<p>All I can say is my daughter got great calves at Holy Cross : ) She wasn’t an athlete but started to look like one. They do get easier when you walk them all the time, parents might think differently.</p>
<p>I’m a high school senior, just though I’d share my experience this summer with the colleges I toured! </p>
<p>Dislike:</p>
<p>Nova Southeastern University: absolutely hated it. My parents and I tried to give it a chance but we spent about a half hour just looking for an academic building! Also, the campus has a middle school in it which was weird to me (good for education majors!). It was also really hot there. The area around it was also very tacky/commercial with a strip highway.</p>
<p>Northeastern: I applied because of Boston but although I was accepted i was not wowed when i went. The admissions staff were pleasant but I just didnt feel it. Also, way too expensive! </p>
<p>Uconn: way too rural/farmy for me, but a lot of people who go love it</p>
<p>Likes:</p>
<p>University of South Carolina: My top choice and where I will be going if i receive a scholarship. My family visited on a whim and we all fell in love with it. Took a two hour tour with the nicest tour guide I’ve ever had, a senior majoring in health services. He even went off the path of the tour to show me the pharmacy building despite there being other people on the tour. About a month later he sent me a handwritten postcard! Love the football atmosphere but it isnt too overwhelming. Lots of clubs/activities and great workout facilities. I wanted to lay down in the horseshoe (quad) and never leave.</p>
<p>College of Charleston: So beautiful and I wish it had my major! The campus is urban but still contained and great if you dont have a car; its very easy to walk anywhere you need to go! There is also a lot of great history there and AMAZING food.</p>
<p>University of Rhode Island: i love this school, but unfortunately it is less than 10 miles away from my house. I will go tour the pharmacy building if I am accepted because I hear it is amazing just like the program! I would definitely love it more if it wasnt so close.</p>
<p>Bumping this interesting thread back to page 1 where it will be seen and receive new posts.</p>
<p>Bard: Maybe it was just because of my tour guide, who I didn’t really like, but I wasn’t impressed by anything on my visit. One of the first places we went into in the tour was where the art wing is. There was student art displayed and it was all RIDICULOUSLY bad. Also didn’t like how spread out the campus was, and the students seemed kind of unfriendly. Everything just seemed to rub me the wrong way for some reason. It was the only tour that I went on that I completely disliked. </p>
<p>On our tour at Lehigh, the guide said “can anyone guess what one of our engineering grads invented after going to Lehigh?” I jokingly said “the escalator” Apparently I was right, lol</p>
<p>^ I would have said Ford Mustang, invented by Lee Iacocca (and others) after he graduated Lehigh. Of course he also gets “credit” for the Pinto and the K-Car, so maybe he should have invented the escalator instead.</p>
<p>Northeastern… I liked it, D not at all… “no campus vibe, info session too slick.”</p>
<p>University of Oregon… tour and info session were both good, but “the town was a total dud.” </p>
<p>Portland State… was thinking about it as a safety for D, but “nothing to offer except a good location in Portland.” </p>
<p>Seattle U… “too much religion emphasis.”</p>
<p>Southern Oregon State U… “worst tour EVER.” </p>
<hr>
<p>On the other hand… </p>
<p>UCLA… D liked much more after a tour.<br>
Brown and Tufts were both first choices and remained so after the tours.<br>
University of Washington had a great tour and info session… very appealing afterward, but D didn’t end up applying after doing more research.<br>
NYU gave a good tour, but even in the tour you could sense their growing pains… HUGE number on the tour. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That reminds me of our UCB tour, when the leader said, “We have the second largest undergraduate library in the world, I bet nobody here can tell me who has the largest!” I was proud to pipe up, “University of Illinois…Go Illini!” 
