Abbreviated notes from Tour de Blizzard 2025:
- Pitt: same for me, down and out for S25.
- What we all liked: Pittsburgh! Lots to do and see, manageable size, seems to have a solid bus program that students actually take advantage of. Interesting neighborhoods, access to outdoor stuff, museums, good restaurants, etc.
- What impressed me about the program we were touring (engineering school specifically): once admitted to the engineering school, sounds like they do their best to keep you. The program is fairly small (maybe 2000 students?), compared to the scale of the undergrad student body (~20K). They have a lot of majors and encourage students to take freshman year to figure out what they want to study before deciding. They require that students maintain a 2.0 GPA to continue in engineering and don’t have secondary admissions.
- Tour, dorms, food, etc: seemed fairly standard. It’s a city campus and maybe feels a little more fragmented than, say, your typical liberal arts college. But students we encountered seemed diverse, friendly, purposeful. I’d have been happy to send S25 here but it didn’t really speak to him.
- Case Western Reserve University: UP for the whole family. This was S25’s favorite of the schools we visited and I think this was true for us parents as well.
- What we all liked: location was amazing – we’d never been to Cleveland and we saw a house on fire (literally) while driving into town. Also it was about 10 degrees not counting the windchill. Nevertheless, this part of Cleveland enchanted us: museums, parks, a botanical garden, the conservatory, the symphony, and major healthcare systems surround a campus that feels both historic (including a gorgeous chapel with Tiffany windows) and modern. There were great restaurants within walking distance of campus.
- Academics: seemed much more flexible than Pitt. You get admitted to Case and then you can pick any major (aside from music performance). The students we encountered seemed well-rounded, intellectually curious, happy, and busy.
- Dorms impressed my son. Lots of space; fridge/freezer in each room.
- The seven-story maker space is a true highlight, and not just in the “here’s an impressive building” sense – students were there making use of it, and we got to interact with them.
- The clubs are not competitive. You don’t have to have any experience to join. I think this was true for most of the schools on our visit but it’s a healthy contrast to some of the more rejective schools (e.g. Michigan, Cornell, etc.)
- Places we liked: Sittoo’s for shawarma and fried cauliflower; Glidden House Hotel (plan on eating breakfast there – it’s magnificent.)
- University of Rochester: UP for the whole family
- What we all liked: the open curriculum (easy to double-major, etc.), access to all majors (similar to Case), physical plant (great library, tunnels and skyways for days when you just can’t quite stomach the outdoors), interesting city, students seemed smart and well-rounded. Eastman School of Music is such a cultural gem and if one enjoys music, there’s a ton going on there.
- Not quite as great as Case: the physical setting – it’s hemmed in by a river, a medical center, and a graveyard. Feels more suburban than urban. I’m guessing most of the social life happens on campus, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but you’d definitely need wheels (public transit, a bike, a car) to get to city life.
- Maybe exactly as scary as Cleveland: the winter weather. I’ve not researched this but we got our first taste of lake effect snow and it’s real.
- Places we recommend: the flagship Wegmans was astonishing. Good for lunch; give yourself time to figure out what you want.
- RPI: Same, I guess?
- What we liked: the performance space on campus is stunning. The views of Troy are lovely. Troy itself is clearly on an upswing and it seemed like the kind of place our son would enjoy exploring and making his own.
- The tour itself left us a bit cold. Sometimes tours seem to bring a campus to life. This one, for whatever reason, did not. Unlike some tours we’d been on, the participants didn’t really interact with each other (or the tour guide). We did see students hanging out and working together in the engineering building, the dining hall, and the student center.
- Dorms, campus, etc. weren’t quite as nice as what we’d just seen in Cleveland and Rochester. Everything felt a little tired. But maybe WE were just tired. Anyway, hard to argue with RPI’s reputation as an engineering powerhouse. S25 would get a stellar education there. It’s still on the list. It just wasn’t love at first sight.
- Places we recommend: Little Peeps Cafe for breakfast. It’s an amazing space in which you’ll want to linger.
- Union College: UP for mom and maybe pop; down for the kid.
- What we liked: campus is compact, seems well-maintained, feels small compared to all the schools we’d seen but this isn’t necessarily a minus. If you like Davidson or Colby, you’d probably like Union.
- We met two faculty without even really trying, and both of them independently sold us on their ability to engage students in research and the obvious pride and interest they took in their work with undergraduates. This is the big selling point for liberal arts schools and we were both hooked.
- Unfortunately for reasons that he couldn’t quite explain, S25 wasn’t as excited.
- Schenectady is a great little city. Places we enjoyed: Arthur’s Market for breakfast; Simone’s Kitchen for dinner or lunch.
- Lafayette College: down, a little, maybe, for me. Same for S25 (who had no preconceived notions about the place).
- What we liked: beautiful campus, seems to offer the same sorts of benefits as Union. Plentiful on-campus housing, including some newer apartment-style dorms. Robust engineering department. If you like Union, you should also visit Lafayette.
- What we didn’t get a sense of: what the campus feels like when students and faculty are awake and present. Saturday tours are maybe a little bit of a let-down in this regard. The common areas were all completely deserted.
- Place we enjoyed: Mojo 516 Cafe for great muffins and breakfast sandwiches (cinnamon roll was way too sweet though).