless grind in which the administration is trying to punish the super-bright students for some unnamed infraction. tour guide explained how safe she felt when regularly returning from library after problem sets at 4 a.m.(!) she also admitted serious problem with non-English-speaking T.A.'s in several classes, and i had read this complaint online.</p>
<p>Bowdoin â saw some male students harrassing another male student during our visit. very alpha male preppy jock feeling to this school. (found out later they recruit heavily for football and hockey teams and this made sense to me.) science professor never showed for appointment i had made in advance and emailed me afterwards saying he had been too busy to make the effort.</p>
<p>Yale â tour guide was the third person to tell me they had matriculated with the intention of being a science major and then been âblown out of the waterâ by the intro science classes. all three ended up as history majors, hoping for careers in academia. left too many questions in my mind about the support the institution is giving its students.</p>
<p>i ended up applying to my first choice ED, a small LAC, with great mentoring from professors, in sunny California. iâll be matriculating to Pomona College next fall!!! :)</p>
<p>mncollegemom:
Itâs officially known as Colonial Williamsburg. Some W&M kids do get jobs there - in the retail shops, restaurants, living history exhibits, and CW offices. Thereâs a fairly active partnership between the College and CW [William</a> & Mary - National Institute of American History & Democracy](<a href=âhttp://www.wm.edu/as/niahd/]Williamâ>National Institute of American History & Democracy | William & Mary) , though I donât think thereâs an official pipeline for jobs for students.</p>
<p>More on-topic - one school youngest d ruled out after visiting was the University of Mary Washington, because she couldnât abide the tour guide. Who had rolled her eyes at me for asking an apparently stupid question. So that was a nice mother-daughter bonding event. But itâs an excellent school, very similar in feel to WM, that would have suited d3 well.</p>
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<p>American University - a bit big, and a nondescript campus</p>
<p>Miami of Ohio - a bit big, and on the preppy/Greek side</p>
<p>Ohio Wesleyan - students seemed to be more motivated to get out of work than to actually do something. Also, we saw a roach in the dorms.</p>
<p>All listed below were considered for musical theater/theater programs, but ultimately did not appeal for various reasons after a visit - </p>
<p>Baldwin-Wallace, Berea, OH - wonderful faculty, too small, logistics
The Hartt School @ University of Hartford - faculty/student comments left us thinking why would anyone want to come here, not impressed at all
Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA - lovely campus and facilities, logistics, overall cost for OOS student
Shenandoah Conservatory, Winchester, VA - fantastic program and faculty here!, campus/student body too small, logistics</p>
<p>Crossed off:</p>
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<p>Pleasantly surprised:</p>
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<br>
<p>GrinnellâDS hated it. The admissions staff was rude, his tour guide spent more time texting his friends than talking to DS and he couldnât answer any questions about DSâs major (math-not like that is an unusual major). Crossed that one off very quickly.</p>
<p>Tellmenowâwe get a ton of mailings from Bennington. The photos of the campus are amazing! No idea if the school is any good or not but the photos make me want to live there :).</p>
<p>Didnât like:</p>
<p>Columbia- He was completely bored by the professor during an engineering discovery day. Underwhelmed by the entire visit.</p>
<p>University of Pittsburgh-As beautiful as it is, within a great little city, he didnât think the campus was defined enough. It was this college visit that helped him realize he wanted a smaller school and campus. It just didnât feel like a good fit.
