<p>Well my husband doesn’t believe in college visits before admission so DS didn’t have any. Luckily he competes regularly in music and all competitions were on college campus so we were able to visit many schools on our way to and back from the competition.</p>
<p>His favorite: Yale, beautiful campus and rich music scene. Dartmouth, beautiful campus, nice town and people. UVA, again beautiful campus, close to home, and many many close friends there.</p>
<p>Neutral: Northwestern and UChicago. Didn’t like Chicago. But we visited in February so that’s probably why.</p>
<p>Least liked: Columbia. He enjoyed the tour. Our guide was wonderful but as we were moving from on building to another, the guide had to stop a few times because of the ambulance and/or police car siren (outside of the campus but loud enough to hear). We then went to Manhattan School of Music, which is less 10-min walk away. I could see from his face that he didn’t like the busy city life.</p>
<p>That’s funny - D auditioned at MSM and loved the surroundings; then again she grew up in the NYC suburbs and her aunt lived on the upper west side of Manhattan all her life. So it felt like “home”. Unfortunately she didn’t get it, but we both liked the area.</p>
<p>We drove from CT to Mount ST Mary’s in Emmitsberg, MD. My D and her friend did not even want to get out of the car. I told them I did not drive all this way for nothing. Made them sit through the Open House. We got into the car and both said “nope, not for me”.</p>
<p>Similar experience at Salve Regina in RI, although I thought they provided one of the most informative info sessions. The school seemed very outdated from a technology perspective. Also almost all upper classmen live off campus.</p>
<p>EmoMama - your post cracked me up. I love this from the youngest child: “Cornell University - far from home and more impressive than where his older siblings went”</p>
<p>UCLA-time difference; we are in Ohio
Brown-not enough structure
MIT-too geeky
University of VA-too big, tour guide was not very good
Georgetown-poor check-in experience at camp. Other parents had children attend college there and said that the college could not handle move-in/move-out days and other minor issues very well.
Case Western-horrible information session. The admissions counselor said, “you do not have to go above and beyond to be accepted.” He was also very excited about two parking garages that were under construction. He could not answer questions about financial aid, AP exams, cultural diversity. The tour guide almost saved it, but ultimately failed in the end. D wanted to like it and was very disappointed on our return trip home.
Swarthmore-D said it seemed cult-ish.</p>
<p>Sacred Heart in CT- Seemed like an small outdated office park crossed with an outdated urban senior citizen dorm housing that smelled and wasn’t clean. I remember graffiti and drunk kids hanging out as if they were in some inner city park yelling at the visitors. Hills. Sort of community college feel to it. Jocks and wannabes walking around everywhere. Went there cause it offered majors of interest and were disappointed.</p>
<p>Providence (RI) - Gated campus in the middle of a not-so-great (a blah) suburban area. Basically the surroundings outside the fences were kind of a turn off. We heard a lot of good things about the place but were underwhelmed when we visited awhile ago.</p>
<p>Fairfield U (CT) - Nice campus but felt more like an office park than a university (and sort of looked like one too). And, like Quinnipiac tends to be - a wee bit on the “snooty” side. Seemed like not as many interesting majors for the excessive price. Could see why it was popular with the Ralph Lauren, A&F and LL Bean crew.</p>
<p>I have to laugh - I went way back near the start of this thread and saw that one student had written off Pomona and Claremont because thru found both campuses unattractive. 2 of the most gorgeous campuses I’ve ever seen, and I’ve got kiddos at Tulane and Vanderbilt for comparison…</p>
<p>We are just starting the visits now for my younger daughter, but my older daughter visited a ton of schools</p>
<p>RPI: Visited in January. That was enough to cross it off the list.
Sarah Lawrence College: buildings were rundown, students were snobbish, no wifi (at the time, this may have changed)
Green Mountain College: too many potheads
Manhattan College: rude students, one of the students chosen to give a presentation for parents kept talking about how all other schools suck. </p>
<p>She ended up at WPI, which we visited on a glorious November day, it was about 65 degrees, I have never met friendlier campus officers, the tour guide was fantastic. When she was undecided at the end, we visited one more time and we had an even more fantastic tour guide who was so sincerely excited about his school that he had me convinced <em>I</em> wanted to go there.</p>
<p>There’s no question that enthusiasm is contagious. When expatSon toured Susquehanna U this past August, he was swarmed in a dorm by a group of freshman who were clearly jazzed to be there; they asked him who he was, where he was from, & what he thought of the school.
<a href=“His%20EA%20offer%20of%20admission%20arrived%206%20weeks%20ago.”>size=1</a>[/size]</p>
<p>expat, I was SO impressed with Susquehanna. If it had been my choice, I would have picked it! DS decided to go to a different school, though. I’m going to show the school to my daughter, now a HS sophomore.</p>
<p>expat, my D had the same experience when auditioning for Blair School of Music at Vandy. The low brass kids were so excited to have a female trombonist auditioning, they all stuck around to meet her and encourage her to attend. She auditioned at Manhattan School of Music after that, and the tension there was a huge contrast.</p>
<p>When we got back to the car and started changing into dry clothes, expatSon matter-of-factly stated, “Okay, Dad – we can stop now.”, indicating that he’d made his decision – no further tours were necessary (tho’ we made them anyway).</p>
<p>Columbia - didn’t get a tour because it was graduation day (why they allowed us to schedule a tour is beyond me). Admissions officer gave information session in an auditorium that was being sent up for an event later in the day - the noise was very distracting. Staffer was completely self absorbed and didn’t seem to know a lot about the school she claimed to have been part of for 30 years.</p>
<p>Boston College - A school near and dear to our family as 4 of my siblings graduated from there as well as my sister in law. My sister and sister in law were roommates and introduced my husband and me. When my two daughters and nephew all went on a tour of the campus together, the feedback was “did you know that BC is a Jesuit college?” followed by 10 minutes of laughter. Apparently the tour guide managed to state that BC was a Jesuit school in almost every sentence of her speal. Q-“How is the food in the cafeteria? A- As a Jesuit school, BC believes very strongly that a sound body leads to a strong mind and so our food is both delicious and nutritious.”</p>
![http://www.oldwithoutmoney.com/images/SU_tour.jpg"]expatSon](http://www.oldwithoutmoney.com/images/SU_tour.jpg%22%5DexpatSon){kind=link}
