<p>After a visit to Lehigh, my daughter crossed it off the list. The presentation was pretty boring even for me as a parent. D went on the campus tour and said that it was ok. My daughter interviewed with a student from the admissions office. He was 30 minutes late and was apologetic seemed very nervous and constantly clicking his pen while he spoke. Not a good vibe from the visit. Ending on a positive note, I was surprised to see a doe and two of her fawn frolicking on the lawn on a beautiful June day. </p>
<p>Itâs so funny how people can have very different experiences at the same school. We took two tours of Lehigh ( one sophomore year and one junior year) and both times Lehigh emerged as one of my daughterâs top choices. The presentations were interesting and one presenter was very funny. My daughter loved the tour guides and we all loved the campus- even the hills. We left thinking that Lehigh was a very good fit and my daughter said " yep, I can definitely see myself here." </p>
<p>@twogirls my sister went there so I thought she might like it. Even had a friend with a daughter whoâs enrolling in the fall meet her to walk around campus. No go. The hills didnât bother her as much as their proud party image.</p>
<p>Aussiemom - Lehigh seems to have a party image and that surprised my daughter when I mentioned it to her. My daughter is not a partier at all- she stays in on the weekends and does her schoolwork. I believe all schools can be party schools, and I also believe that if my daughter attends Lehigh she will find students like her. </p>
<p>sorry - posted on wrong thread</p>
<p>@Twogirls, Iâm sure she will. The girl who showed us around wasnât either. I think the image goes back to having a healthy Greek social scene. My sister didnât party or rush during her time at Lehigh but had some great roommates like her but from diverse backgrounds.</p>
<p>Thanks Aussie!! If your daughter is still going through this process I wish her good luck. </p>
<p>Thanks, yours too!!</p>
<p>bump. I wanna hear more.</p>
<p>My DS and I visited 9 schools (heâs looking at Engineering) this past spring in the following order: Lehigh, Union, RPI, RIT, WPI, UConn, URI, Penn State, SUNY Binghamton. He crossed out 5 of them immediatley after visiting them:</p>
<p>Lehigh - did not like the campus at all (I thought it was beautiful); said it was too old looking & did not like where it was located</p>
<p>Union - was too small, woman giving admissions talk was 20 minutes late (surprising because I had been there 3 times before with my older DS 2 years ago and it had been one of his top picks)</p>
<p>WPI - did not like the campus; again too old looking</p>
<p>UConn - was turned off by our tour guide who incessantly talked about the basketball teams (in all fairness it was Final 4 weekend and both UConn teams were in it & ended up winning) and stated that all students were basketball fans even if you didnât like basketball; my son really has no interest whatsoever in basketball even though he is an athlete</p>
<p>SUNY Binghamton - did not like the campus at all (a lot of construction going on); liked the dorms but really did not like the academic buildings; again really did not connect at all with the tour guide & was ready to leave 15 minutes into the tour</p>
<p>Tour guides can really make or break the visit. In contrast the tour guides at Penn State, RIT, RPI, & URI were terrific. The admissions presentations at Penn State & RIT were top notch and held his attention. DS really had no interest in URI (it is our state school, so of course had to look at it for financial reasons) but after taking the tour and listening to our guide it is one of his top choices.</p>
<p>@hockeymom12, might want to check out Stony Brook. Strong for engineering, modern campus, reasonable OOS cost.</p>
<p>I, a student, just crossed Duke off the list for lack of a true âcollegeâ feel like UNC had, and it seemed a little too uptight and wealthy for me. Loved the campus, just didnât feel right for me.</p>
<p>We visited Northwestern in November. It was a miserable day, but as an NU alum myself I was getting all sentimental and wanting my D to love it; she didnât. I spent my high school years just outside of Cleveland, so Chicago winters were quite lovely to me. My D, however, has lived in Colorado all her life, and the weather in the midwest is not to her liking! </p>
<p>This particular winter was an especially awful time to try to sell anybody on the Midwest. Or the Northeast, for that matter.</p>
<p>My child wanted to go to a New England school with ivy and old castle like buildings. We visited Amherst, Wesleyan, Bowdoin, Tufts, Dartmouth, Bates, Vassar. The only one she disliked after the tour was Haverford. Even though her best friendâs brother had gone there and loved it, it was entirely too small for her. Only a little bit larger than her high school that had less than 500 people. She wanted something bigger.</p>
<p>Well, just to clarify, @Tperry1982â, Haverford is neither in New England nor does its architecture resemble anything remotely royal. Its original structures were built by Pennsylvania Quakers after all! Personally, I think itâs far prettier than Swarthmore, but I know Iâm in the minority on that front. </p>
<p>But, yeah, Haverford is pretty smallâalthough itâs almost three times the size of your daughterâs high school! </p>
<p>Great Thread! Bookmarking it! </p>
<p>Looked at the Haverford website for photos of buildings. 19 photos showed about 3 buildings that all looked old to me and the rest of the photos were generic shots I could place at many schools, even huge ones. Did not look very dynamic to me.</p>
<p>Thanks @Chardo! Heard that at Stony Brook a lot of the students leave the campus on the weekends, will have to do a little more investigating. Iâm perfectly fine (& so is DS) with only applying to 4 schools all of which Iâm guessing he will be accepted to (RPI slight reach). Everytime I try to bring up any other schools he tells me âheâs goodâ.</p>
<p>D has not crossed Wellesley off her list but Iâm hoping she will. The campus, while spacious and in a nice area, just feltâultimatelyâdumpy. Itâs very outdated , as in, when I asked the tour guide how handicap accessible the campus was as we climbed set after set of narrow dingy steps, her reply was, âWell, if youâre in a wheelchair or something, then this isnât the campus for you!â There were several grandparents on the tour (not with our family) and she kept yelling at them like a drill sargeant to âClose up the ranksâ when they fell too far behind because she was walking too fast and wanted to be done by a certain time. Way too fast! There were moments I had to run to keep up with her!</p>
<p>The info session was rather intimate, but poorly executed. They took us into a large conference room and had the girls sit around the table while the parents hung back. They had each girl introduce herself. D felt put on the spot. She was the only person from New England. There were several girls there looking at the college from different countries. Great! </p>
<p>The Admissions Counsellor looked about 24 and perkily told us about her experience as a Wellesley girl, warning everyone they probably wouldnât do well since everyone there is just so super smart, then she touted the alumni network, close relationships with professors, and then told a strange story about her internship on Deer Island which gave her something to talk about with her fatherâs âboring old engineering coworkers.â This just rubbed me the wrong way as D is STEM focused.</p>
<p>When we finally got to the science building on the tour â which is apart from the other campus buildings/quads, the guide told us that Wellesley has all sorts of special equipment that other schools donât have! When I asked what equipment in particular she had no idea. In fact she said, âWell, Iâm not a science person I have no idea.â</p>
<p>She finished the tour with why she chose Wellesley. It was because she wanted to be best friends with everyone she met thereâand then took it a step further, with a story that led to her saying âI actually realized that I wanted to BE every person I met here.â Then she insinuated we should apply if we wanted to BE every person we met there!</p>
<p>It was a huge turnoff. Felt snobby, boring, elitist, un-creative, stifling, and ultimately isolating. I want D to figure out how to really be HERSELF over those four years. No thanks, Wellesley.</p>