<p>My daughter, wife & I had the opportunity to walk around Northwestern. My daughter commented that the female students all talked like Dalia from Suburgatory. After that, we talked to as many girls as we could. She was right.</p>
<p>I had to google Suburgatory to see what you meant, youtube pulls through again. Iâm still laughing, thanks for expanding my horizons.</p>
<p>Terrific trip reports, Haspot (can we all call you this now?) 
</p>
<p>I never knew there was more than one Texas A & M, so thanks for that. Has your daughter heard back? Where is she attending?</p>
<p>@Agentninetynine (love your name btw): DD has heard back but has not decided yet. I guess she can wait until May 1, but housing will get dicey so we might do a couple housing deposits soon & plan on losing one.</p>
<p>This is the question we try to ask every tour guide. We have gotten amazing info/insights this way: âWhat were your second and third choices for schools and why did (the college we are touring) win out?â</p>
<p>In addition to asking the tour guide haspotentialâs question (âWhat other schools did you apply to, and why did you pick this one?â), my daughter also polled a few random students at the student union of a couple of schools (not working for admissions) and asked them, âIf you had it to do all over again, would you still have picked this school or chosen to go somewhere else?â Their responses were pretty eye-opening.</p>
<p>Visits that did not impress:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Carleton, despite the tour guide basically turning the entire event into a comedy slash performance art triumph while being perfectly informative (heâll be starring in College Tour: The Musical when it hits Broadway), the effect was slightly creepy, compounded by horrible info session. S came away thinking everyone would make fun of him â theyâd come up with some reason.</p></li>
<li><p>Hampshire, info session was thought-provoking, facilities cool, and tour guide very nice, but too many posters for âactivistâ this or that pushed S over the edge</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Interesting reaction to Carleton, and it just goes to show that kids, families, and tours are all different. My kid loved the place and probably would have applied there ED II, if he had got to that point. When we toured, the long-time dean of admissions did the info session himself, and I found him quite informative and Midwestern-self-effacing. (He spent about five minutes describing all the reasons why folks from the coasts might NOT apply â âwe can guarantee you at least one thirty-below experienceâ and âon some days when the wind turns around from the southeast, youâll notice that thereâs a feed lot about three miles away from campus.â And then, of course, pivoted into a pitch-perfect sales job.) </p>
<p>The place I expected my kid to love that just didnât work for him was Tufts. He found the campus dingy and disjointed, and it probably didnât help that five other kids from his HS happened to be there for the same tour/info session even though we live about 400 miles away.</p>
<p>
I agree. Is it bad to want to plan our empty nest/retired trips around colleges we want to tour?</p>
<p>JC40, those are excellent questions! Haspotential, your question is great, too!</p>
<p>I think we are finished with tours, but if the situation presents itself, we will ask those questions. Thanks for the ideas.</p>
<p>Just chiming in on the NYU discussion from a couple pages back. D is a first-year and loves it. She knew as soon as we visited that it was the place for her. (which broke my heart just a little bit, because I knew my beloved alma mater, a Midwestern LAC, was toast :()
She loves being in the heart of the city, is not put off by the lack of campus and was thrilled to discover the Trader Joeâs next to her dorm and the kitchen in her suite. Last fall she complained a little that it takes longer to make friends because, other than the people on your floor, you donât run into the same people frequently, a drawback of any large school. But sheâs completely over that now.</p>
<p>For sure, NYU would not have been my choice but Iâm not the one in college ;)</p>
<p>D found St. Maryâs of California and University of Puget Sound âtoo perfectâ - she was completely uninterested. She also thought they talked too much about writing papers.
UPS would have been my 1st choice (aesthetically)</p>
<p>University of San Francisco - âtoo many hillsâ and not enough of a campus feel</p>
<p>My daughter visited Eckerd, one of the Colleges That Change Lives, in St. Petersburg, FL when she was vacationing with a friend and friendâs family. Although she said the campus is beautiful, she crossed it off her list because students go to class in bare feet.</p>
<p>Where did she end up AlisonRick? ( I like UPS but it was " too close")</p>
<p>My D is also very happy at NYU. Itâs not for everyone (PRJ, it wouldnât have been for me either), but when it is the right fitâit is the right fit. My D, a freshman, is on her third internship and is planning on spending her second full summer in NYC. She is taking advantage of everything that NYC has to offer, and while we miss her and donât love being a time zone away, we are thrilled that she landed where she belongs. </p>
<p>I attended UGA (was there in the mid-late 1980s) and I loved pretty much every minute of my college experience. Having said that, my kids, even though they have heard all about the University of Georgia since birth, probably wouldnât do as well there. Itâs all about fit.</p>
<p>Still laughing about the Dahlias on the Nortwestern Campus. Better than Heathers, though! I highly recommend Suburgatory viewing for those unfamiliar. DD and I both found Santa Clara to be a little too perfect. A bit Martha Stewart and Stepfordville.</p>
<p>emeraldkity4 - she ended up at Seattle U - loves the urban environment and itâs such a lively place, both downtown and Capitol Hill (and she is far from being a hipster or edgy). I think she somewhat misses the school spirit aspect that some colleges have (with sports), but there are other on-campus activities. She chose SU for the nursing program and is very happy.</p>
<p>gradygrad - D2 didnât have a positive feeling about SCU either, I wonder if that^ was the reason. She didnât think it seemed very energetic or fun.
Weâre going for a second visit.</p>
<p>Seattle U does have a good nursing program, and Seattle may be more suited for students ( things to do) than Tacoma.
I hope you got a chance to tour the chapel.
:)</p>
<p>Lemoyne College - party school and drinking culture. Students did not seem very serious about academics and told us not much to do on campus, so people drink or go home on weekends. Very disappointing overnight.</p>