<p>Best line ever by our bus-tour-guide at Rutgers, “We are now passing the Mason-Gross School of Performing Arts”, ummmm - I guess they do some performance art or something?" cue hair twirl and hair flip and giggle.</p>
<p>I am currently a rising senior and I recently visited several schools in Los Angeles.
- Pomona: I was very impressed with this school. There were so many trees there! (I am an outdoorsy girl so this was a highlight for me.) I just had the impression of a New England feel, which I also really loved. The Claremont Village is like a two-minute walk away which was super awesome. I had good vibes from this school. Unfortunately, I don’t do my homework very well. Pomona offers no merit aid so I will be applying to CMC instead.</p>
<p>2) Occidental College: My dad absolutely hate the neighborhood it was in. It was poor-middle class suburban area. I don’t really mind that; but… The campus itself is beautiful! It had everything I want in the way of academics but I just have a gut feeling…</p>
<p>3) Loyola Marymount: Wow. It was super pretty! Unfortunately, I think LMU is more involved/focused on their film and writing/lit/communication areas instead of science. Its located on a bluff overlooking LA. It was kind of cool but also kind of weird.</p>
<p>I have heard others that had an excellent experience, but our Yale visit was a disaster
Strike 1
After the 1 1/2 hour Yale presentation ended DD walked out and said to me, “The presenter kept telling us about what Yale wanted and did not explain to me any reasons why I would want to choose Yale.” The presenter that day seemed to take it as obvious that anyone would choose Yale if they could, so it would not be important to discuss it. Bad start.</p>
<p>Strike 2
When we walked around campus, the tour guide made too many comparisons to Harvard, which DD did not like. “I came here to hear about Yale, not Harvard.”, she commented. Continuing the downward slide.</p>
<p>Strike 3
We drove around New Haven, which is not a good area. DD called it, “a pit.” Having seen that it was not the best area, we asked a female Yale student about crime and how safe she felt, the student responded by telling our daughter about a murder that happened nearby and how she could hear the gun shots from her dorm room. Not helping.</p>
<p>Strike 4
DD is interested in math, science and engineering, so she asked a premed student about the quality of the science classes. The student told her that they are okay, but that it is really the liberal arts classes that are impressive at Yale and that more technical science or engineering classes are not as impressive.</p>
<p>The day was a disaster. I tried to argue that she should still apply and we could revisit, but I was unsuccessful and she did not apply.</p>
<p>^ I have family that lives in Connecticut. The locals refer to it as “gun waive’n New Haven” That was enough to give it the boot.</p>
<p>Trinity University - TX</p>
<p>Attended an “In-Focus” session with my daughter. Very impressed with the organization of the event. The session was full but the staff handled it well. Never felt crowded or rushed. Everyone was friendly and took their time to answer questions. They all stressed the personal attention afforded to each student and the desire to help them succeed. Lots of research opportunities for undergrads if desired. Strong premed program. Aside from need based aid, there are merit scholarships available (20ish) for high stat kids, plus automatic score dependent merit aid is available too, but it’s not much. The campus is relatively compact which made getting around easy. Building are mostly “modern” red brick that were clean and well maintained. Plenty of green space and nice athletic fields close by. Provided free lunch in the dinning hall and my daughter and I agreed that it was quite good. Overall, a little known hidden gem worth considering IMHO. Sadly, my daughter felt it was too small…</p>
<p>@Poohbah29</p>
<p>What a shame about your D’s subpar Tufts info session! The one my D attended last year (led by an adcom renowned for his info sessions and sage advice here on CC!) was so good, so frank and in-depth and engaging, she made Tufts her first choice school. And her experiences there have borne out the info presented.</p>
<p>It’s too bad these sessions can fluctuate so greatly in quality depending on the session leader.</p>
<p>“We visited with a professor in the psychology dept, toured a sorority house and met with a current student, met with campus life and two more students to hear about activities and intramurals on campus, and had lunch with a current student.”</p>
<p>Wow! Which sorority house did they bring you into? Was it one of those gigantic new ones?</p>
<p>This is such a fun thread! OK, I already posted about how much we hated the BC tour and left early. My DD and I also toured Northeastern and loved it. We returned for the admitted students day. Had she not gotten a better financial package elsewhere, she would be attending Northeastern with the $25K merit scholarship they offered her. But just wanted to say that they took us on a tour of the Honors dorm which was very nice except the tour guide was the worst I had seen and wasn’t able to answer basic questions about anything. She took us to an upperclassman dorm with a suite style living arrangement … separate rooms and a kitchen/living room. I couldn’t believe the deplorable conditions. Dishes were piled up and pizza boxes and garbage overflowed onto the floor. Then it was onto the Honors dorm. The rooms they showed us weren’t even tidy. There were clothes on the floor and unmade beds … there was even a boy in bed (and it was a girls’ floor)! Felt like we were interrupting something! That was when we decided to branch off on our own tour. We happened upon a room where a nice young girl invited us in and spoke to us at great length … answering many questions our tour guide could not. This room was extremely neat and the girl was studying. She said her room was on the list for prospective students to tour, so I don’t know why we weren’t sent to her room! Just hard to believe someone doesn’t follow up to make sure the rooms are presentable before taking prospective students through them. It wouldn’t have been enough to deter us though, but I’m sure some people could’ve felt otherwise. </p>
