<p>Summer=80 days? 31 colleges? Did you actually tour and do an info session at them all or just walk by?</p>
<p>This thread is an entertaining read, and really highlights how different things are important to different people.</p>
<p>My son visited more than 20 schools leading up to this application season. Weâve had surprise âlikesâ and surprise âdislikes.â I canât say any visit was a waste of time, as each helped my son learn what is important to him. </p>
<p>Surprise dislikes:</p>
<p>Boston College - didnât like the âjockâ vibe. The cafeteria we had lunch in felt like a dungeon, with overpriced food and crabby staff.</p>
<p>Haverford - too small. Bragged about having more trees than students.</p>
<p>RIT - Info session turned us off, their program is too rigid for our taste. </p>
<p>Lehigh - Weâre Lehigh! Weâre great! A little too full of themselves.</p>
<p>Princeton - the only Ivy we toured, just didnât like the vibe. The tour group was way too big, too.</p>
<p>Your mileage may vary, so get out and look at anything you think you might like, and even look at places you think you wonât! You might be surprised, as we were.</p>
<p>RPI - agree re: YMMV! My older son was adamant that he wanted a larger college in a city. We toured UMass/Amherst and on a whim, visited Hampshire College (which is just 5 miles away). Hampshire is small - about 1500 students I think - and when you park, you park next to a cornfield and the info session is in the Red Barn. Iâm thinking âway to go - heâll hate it hereâ. Long story short, heâs in his third year at Hampshire and canât imagine himself anyplace else. You truly never know.</p>
<p>We agree with you also re: Boston College. It just felt âoffâ for some reason.</p>
<p>We loved Hampshire too, BTMell! Ultimately my son did not want to be in the NE but we loved everything about our visit there. The tour/orientation were among the best we had in all our college visits. It felt so unpretentious and real. (On the other hand, my son would not even get out of the car to look at the nearby Amherst campus. He has a thing about colonial architectureâHATES itâand thought it would be too preppy and snooty for his eclectic tastes.)</p>
<p>Too funny, Sally. We found the tour and the info session to be personalized and engaging. Thinking back over several college visits with both boys, it may have been the best tour/visit combo of all.</p>
<p>My older son wasnât interested in Amherst at all (although interestingly at least half his classes have been at Amherst thanks to the 5 college consortium). My younger son was somewhat interested until we took the tour - ugh. There had to have been at least 100 people on that tour. We heard at least ten times on the tour âthis is xyz building - we canât go in because our group is too bigâ My boys both are deaf and I had called ahead to see about a smaller tour group and sitting up front and was told they didnât have any accommodations available and to just show up. You can guess how that went. It was a red flag from the very beginning.</p>
<p>I wrote the Admissions Office and let them know in a constructive way what happened on the tour and to their credit they responded quickly and appropriately. But by then heâd pretty much crossed Amherst off his list.</p>
<p>Your son is in the midwest, yes? Too bad our guys couldnât be Hampsters together!</p>
<p>Haha, yesâwe are in the midwest. And to this day our Hampshire tour guide remains the most impressive student/tour leader I have seen with either of my kids.</p>
<p>Nothing irks me more than a tour guide saying âwe canât go inâitâs locked/the group is too big/whatever.â I immediately crossed Grinnell off our list when they did that.</p>
<p>Was it Isaac - do you remember? He was our tour guide and I thought he was fabulous.</p>
<p>Hampshire has been such a good match for S1. He canât imagine himself anywhere else.</p>
<p>This thing is really long. I couldnât find Info on Azusa Pacific. Can you guys tell me what you liked or didnât about that school and any other info please.</p>
<p>BloomsburgâŠdidnât see any adult staff around , with the exception of a department head who seemed annoyed by our presence</p>
<p>I have not read this thread beyond just this page, but wanted to say that without a doubt, DS crossed off Reed, very promptly upon visiting, as almost immediately he had <ahem> smoke blown in his face by a student. He saw a lot of (cigarette) smoking on campus also.</ahem></p>
<p>I understand that Bloomsburg has almost all of their freshman living in double rooms that were converted to triples.</p>
<p>Connecticut College- the tour guide showed us her dorm room, which was seriously like an underground jail cell. Between that and the generally homogenous vibe of the students we saw on campus, D was ready to cross it off her list after 15 minutes on the (admittedly very lovely) campus.</p>
<p>U.Mass. Amherst- D would not even get out of the car. But it helped her narrow her list down since after visiting there and Northeastern she realized she wanted a small LAC and a traditional, pretty campus.</p>
<p>Bates- had a lot of what she wanted, but a bit too homogenous (âThis feels just like my high school!â⊠a negative in her case since she wants diversity and academic passion and not a lot of sports.) The surrounding town, Lewiston, sealed the deal as itâs pretty bleak!</p>
<p>Personally, I was put off by our visit to Bard. There was a lot of trash around, art sculptures defaced by eggs thrown at them, beer bottles littered about, etc. There were also very few options for food, and we were hungry! There is certainly a lot to recommend it, but I was surprised at those thingsâŠ</p>
<p>**A small LAC and a traditional, pretty campus (college town/suburban) yet she wants diversity. Those two things are usually contradictory.</p>
<p>Agreed. Tall order.</p>
<p>Off the top of my head, I can think of one or two that might qualify. Lose the âpretty campusâ requirement and a third comes to mind.</p>
<p>
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<p>Swarthmore is certainly a small LAC with a traditional, pretty campus and a diverse student body.</p>
<p>My college visit summaries:</p>
<p>Columbia SEAS: didnât like, depressing building and not Columbiaâs focus
Olin: Loved it! Bit small for me but everyone I met was really nice and it seemed like a very cool place
MIT: Liked it well enough, but the campus was too spread out (I like a close knit campus), and I didnât mesh well with the person I was shadowing or her friends. It was MIT though! Lots of excitement in the air
RPI: I liked it!
