<p>Great post, but please break into paragraphs next time so we can read it easier!</p>
<p>Totally agree on the need to visit schools - they put their best face on their website. There’s nothing like being there!</p>
<p>sonsami, your post about the depressing campus is totally valid - I’d have felt depressed too! Once again, proves why you need to VISIT a campus. Keep in mind weather, time of day, etc, but you’re right - at noon on a beautiful sunny day in October if a school looks depressed, I can imagine a Tuesday morning in February. :(</p>
<p>I had a similar reaction with Drexel. I took my son to Philly in December. We visited University of Penn and fell in love. Finished the application the following week. We then drove the few blocks to Drexel and never got out of the car. The neighborhood didn’t appear safe. There were a lot of visible campus police. The buildings seemed very old. It was not what we envisioned. Although they had been sending those VIP applications, we decided not to apply. The next day we drove to Swarthmore and actually was extremely impressed. Stunning campus. He decided not to apply, however not exactly sure why not. The final stop was Lafayette. The school was fine, however the surrounding town was too small. Couldn’t see him enjoying himself for four years.</p>
<p>I think visiting is extremely important before you apply so you don’t waste time.</p>
<p>When S1 and I visited colleges, we crossed some off that we liked but he realized weren’t for him (Bard – too small).</p>
<p>Others were highly recommended but made our skin crawl, or creeped us out, or made us unhappy… in the same way — often hard to explain. We have no doubt they are great schools for others. Our take was: there are zillions of schools, why push to like a school when we are busy ruling schools off the list? (thankfully he was an all around, just below ivy/ top LAC level applicant). </p>
<p>In particular:</p>
<p>Leheigh: All the students seemed to be wearing the exact same brown Lehigh sweatshirt and same short conservative haircut (as opposed to say, U.Md, where a large % wore different types of red terps shirts). It looked like a cult.</p>
<p>BU: He felt like there was no there there, and the visiting students just wanted to be in Boston.</p>
<p>Tufts: the presentation was about how smart the students are and how highly ranked Tufts was and its international programs (which S1 had no interest in) and the visiting students all seemed interested in how hard Tufts was to get into. No one seemed able to explain what Tufts was about in and of itself. (Please don’t defend Tufts, we KNOW many people LOVE it, this was our visceral reaction!)</p>
<p>On the other hand, we visited Brandeis and Northeastern heavily skeptical, and both visits completely sold us on his applying.</p>
<p>Wake Forest, Elon, Davidson</p>
<p>Don’t like NC, holly210?</p>
<p>Daughter had immediate reactions to:
-Southwestern U (LOVED it - the look, the staff, the students, the programs)
-Milsaps (like the staff very much, was put off by the fence, hated Jackson)</p>
<p>Our senior son crossed Wake Forest off his list as he felt the campus was too “self-contained” and isolated from town. However,our freshman daughter loved it! He also crossed UVA off his list as he just didn’t get a good vibe and the Senior AdCon presentation was just terrible. He also dropped Brown as he preferred Yale for his ivy reach school. He dropped Penn as he didn’t get a good vibe about the city location but Penn was his first campus visit and he had nothing to compare it with.</p>
<p>Depending upon acceptances, we may be busy revisiting schools in April before the big decision is made.</p>
<p>Actually, none of the schools compared to UNC-Chapel Hill. Perhaps, this was the problem. In any case, she just got her acceptance to that very school this weekend! She is very happy and yes we like North Carolina, especially UNC-Chapel Hill. </p>
<p>Speaking of North Carolina schools, UNC’s neighbor did not impress us at all. The kids there seem alternately filled with angst and ennui and the atmosphere was frankly oppressive.</p>
<p>It’s not so much N.C. as it is the type of school. We looked at Dickinson, Washington & Lee, and Franklin and Marshall and were not impressed either.</p>
<p>silversas: You may have had an “off” day when visiting Tufts. That’s too bad. My S fell in love and was accepted ED to Tufts. Will be a freshman there this fall. He’s psyched about being so close to Boston.</p>
<p>He was very turned off to UPenn: Did not like the location or the adcom reps. He felt they were very snobby & elite sounding. He wanted a green campus near a big city, not in it.</p>
