<p>Ouch. Didn’t know we were supposed to defend our opinion.
Glad WUSTL is working out for your family. After the tour, we left and knew immediately it wouldn’t work for ours.</p>
<p>Final–you don’t have to defend! LOL. But could you say what your impressions were as it related to your student? Were the people unfriendly, the campus too quiet–things like that.</p>
<p>Hello pixeljig,</p>
<p>You are right,when a parents visiting with your child there was a change of heart.</p>
<p>Every parents wants, your baby has been more happy.</p>
<p>Thanks,</p>
<p>On WUSTL, we have had mixed feelings.</p>
<p>Pro: </p>
<p>Great school, grate campus
Great presentation by admissions
Very strong bio, business programs</p>
<p>Con: My S hates St Louis downtown, especially along the river in the ghost-town district.</p>
<p>He applied. we shall see…</p>
<p>On WUSTL, our visit went very well and my S really liked it.</p>
<p>The campus is stunning, the services offered unbelievable – great college advising, pre-med advising, lab research opportunities. the kids we met during lunch and the afternoon seemed smart but very down-to-earth. </p>
<p>Didn’t visit downtown but saw the area not far from campus – walking distance – w/ shops and restaurants, and went to museum in park across the street: all terrific.</p>
<p>Curious to know what turned off Final’s kid?</p>
<p>My S also decided to apply.</p>
<p>Ithaca College- D thought the guys were a little too full of themselves. No smiles from any students as we walked through campus. Also non-majors were not allowed or given limited access to music practice rooms.
Wells College- The projects posted had typos in them. Really glaring mistakes. This is the caliber of student? Also, D was told there was no option for breakfast before 10 am on Sundays.<br>
Mount Holyoke- According to D, the library (her sacred space) did not feel like a library but more like a coffee shop. Also the tour guide said every student had to take 3 Econ courses irrespective of their major. (We are pretty sure that was wrong).</p>
<p>Penn. The tour guide was a clone of the Reese Witherspoon character in Election. The info session was led by an adcom who was like somebody’s crazy grandmother. The med evac helicopters were landing on the hospital, making it feel like Saigon in the '70s. Couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
They have so many applicants they’re probably happy to weed some out!</p>
<p>SUNY New Paltz - has every major my daughter might want but if she decided to not have it as her major she couldn’t take any classes except the intro class in that area (ie. only ceramics 101 if she’s not a ceramics major).</p>
<p>I know I’ve mentioned this before (maybe more than once, in the last 7 years ;)).
Rice University - DD thought adcom that came to her high school for a visit was full of himself and she was NOT going to go to school in the great state of Texas, in the armpit city of the world, Houston, Texas. :eek: We visited Rice U on a Saturday morning at about 11 a.m. Campus absolutely deserted and way too clean and sterile. Had had numerous problems setting up interview-tried three times before being successful in scheduling one. Receptionist was cold, and other candidates were wearing Sunday school-type clothes and looked vaguely preppy. (DD was in t-shirt, and usual casual attire.) Air-conditioning and power was out at the info session and the presenter sounded like a ditz, and had graduated from Rice. Not good advertising! Hot as hell, and very humid in the room and on-campus. Got lost finding the place… DD applied as my “parental prerogative” college. Told her she should apply even though she definitely did not want to and preferred Bowdoin or Carleton or some other small and far-away LAC. </p>
<p>Changed her mind in April. Attended, loved it and had an absolutely fabulous and personal education, great mentoring, internship and study abroad adventures, including a fully-paid year of study abroad AFTER graduating. </p>
<p>DS saw what big sister had, and was thrilled to be accepted also. Loved his experience there, and will be sad to graduate this May and leave his res college and all the wonderful people he has met there. Just goes to show you that first impressions… ;)</p>
<p>anxiousmom – loved your post! Rice is likely to be my “parental perogative” application, so you really had me going.</p>
<p>Glad your kids had such great experiences. Thanks for sharing your visit info.</p>
<p>Thanks RedShoes for the laugh today!</p>
<p>If you haven’t yet, you may want to take a look at Carnegie-Mellon. Highly-ranked school nationally and internationally and a great campus with very interesting architecture, and a wonderful theatre building. CMU is in the heart of Pittsburgh but the campus feels quite separate and spacious. They have a great precollege program -six weeks in the summer - in theatre, among other things, that you may want to consider. As a plus, they occasionally offer nonbinding admission for the fall at the end of the program to students they want - getting that news at the end of the summer was fantastic for us.</p>
<p>Drexel… No longer interested after visiting!</p>
<p>anxiousmom - Do you mind sharing how your daughter went from not liking Rice to enrolling there?</p>
<p>We toured Pennsylvania, Boston and Upstate NY Schools. Here are some impressions:</p>
<p>Pennsylvania Schools: </p>
<p>DREXEL - Agree with KeeterMom that it was not good. He had an appointment and he was first ushered into meet his department adcom in a horrible run down room (with a pile of broken chairs in the corner, 70s brown stained carpeting, and even a broken down kitchen area) really? for a private school with high tuition? They couldn’t choose a more well-kept building to have freshman interviews? </p>
<p>TEMPLE - Great tour with two enthusiastic tour guides, an impressive computer center and a campus that seemed on the rise. Even though people had warned us about it not being in the best neighborhood, the campus areas we saw were all well-kept and there is a lot of new construction and it all felt fine to us. A bustling, diverse, dynamic city campus and my son liked it.</p>
<p>PENN STATE - Maybe a bit too big, but nice campus with lots of rah-rah spirit (which my son likes.) Seemed to have some impressive programs that he looked into and liked.</p>
<p>PITT - Fine city campus, but tour guide was not energetic, and it all just was not as exciting to him as some of the other schools. </p>
<p>CARNEGIE MELLON - Beautiful campus, but we met a few people who seemed stressed and a student in his department even said he was barely keeping up. My son was on the low end academically so didn’t even apply.</p>
<p>Boston Schools:</p>
<p>NORTHEASTERN - Great city campus in Boston, a great college town, really good overall. Co-op program seemed interesting, but not sure about how taking time off affected campus life and son is really interested in an undergrad residential campus life experience.</p>
<p>BU - Not enough of a campus and seemed a bit sprawling and big. Fine school, but didn’t excite him.</p>
<p>Upstate New York Schools:</p>
<p>ITHACA - Didn’t love the campus. Was a bit dead when we were there, so we didn’t get a feel of the campus dynamic.</p>
<p>U ROCHESTER - Beautiful campus and good tour. A possible choice.</p>
<p>ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY - Son hated it because it felt like it had no campus life or quad or rah-rah feel and was too techy (the name RIT should have given him a clue!) </p>
<p>SYRACUSE - Perfect school. Loved everything about it. Great campus with center quad. Good school spirit. Good size. Lots of choice of majors in areas he likes. Applied ED. Attending.</p>
<p>Rice was absolutely fabulous for my nephew, but mathson refused to consider it. “No Red States”. (Though I think the issue was temperature not politics.) Mathson ended up at Carnegie Mellon and it’s been perfect for him.</p>
<p>
Just wondering, does this go both ways? Do conservative students ever say “No blue states?” Or is it just the liberals who have become so closed-minded by the age of 17?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think you just answered your own question…</p>
<p>ummm… birdrock and CUlater - haven’t you seen the threads questioning whether the PNW is too liberal?</p>
<p>yes, indeed, it goes both ways.</p>
<p>Or read through the Harvard/Princeton & other Ivy threads–many red applicants fearful of the blue reputations of schools. My DD has had a wonderful balance of Democrat and Republican profs and can espouse the strengths of each.</p>