</p>
<p>OH, one more thing… this may seem completely obvious, but it is ABSOLUTELY TRUE…</p>
<p>Do NOT let your kid knock off a particular type of school off the list without touring a couple. My D was positive she wanted to be at a HUGE school right in the middle of an urban environment. </p>
<p>She absolutely loved both Reed and Tufts, which were decidedly NOT that. She ultimately will be going elsewhere and IS choosing between two large urban schools, but visiting small LACs was a very important part of her decision making process. </p>
<p>My son did not like University of Michigan. We went to an admitted student day…it was -9 degrees and they had us standing outside for extraordinarily long periods of time. I actually was impressed with many things: the bus system, the food, the libraries (to name a few). He had applied sight unseen because it had a dual degree program that is hard to find other places. I have to wonder if we had gone in the spring if his impression would have been different.</p>
<p>Just FTR, ALA (American Library Association) says Harvard has the largest college library.</p>
<p><a href=“The Nation's Largest Libraries: A Listing By Volumes Held | Tools, Publications & Resources”>http://www.ala.org/tools/libfactsheets/alalibraryfactsheet22</a></p>
<p>How would one determine undergrad vs grad?</p>
<p>Illinois’ site says it has “One of the largest public university libraries in the world…”</p>
<p><a href=“http://illinois.edu/about/overview/facts/facts.html”>http://illinois.edu/about/overview/facts/facts.html</a></p>
<p>Jesse Reno (graduate of Lehigh) does seem to get credit for inventing the escalator (many googled sites).</p>
<p>Yes, I’m bored…</p>
<p>Back to the thread…</p>
<p>It was 10 years ago and was one of those “claim to fame” factoids…with Illinois’ budget they probably haven’t bought a single book since. </p>
<p>In the olden days, I typed my way through college at Interlibrary Loan. The most popular library to request articles and books from was UICU. Harvard cost $5 per item, so that may have been the reason for the go-to of Illinois, but Harvard was actuallyonly used if no other library had what we needed.</p>
<p>D was smitten with Boston College, found Tufts too smitten with its ever-so-cool self, Colorado College pretty, interesting and different but ultimately didn’t like the mono-cultural population and too few faculty in her area of interest (Classics). Marquette looked like lots of fun, but a little too close to home (Chicago), Northwestern was WAY too close and oriented toward frats and U of Chicago too close and too full of ‘weird kids’. Boston U didn’t feel like a college campus to her. Ultimately chose Holy Cross for the hillclimbing workout. 
Okay, actually for the amazing Classics and English departments and surprisingly diverse population which was similar to her high school. Loves gritty but interesting Worcester and its opportunities for community service. She’s a junior happily living off campus after studying abroad.</p>
<p>I agree that visiting different types of schools really helps narrow down the huge list of possibilities, and paradoxically broadens the scope as they see that the brand name schools aren’t the best fit for everyone.</p>
<p>S will be visiting midwestern schools of all shapes and sizes, public and private over the next 6 months. I would love to read impressions from parents or students visiting “A+ schools for B students” in the midwest.</p>
<p>Interesting thread!</p>
<p>S discovered UC Santa Cruz as a possibility (unfortunately it turned out to be unaffordable), and USC (which ended up being his first choice, alas he was not accepted). He rejected Stanford, Pomona and University of Washington, on various grounds, after visiting. Liked Mudd but realized he didn’t have a chance of getting in.</p>
<p>Ovarall our college tour was very helpful. And now that he has decided to go to DU, he is remembering everything he liked about it. Also, his tour of DigiPen put it on his short list, but also helped him to ultimately decide against it.</p>
<p>Can’t edit that post (too late I guess) but now I’m at a real computer, so I’d like to elaborate.</p>
<p>We went to four cities last fall: San Jose area, LA, Denver and Seattle, with a list of several “possible” schools for DS to check out. We had an extra day in San Jose (we’d gone to visit Stanford), so we went over to UC Santa Cruz, which we’d heard had a good CS/games program. DS loved it, as did I - we both liked the gorgeous campus, the general vibe of the place, and the town. He could see himself there. He was also impressed with the opportunities to do theater as a ‘sideline’. So UCSC got added to the list. As I said, unfortunately it turned out to be unaffordable, because we are OOS - even though he got a Regent’s scholarship and Dean’s award, together they only take off $8,000 of the very high sticker price for the first year. He did not like Stanford at all, thought the overall vibe was too “stuck on itself” and on all the fantabulous things its alums have done. Didn’t like the overall feel of the campus.</p>
<p>Then we went to LA, where we went to USC just because it had the #1 ranked video game design program, and we were in the area anyway. I never thought that either one of us would like a school smack dab in the middle of LA, but we both ended up LOVING it, and feeling like it would be a perfect fit for him. (Not to mention, as a ‘meets full need’ school, mom found it to be a potential win from the financial point of view, since we are high-need even on the CSS Profile.) It quickly became and stayed his #1 choice, and he had a stab at getting in (would have gladly taken his second choice major or even a spring admit) - but alas, it was not to be. He had a great interview, did his absolute best on the essays and the rest of the application, but on March 29th, found out that he was one of the 42,000 rejects from his ‘shangri la’. Sigh.</p>