Carnegie Mellon: Loved it. Good mix of arts and sciences which is exactly what I need as an artsy aspiring engineer :)</p>
<p>So after visiting, I only crossed out Columbia. Only wound up applying to MIT and CMU early (accepted 2 for 2!)</p>
<p>Just finished with my third child in this college process. Here are some of the schools my kids rejected for various reasons (not good ones necessarily) after visiting. </p>
<p>Drexel - way too job focused - nothing about learning or education. A bus splashed muddy water on us during the tour.
Univ. of Penn - parents and kids seemed very anxious and stressed during the tour - we wanted to pass out some valium.
University of Chicago - my son didnât see anyone there he thought he could be friends with!
Carleton - had a Druid Circle
Tufts - hated Jumbo the circus elephant as a mascot, tour guide kept hollering to his many friends on campus and talking about Quidditch - we left after the first 10 minutes of the tour.
Macalaster - girls didnât seem to shave their legs
Northwestern - âboringâ
Wheaton ( in IL) - too white and suburban
Harvard - people there seemed like âtoolsâ - not sure what that means!
UWEauClaire - had a large ***** outlined with rocks on the river shore visible from the campus bridge. The tour guide tried to divert our attention to no avail. </p>
<p>My kids ended up at the following schools - and I have listed some of the reasons why
USC - sunshine, Jamba Juice
St. Olaf College - cute girls, plus not a party school and smells like cookies from the cereal factory nearby - very comforting.
Cornell University - far from home and more impressive than where his older siblings went</p>
<p>It all seems to work out in the end⊠but I have enjoyed reading some of the random and shallow reasons for rejection in this thread. Enjoy!</p>
<p>@emomama ⊠Loved your post and descriptions!!! :-)</p>
<p>Love this thread and itâs cool to see that people are still posting. I figured I would jump in just for the heck of it. Iâm a HS senior, not a parent, and all of these tours were over this past summer, with the exception of Bard, which was in September. </p>
<p>University of Hartford - Was my safety school. Liked it, but didnât love it. The campus was quite nice, though I didnât like the surrounding area. Before the tour youâre handed some pamphlets specific to your own area of study, which I thought was nice - many tours treat you like just another number as opposed to an individual. The buildings were modern and clean and the guide was very nice but for some reason the school didnât âclickâ.</p>
<p>Vassar - Beautiful campus, wonderful architecture. Had a very intellectual vibe. The guide was nice and very informative. Loved the school, though I didnât like how it seemed secluded from the outside world and Poughkeepsie seemed less than friendly.</p>
<p>Barnard - Was not my idea to tour, but my momâs. I was skeptical of an all girlâs school but tried to go in with an open mind. Unfortunately it didnât work out. Seemed to have a pretentious atmosphere and the tour guide was rather annoying. Even some of the girls touring with me seemed overly bubbly and I couldnât see myself going to school there. I was disappointed with how limited the tour was and it was the only tour we left early from.</p>
<p>Emerson - I was excited to tour here but left underwhelmed. Boston never won me over and neither did the school. It seemed to have really great programs and opportunities but for some reason it never felt right. I think it was just overshadowed by NYU, which I had toured only 2 days before. </p>
<p>The two schools I really liked:
NYU - Had been my dream school since sophomore year and it exceeded my expectations - I loved everything about it. I fell right in love with Greenwich Village and liked the opportunity NYU and the city would afford me. applied ED I, was accepted, and just put down my admissions deposit.</p>
<p>Bard - Really ended up impressing me. Gorgeous campus, lovely buildings + classrooms, and interesting programs. Ended up competing in my mind with NYU for my top choice school and I applied both ED I hoping the decisions would narrow down my choice. I was accepted into both but couldnât forget how much I loved the city and ended up taking NYUâs offer.</p>
<p>@EmoMama - hilarious, especially the unexpected âartâ lol
BTW Occidental might seem to satisfy the small LAC yet diverse in a beautiful setting someone was asking about. Son loved his tour there - our guide was very bubbly but humorous - in the library she said, âWell this is the Obama shrine,â pointing at a glass case full of photos and such of the Presidentâs time there. âHe spent his first 2 years here,â she said, adding, in a lower voice,âbefore transferring to Columbia - nobody here likes to talk about that.â I laughed. </p>
<p>The school did impress; they had a wonderful info session too, super informative.</p>