<p>UCSD with S1. He really disliked the architecture and sprawl. Did not “like” their interpretation of the 6 colleges and the eucalyptus was in full stink that day which really turned him off. He said even if the campus were totally different the smell alone would keep it off any list.</p>
<p>momofthreeboys, it is so funny the things that we all love and hate. I am from CA so the smell of eucalyptus is wonderful to me. I now live in the east coast and every summer there are these obnoxious cicadas that chirp all day and nite that make me nuts. But I was once talking to someone from this area who had lived in England for 5 years and so very much missed the sound of those cicadas every summer.</p>
<p>Vvstalia have a recent graduate from BU and I really wished he chose Emerson. There is a real energy at Emerson and if a kid is comfortable REALLY living in the city it seemed great. Just did not feel BU, but have to say that our son did have 2 fantastic study abroad internships.</p>
<p>To TheGFC: You sound as if you are giving Columbia, Penn and Princeton a “pass” for their horrid tour but are not extending the same to UNC-Chapel Hill. My husband and I are Carolina alums and as you might surmise from my screen name, many others in our family have also attended. So, we know the school well. Had we based our opinion of the campus on the tour, our son, now a Tar Heel Sophomore, would have never applied! </p>
<p>Our tour was packed, it was unseasonably warm, the student tour guide was late and his attitude was along the lines of, “Well, you know how great we are so let’s just get this over with and get back to the air conditioning.” My husband and I were shaking our heads at how pathetic the whole experience was. My son already knew he wanted to go there and only attended the tour at our insistence so of course the whole day was a complete waste of time, though I’m still remembering fondly the beer I sucked down at Spanky’s just after… those made the whole thing a bit more palatable. :)</p>
<p>Since you came in from OOS it was doubly pathetic that you did not have a good tour so, as a Native and Alum, I apologize. However, I humbly submit that you consider the following: UNC-Chapel Hill is not a school that has to worry about recruiting and therefore any tour is going to be hit or miss depending upon which student volunteer guide you draw, as it was at the other Desirable schools you visited.</p>
<p>Yes, the first rule of college admissions - look beyond the personality of the tour guide. For that matter,look beyond the personality of the entire admissions staff - after you are accepted, you will never deal with them again as a student at that college.</p>
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<p>My one issue with Emerson is that what you can study is a bit limited. And I think Emerson is a great school and I know a lot of happy Emerson grads including two family members who are working in their fields. Both of them, however, knew exactly what they wanted to study down to a very specific niche in communication or theater arts. For someone who’s not rock-solid about wanting to study something related to one of those things, I’m not sure I’d recommend it. </p>
<p>One “take off the list” school for me was Hobart and William Smith. I know it’s a good school, but everybody we interacted with there just gave a terrible impression. Our tour guide was a local kid who said he applied there because he forgot to apply to any colleges his senior year and then realized he could still apply to HWS. He also told us that he hadn’t gone to the library at all to study his first semester and that hadn’t worked out great for him, so maybe stopping in there once in a while would be a good idea (this was his answer when asked if he had advice for prospective students).</p>
<p>Identical experience at UNC – very impersonal, “we don’t care if you apply here” atmosphere pervaded all aspects of the visit experience. D came away thinking that the place was a huge bureaucracy and thought that the campus was too large after experiencing the hike from the parking garage to the admissions office. Couldn’t leave fast enough. We’ve done other large state university tours and it doesn’t have to be this way. (See, for example, the wonderful personalized experiences that the University of Alabama Honors College creates for interested students.) Went to Duke after UNC and seriously contemplated the “Friends Don’t Let Friends Go to UNC” t-shirt. Though it might seem unfair to cut a school from the application list based on a tour experience, you have to cut the list somehow and in all honesty our experience did seem to reflect a serious overall negative of attending – the fact that you would just be one of 20,000+ students who have to navigate an administrative culture that feels you as the student are lucky to be there and don’t have a right to expect much of them as a result.</p>
<p>When we toured UNC with D2 we had the most fantastic tour leader! She was charismatic, smart, cute, energetic—a great spokesperson for the school. We had never been there before and DH and I were expecting a very special place. We didn’t see it. No prettier than other campuses. Nothing special. But D2 really liked it and picked up a vibe that eluded DH and I. In any event, D2 didnt get in. She has lots of other great choices. There is a sting to rejection, but, hey, that’s life.</p>
<p>Really interesting perspectives</p>
<p>For my D</p>
<p>West Point - loved before visit enthusiastically applied after- Beat Navy!