<p>Then it was on to CMC. He did not like Pomona at all. Said it felt like you had to whisper all over the campus - too quiet and ‘studious’ even for my introvert. Too much emphasis on foreign language, which he doesn’t like, didn’t help. He liked Mudd, felt like he would fit in there, was worried a little about how hard it would be, and ultimately decided that he really didn’t have a chance at getting in, so he didn’t apply.</p>
<p>Next was Denver. It was “OK” but he didn’t love it. Felt that it would be an acceptable safety. There really wasn’t anything bad about it, but by this point he was head-over-heels in love with USC. Also getting a bit tired of college tours.</p>
<p>We hit the University of Washington (Seattle) on Saturday, and he found it big, impersonal, and a bit too focused on football (I think it was a game day). He was troubled by the guide’s answers to questions about being able to register for the classes you need to graduate, and a few other things. Overall, not impressed. By that point, I’d begun to look up more info about financial aid, and realized that there just wasn’t much there for OOSers. So I didn’t push him to apply there.</p>
<p>Last stop was DigiPen Institute of Technology, a for-profit school that grants BA, BS, BFA, MS and MFA degrees in fields related only to video game design and programming. His initial impression (after a tour, information sessions and shadowing a student for two classes) was that it was “a cult”. He was worried about his ability to ‘have a life’ - swim, do theater, and other things that were not 100% programming/games, 100% of the time. But he said he could possibly see himself there, he’d just have to try to ‘break the mold’ and make a life for himself outside of the school. He found the programming classes to be easy and liked the ‘team’ approach to game development projects. He LOVED Seattle.</p>
<p>Ovarall our college tour was very helpful in showing him the different kinds of schools and campuses (commuter, large, small, LAC vs. University, focused vs. broad, etc.). He applied to Univ. of Hawaii (our state school, the “total safety”), Denver, DigiPen, UC SC, and USC. Was accepted at the first four, with various degrees of merit aid at DigiPen, UCSC and Denver, and a ‘meets full need’ package of grants at Denver. </p>
<p>And now that he has decided to go to DU, he is remembering everything he liked about it, and is very excited about going there. It is an “up and coming” university, making great strides in improving programs in all areas, the size is perfect for what he’d wanted, he likes the small class size and low student:faculty ratio, he remembers the campus as having nice buildings and a nice feel, and is looking forward to the new CS building opening in early 2016. </p>
<p>UMBC - Wanted to love on paper due to high % enrolled in CS and feeder to NSA. Felt like community college. Tour guide dialed it in. No sense of school spirit.</p>
<p>VCU - DS didn’t even want to get out of the car. Again, attractive CS program, but no campus. </p>
<p>GW - The most annoying tour guide ever. After a seemingly interminable tour, went to dinner at a nearby restaurant, where our waitress told us she had recently graduated from GW. Not exactly the career path GW advertised at the info session.</p>
<p>On the other hand, schools that had great presentations/tours: George Mason (best info session delivered by an adult); U Maryland CP (very knowledgeable student guide); and U Delware (very good info session with useful info about GPA weighting).</p>
<p>Attended two academic open houses: U Richmond (CS Dept didn’t show up, which was a negative, although Physics professor we spoke to was helpful) and NC State (Engineering Open House was fantastic - lots of opportunity to talk to students, counselors and professors). Definitely recommend that, if you have a science/math/engineering kid, you should arrange a visit with the department of interest. Didn’t meet one tour guide who was a STEM major in all our visits.</p>
<p>Son didn’t like the urban campuses, so no NYU. He was not as anti Penn or Columbia because there was more of a line between town and gown. He felt better about Hopkins because there was that line and the town was smaller. He really liked Brandeis because the little town was down the street and the big town was far away. I hadn’t anticipated that reaction at all. I thought he would like the bustle and energy of a city. </p>
<p>Is DU Denver?</p>
<p>Congrats on such great success with acceptances!</p>
<p>If you’re talking to me, yes, DU is University of Denver. </p>
<p>@albclemom, that’s funny about UMBC. I grew up in Baltimore County, and we tended to think of UMBC as kind of a little step up from CC. I actually went there for a summer and fall (this was 1981, I’d started at MSU in 1980), before returning to Michigan State to get my degree, and found the classes interesting, but I was working full-time (evening shift) and living with my parents, so it had a CC feel to me because of my situation. I think all of my credits transferred to MSU, and I will never forget one poli sci class I had about the history of the city. I have no idea what it’s like now, but I know that CP was viewed as much more of a “real” university by us MD kids back then.</p>
<p>My brother went to JHU and as a bio major (but not pre-med), he found the pre-med students upsettingly cutthroat. That was in the 70s, though. He got a good education, and eventually a MS in fisheries bio from Humboldt State. </p>