Although he loved exploring the Cathedral of Learning. </p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon-Too many âturnpike treesâ aka big weeds in parts of the campus. Nobody was smiling and many students were walking around the campus alone. It was a little too intense and angry.</p>
<p>SUNY Binghamton⊠Engineering was limited and unimpressive to me and my dad</p>
<p>Wow - the crossed off list is large!<br>
Every school in California we looked at (UCSD, Pepperdine, UCLA, USC, Occidental, CalTech, Berkeley and Stanford). She had issues with how the state runs itself and wanted no part of it.</p>
<p>Also, because they were too isolated, Colgate and Williams. </p>
<p>Mount Holyoke was too⊠just not right. </p>
<p>Hated the campuses of Columbia and Penn likely b/c she didnât like the big cities surrounding them. Liked UT-Austin but too big.</p>
<p>I went to UC Santa Cruz for one quarter, that was it. Better experience being had at CC at home. Only freshmen for the most part on campus; weekends are deserted. the 60âs architecture did nothing for me. Bummer, because I loved the town and surroundings of campus (forest). Although many seem to forget that it takes a while to get into town via the bus, which is one of the only ways to do anything. Weather is often beautiful, and a nice blend of seasons without being too extreme. I was not impressed with my first orientation where I remember them saying âCongratulations, you have 4 years and one quarter to be able to graduateâ. </p>
<p>I was always enamored with the idea of attending school in a large city, however a more rural setting seems to appeal to me more and moreâŠ</p>
<p>NYU: This was at the top of the list for YEARS. Eventually decided I wanted a campus. </p>
<p>Fordham: Loved the gothic architecture. Didnât love the walk from the train to the school. Seemed like an NYU back up. </p>
<p>Cal Poly SLO: never got the intimate feeling. Love SLO and the central coast. too concrete-y and dry feeling. Know many who go there who enjoy it, but impacted classes/programs are a major issue. </p>
<p>USC: spent two summers there in a high school summer program, brother is an alum. He absolutely loved it, I was indifferent and as a female didnât care for the surrounding environment. football games are fun. </p>
<p>UMiami: gorgeous. too HUMID. too party-oriented. </p>
<p>UCLA: for a big school, I really liked it. love the classic architecture</p>
<p>Westmont: too religious.</p>
<p>UCSB: should really be called UC Goleta. It is not in a great âcollege townâ; it is in a âsuburbâ area surrounding SB. SB is nice, but at least 10 miles away and really inconvenient without a car. Closest and âcheapestâ housing is in IV which is disgusting, over crowded and loud. However, I know many people who attend/have attended and have great experiences with great degrees. Donât be fooled thinking it is in the heart of Santa Barbara, thatâs SBCC 
</p>
<p>UHawaii @ Manoa: beautiful, tropical. too concrete-y for me. part of the WUE, so it seems to be a great option for some. could never be âstuckâ on an island. </p>
<p>Went to Mass to visit Mt Holyoke and Smith. Had considered applying to Wellesley and Barnard before, but without visiting mentally crossed them off my list. Wellesley seems too suburban for me (as we drove out from Boston to the West of the state and stopped in a âsuburbanâ town I realized that wouldnât gel well with me). Barnard would have been too much in a city for me, at the end of the day I want to have experiences on my own campus. </p>
<p>Mount Holyoke: Was initially a little thrown off, because the only people I saw on campus were a group of high school latin students attending a conference. After the interview, the awkward interaction started to subside and it seemed very intimate and beautiful. Very personalized.</p>
<p>Smith: It was an interesting contrast attending the day after Mt. Holyoke. Both were beautiful and comfortable, however Smith seemed to carry an air of prestige. Spotted males on campus (to my surprise). Did not like the library.</p>
<p>Ahh, the rare spotted male. You sure they were male?</p>
<p>^Hahaahaa! So funny. :)</p>
<p>SteveMA- itâs even more gorgeous in person than it is in those pictures! I applied to it as a safety and I got in with a hefty scholarship. It seems like a good school, not as prestigious as some, but full of open, free thinking, and passionate students</p>
<p>The one we really got a surprise negative vibe from was Sarah Lawrence. We drove up there expecting to love it and I agree with the earlier post, a bunch of rich kids trying to look urban outfitters-ish. my S just got this sense from our tour guide that it was a place for the not so serious and awfully rich to play and cavort. The other one was Davidson, he tried, really tried to like it but it just felt like prestige and finery, even with a great tour guide the second time aroundâŠ</p>
<p>Bard, HAmpshire, Amherst</p>
<p>University of Miami</p>