<p>Middlebury was too small of a student body & not near any city, unless you count Burlington…too far away. Also, he felt the students were too Lacrosse oriented.</p>
<p>Cornell was really nice but so spread out…the only school he didn’t even get out of the car was Syracuse. He really did not want to even look there, but we went since it was close to Cornell.</p>
<p>Wake Forest- went for interview, then was glad to leave. Didn’t “feel” it.</p>
<p>Pomona- too hippie, size was a little too small</p>
<p>This is my favorite thread. Do not please follow the advice of some posters who condemn impressions and want some detailed listing of pros and cons of each school. There are specific school threads for that information. This is a thread about impressions, and anyone who has been on a college visits definitely goes on one precisely to form impressions! If some impressions come off as “bashing,” then tough – emotions are involved in forming “impressions.” I certainly have no interest in reading yet another thread about how impressive the psych department is, etc. etc. (there are tons of those threads, emphasizing at times self-promotion of colleges or departments). What I want, and this particular thread provides, is “gut reaction” – believe me, readers here are sufficiently grown up to understand that these reactions are highly individualistic and YMMV (“your mileage may vary . . .”). But soooooooo entertaining.</p>
<p>chocchipcookie: I had the same feelings about middlebury! Just seemed too rural and too jocky for me.</p>
<p>Brown–new admissions person who was not only hacking, coughing, and sneezing on all of us but also befuddled by any “unconventional” question (e.g. how do college transcripts factor into one’s application or what do you do about students who want to study abroad in a non-Brown program) and disingenuous, overly-polished successive girl guides who were more interested in saying “hello” to their buddies on campus than focusing on the groups they were leading. At one point, one of the girl guides, with a cute jumper, detailed the price and designer of said jumper for a friend who was passing by.</p>
<p>Also, daughter unit did not care for the one-horse town feel–e.g. Thayer was the only real center of Brown, non-campus life that she saw–esp. coming from a dynamic university town, herself.</p>
<p>@chochip</p>
<p>Funny, my Tufts kid also disliked Penn. Felt it was too chaotic. Felt the adcom presentation talking about nursing, engineering, Wharton and A&S at the same time did not adequately explain any of them or give them any personality. Her reaction - seems like a good place to go to grad school.</p>
<p>quomodo & 1012mom:</p>
<p>:) :)</p>
<p>Connecticut College - Not impressed with admissions information session speaker and student guide. Nothing was within walking distance of college, need a car. Did not like New London, sport’s complex was far from the dorms (must take walkway over highway to get to it). Liked four 4 credit classes per semester and availability of single rooms after Freshman year. School was probably too small for my son.</p>
<p>Congrats to your D Holly 2010. UNC gives a great admissions presentation. My D is the only person I know who didn’t “feel” it. I suspect you are talking about Duke with angst and ennui? I don’t think of that as a typical Duke student. Interesting about first impressions.</p>
<p>I think for my S… and maybe a lot of kids… it has to do with the order in which you visit. We flew into Portland and had a day to explore the city… my S LOVED it. Had a great day. The next morning we went to visit Reed. Mind you it was POURING rain… of course, it is Portland, but the info session was amazing, our tour guide was a really interesting girl who seemed to really LOVE the school. The school is beautiful, and almost everything that came out of her mouth my S could relate to. I don’t think there was one thing that he DIDN’T like about it. They treated you so nice… had hot chocolate for everyone, really big nice umbrellas, etc… </p>
<p>We then proceeded to drive for 1 or so hours in the rain and traffic to Eugene to visit Willamette. Went into the admissions office to check-in and my S said to me," I don’t like it here can we leave" huh?? I convinced him to just try the tour, the first stop the guide says, ’ “and WAY over there, across the street is the Freshman housing”, that was it, we just kind of disappeared and left. I think my S might of liked this school if he wasn’t first so enamored with Reed… he literally could not stop taking about Reed the whole car ride to Willamette.</p>
<p>edit… a nice person just pm’d and corrected me… we drove to SALEM… not Eugene… which we started out driving to so my S could visit UO but because of the traffic and rain we just decided to stop in Salem to visit Willamette.</p>