WashU - wasn’t sure what to expect, great tour, great information, smart and funky vibe. She really liked that every student we spoke to was studying across disciplines. enthusiastically applied
Yale- the libraries were the beginning and the end- applied SCEA
Chicago- loved everything, including emphasis on Core- Applied- most effort into App
Harvard- what’s not to like? But didn’t love- tourism threw us for a loop. - still applied
Princeton- liked but didn’t click- came off the list
UVA- both of us are history geeks and liked so much but some things academic and some policies turned her off- came off the list
UNC - last minute visit, we were tired, it was raining, and she loved every bit of it. Enthusuastic applicant</p>
<p>Navy has won the last 11 years in a row. Just saying…</p>
<p>It’s more than football, Iron Maiden! Army has not won since my hubby retired. He goes to the game every year.</p>
<p>Now, back on track.</p>
<p>The only school my son could not stand was Tufts. He really felt a negative vibe- my wife and I thought it was a nice place, but he just wanted to leave. And we totally respect his decision.</p>
<p>We’ve been to dozens of colleges and haven’t yet taken an official tour. I can read a map and don’t need a hungover backward-walking misfit in weird shoes who’s obsessed with basketball/football/business/whatever poisoning the well.</p>
<p>How many of these stories do you folks need to hear of ONE or TWO people ruining the image of what is probably a perfectly fine college before you realize these tours just aren’t worth it? The ultimate has to be the person who wrote off MIT because 2 people were rude. MIT…can we all agree that maybe MIT is a pretty good school? That it has a few professors that know their butts from a hole in the ground? That it’s done a decent job of educating people lately? So why the heck would you put yourself in a position of letting TWO PEOPLE ruin its image for you?</p>
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<p>I can see two reasons. </p>
<p>The first? Because It’s better than saying “I don’t think I can get in” or “I know we couldn’t afford it” as a reason for scratching it from the list.</p>
<p>The second? Because there are several colleges that are as good and maybe the student just fits in with one (or more) of those better. Perhaps they prefer CalTech vs MIT. Who knows? I doubt anyone with MIT stats and finances will suddenly decide to go to local cc simply because “everyone was friendly to me there.”</p>
<p>I fully understand cutting schools from the list for pretty much any reason as many have LONG lists of equally good schools (“good” defined by getting a decent education for what one wants) and sometimes one just gets down to the nitty gritty. This happens for applications as well. No one needs to be applying to 20 schools IMO even if there are 20+ “good” ones out there for any student. When one is visiting schools, the school is in the position of selling itself to the student. It’s not all that unlike relocating for a job. Who wants to relocate to a job where they feel like they don’t fit in - esp when there are oodles of other options (like in the college app case)? Some might, but most don’t.</p>
<p>What I don’t understand isn’t on this thread… it’s those who are swayed into thinking a school is good because they have a top football team, they sent them a T shirt, they have the best dorms or landscaping (as a primary consideration), or they rolled out the red carpet for Johnny/Jill/parents, and they never really look below the surface to see if the school is as top notch as they later proclaim for their desired major (and student stats, etc). I live in an area where many list “good” schools based upon the above, but if you ask them about classes or profs or research options you get blank stares. If one is merely going to college for the piece of paper and “the experience,” then I suppose that’s fine, but if one also wants the best education they can get (and afford), there should be a nice mix between academics and fit. Both are important. If one only cares about the academics, then one needn’t even visit - just look for the best choice on paper. I prefer both.</p>
<p>Oivoiv: I guess you were referring to me about MIT. Yes, we know MIT is a great school. It is one of the top schools that all the students at my DS’ HS aspire to. DS attends a highly competitive HS (nationally ranked as #1 and #2 for the past few years). For his college experience, he didn’t feel the need to be in a similar atmosphere. The tour guide and adcom just reinforced what he thought MIT would be like. Perhaps I should have explained it better but his decision to not apply was confirmed after the visit.</p>
<p>MD MOM: Army hasn’t won since hubby retired too!!! Maybe our husbands shouldn’t have retired!</p>
<p>MTnest,</p>
<p>My son wanted Caltech/MIT/CMU so he could find ‘his people’. These tech schools were also more open to a junior applying. Had he attended TJ or Stuy , he might have been burnt out and wanted a change. Final decision was made after touring in April.</p>
<p>I think oivoiv makes some valid points. Still, we are talking about 17 year olds. Since most of the kids in my area go to in-state schools, they do think about distance from home, dorms (the flagship has an Honors dorm), the more local is near Orlando and has good internships in entertainment and hospitality majors, plus good housing, etc.</p>
<p>Years later, when the worm applied for grad school, his criteria showed the increased maturity. He looked for depth in his field, personalities of principal advisers, quality of labs, distance from main campus, and if the grad students seemed to have fun when off. There were other aspects to, but too many to list. My point is, he could articulate the trees from the forest, in a way I wouldn’t have expected his younger self to do.</p>
<p>charlieschm–I disagree. I can look past one or two people but when it’s and entire staff/department like that, ESPECIALLY your prime sales force, something is wrong with the system. In all of the 30+ colleges we have visited over the years, however, we only came across 2 schools that really had departmentwide issues like that though.</p>
<p>Put it this way, if you were a business owner and dealt with a company that consistently provided poor sales support, would you not look elsewhere?</p>
<p>Interesting thoughts…still read too much about how the tour guide was awful so suddenly its off the list. My D wasn’t strongly considering U of Michigan but we went. The tour guide was just a joke - used the tour as a way to practice his theatrical skills - it was all about him, him, him…</p>
<p>While we couldn’t stand that aspect my D loved the school. She loved the campus, the neat town of AA and the overall vibe. We did the research on the academics, what she is interested in studying, etc. and it all fit.</p>
<p>I guess I’m just saying that while a bad tour (or guide) can be very annoying, it shouldn’t be that difficult to look past that and get the answers you need. Most schools shouldn’t be judged on a handful of people.</p>
<p>bookworm: four years at his HS has given him a vision of what he wants for his college experience. He might end up at UVA (along with 100+ of his classmates) or another school. We are waiting for all the decisions to come in and we will make visits to his top 3. He applied to enough schools to give him a choice. </p>
<p>The guide & adcom reinforced what he thought MIT would be like so it was struck from the list. It might have been a positive selling point if DS did not attend the HS he is at. </p>
<p>Who the school puts in front of the student/parents is important so I wonder why some schools put forth reps. who are not good at selling their school.</p>