<p>Loved the beautiful facilities at Emory. Before the tour started, students were invited to a room off the admissions area where they sat us at comfy couches with current students who seemed knowledgeable and able to answer questions (complete with fireplaces and large windows overlooking beautiful trees and grounds). The tour was great too and we both loved the campus. We then attended their Oxford campus tour. My DD liked it there as well and would’ve attended at either campus had she gotten a scholarship (she didn’t). Turns out that was a blessing as she fell in love with Vanderbilt on the tour (as did I). She wouldn’t have applied to Vanderbilt had she gotten the scholarship at Emory or Oxford. Vandy’s campus was the most beautiful campus we had seen, and the freshman dining hall was unbelievable. My DD is a picky eater so the fact that she loved the food was huge. They offered a fabulous financial aid package, and my DD will be attending in the fall.</p>
<p>My only college visit that didn’t go great was at Northwestern. First, the info session was run by a counselor and a student. The counselor was actually pretty friendly and informative, but the student was a football player who clearly didn’t volunteer for this job (or if he did, he really shouldn’t have). Whenever the counselor turned to him for more info, the poor guy just smiled and gave really short, uncomfortable answers.</p>
<p>Apart from that, I just wasn’t digging NU’s campus. Evanston seemed like a nice enough community, but the campus seemed a little unorganized and jumbled. It’s a great school with top-notch programs, but I never applied later that fall.</p>
<p>Yeah, Northwestern’s campus has some nice features, but it could be better. Given the spectacular lakefront location, it could have been one of the prettiest anywhere if they had done things a little differently. I especially can’t believe the alumni allowed them to build that grotesque futuristic library. If they tore that thing down and replaced it with a structure which had a design and a placement that enhanced the others around it, instead of clashing with them, the place would be a lot nicer. Williams College got rid of an ugly new library; would NU ever do something like that?</p>
<p>As a Northwestern alum who toured the campus with one of my kids, I agree with the comments above. We had the WORST info session in an outdated, run-down building, followed by a pretty uninteresting tour. I was actually shocked at how underwhelming it was–especially since it was the campus visit that sealed the deal for me when I was applying to schools.</p>
<p>The library is a monstrosity, but it is considered better than the old one, Deering, which Frank Lloyd Wright allegedly described as looking like a pig on its back. People say the new one is gradually sinking into the lake because the engineers forgot to account for the weight of the books when they were building it. Not sure whether that’s true or not.</p>
<p>As an NU alum, I also agree it’s hard to make the campus “show well” even though there are lovely areas. I am glad they are building a new visitor center - the current one doesn’t do it justice, esp because it’s essentially off campus but prospective students wouldn’t know that. NU always put parking near the lakefront - which is so stupid - why should the cars have a lovely view? </p>
<p>Sally - that’s an urban legend, it’s said about a lot of libraries - nothing unique to Northwestern. The Deering entrance to the library is now open - which is a <em>lot</em> more beautiful than the current library (which is in that brutalist style, and brutal is a good way to describe it). incidentally, the U of Chicago library looks almost identical.</p>
<p>I always liked Deering. From the outside it is kind of boxy but it had great carrels where I spent many (happy?) hours studying. I will try to see the improvements next time I am there.</p>
<p>I think NU has the same issues that UW-Madison has in terms of campus cohesion–a lot of different styles of architecture and a very long, narrow campus layout without a central quad and with a pretty busy street running right through the middle of it. But the parts that are beautiful are really beautiful. Unfortunately our tour guide didn’t take us to any “wow” or charming locations. After having visited U of C the day before, I was sort of surprised.</p>
<p>@Hanna, yes it was one of the new houses–the Alpha Delta Pi house. All of the sororities will have new houses soon, so if they don’t have a new house right now, they will within a couple years. And the plans for the houses are amazing! The sororities will also have their own parking. It’s really a well organized plan.</p>
<p>Ha - I challenge kids and parents to visit NU or U of Chicago in December - bonus points for trying to get in and out of O’Hare or Midway during Thanksgiving/X-mas.</p>
<p>For all 3 years so far, my daughter in Boston has had rougher winters than my son in Chicago. Kind of tired of hearing how bad Chicago winters are when NY and New England are pretty much the same thing. </p>
<p>My DD took all schools out of consideration that did NOT have “pleasing climates”. She spent four years at Santa Clara which had spectacular weather year round.</p>
<p>furrydog, I challenge anyone to get anywhere without incident over thanksgiving break. There are just too many people traveling. As far as hubs go, I’d pick Detroit, Chicago or Minneapolis any day over Atlanta or Denver or Dallas. </p>
<p>I agree with Pizzagirl that the myth of the unimaginably awful midwesterm winter is getting a little old. The northeast and south have had brutal winters over the past few years. At least in the midwest they know how to deal with them. </p>
<p>@Pizzagirl You’re right about Chicago vs New England winters. I’m a Boston native who’s now been in Chicago ffor 29 years (yikes!) and all this time Boston has consistently had more snow - much, much more snow. Chicago is colder - I remember seeing in the early days of the internet that January is on average 10 degrees colder in Chicago than Boston. And Boston didn’t have the freakish cold days that the upper Midwest had this past winter. But to say that one has crappier winters than the other - nope. About equally crappy.</p>