Three tours over the last six weeks for D26.
Tulsa - SLIGHTLY DOWN. We did a quick visit with a private campus tour in the summer, and D26 really liked it, so hopes were high for this longer preview day for juniors. It was fine, but honestly I think the expectations were too high, and she came away a little disappointed.
The day began with a warmup activity for the attendee families, who were then divided into three groups that rotated among sessions on the Honors College, the Library, and Career Services. In keeping with the school’s recent focus on high achievers and National Merit Scholars, the whole morning had a very studious, academic feel. The Honors session in particular featured multiple professors and a current student talking passionately about the intense engagement of Honors students in deep thinking about profound questions. For life-of-the-mind kids, this would’ve been really exciting, but that isn’t D26’s vibe, so she was sort of indifferent. The Library session was fine, but a missed opportunity - I would’ve used that time to have students representing a variety of campus clubs talk to attendees about Greek life, intramurals, varsity sports, music/theater opportunities, etc. etc. There really wasn’t much during the day about non-academic campus life, which is important to most kids. The Career Services session wasn’t memorable.
After the sessions, there were campus walking tours. We’d already done that previously, and this was similar except that there really was no time allotted for questions. Our guide was cheerful and informative, but she had so much material to cover in her script that she really never stopped talking. I had a few questions along the way, and finally I just interrupted her to ask one of them before the group moved on. D26 said later that she had a few also as we encountered things along the tour, but just didn’t bother b/c it didn’t seem like there was time for that. One cool feature - they have food delivery robots that deliver to the dorms upon request. Another - they have on-campus apartments that many upperclassmen choose to live in, so the large majority of the student body resides on campus.
Lunch was served (a plus), with a current student at every table to talk about their experience at TU. This was helpful in a way, but by that point, everyone was tired and it honestly would’ve been preferable to just have a few minutes to ourselves to regroup and compare notes. The day ended with a “colleges fair” where reps from each academic unit were on hand to answer questions about the various fields under their umbrellas. We bailed out early, as D26 isn’t sure enough on a particular academic direction to have specific questions.
The big drawback of the day for D26 was the lack of fine arts info, especially music. She probably won’t be a music major, but she really wants to participate in music extracurriculars, and there just wasn’t any mention of that whole realm of activities. The most we got was, “Oh, there’s an activities fair every year on this quad, all of the clubs and groups set up tables and you’ll find plenty to do.” Probably true, but I would’ve liked to hear a little more.
Southwestern - DOWN AND OFF. To be fair, I’m the one who generally puts these schools on the long list for consideration in the first place, so it’s not as if D26 was a huge fan and then suddenly reversed course - she knew little about Southwestern before the tour. But it became clear pretty quickly that it wasn’t for her.
The 2-hr afternoon event began with the tour and then ended with an info session, the reverse of pretty much every other campus visit we’ve had. The tour was OK, but already things were going downhill. The classroom that we visited was dim and unpleasant - butter-yellow walls and outdated wood trim, crowded with too many tiny desks. In fact, many spaces on campus were pale yellow, which did not resonate with D26. Our guide was a recruited athlete who didn’t seem to really come alive until the part of the tour that covers athletic facilities and intramurals, which she is clearly passionate about. D26 isn’t an athlete, so that didn’t leave the best impression. It also became clear at some point that every person on the tour was from Texas, and D26 would really prefer a school with kids from lots of different places (ideally not located in TX, but that’s another story).
The info session wisely focused on the school’s location in Georgetown, TX, about 45 minutes north of Austin. There are countless opportunities for outdoor activities nearby, including a natural spring-fed swimming hole right in Georgetown, and the nightlife and internships of Austin are close by. The rest was mostly taken straight from the website, except the admissions rep did reveal that their recruitment strategy going forward is to double-down on Texas students. Currently, they are about 88% Texans, and they expect that number to go up in coming years.
One headscratcher - they apparently make no effort to water the grassy areas on campus, so in dry years (which is most years nowadays), the “grass” is mostly yellow husks interspersed with bare dirt patches. I guess that could be a good thing, in that they don’t use their water resources on landscaping, but it’s amazing how negatively it affected our impression of campus. When the grass is dead, the whole place feels dead.
Trinity U - UP. Excitement was minimal for this one, as we were coming off a bit of a dud at a similar school (S’western) and this began at 8:00 AM. But the day started strong with a good tour. The guide was very calm and pleasant, and very open to questions. The campus is really lovely, with a consistent architectural style and winding stairways among plentiful live oak trees. There’s a community garden maintained by a student club that harvests the vegetables for use in the campus dining hall. We learned that D26 cares quite a bit about campus walkways! Brick and stone are preferred, and patterned or stained concrete is fine, but ordinary concrete sidewalks are bland and boring. Who knew?!?!?
The info session was mostly standard info from the website, but the last sentence of the presentation was key: music scholarships, which are available to non-majors, can be stacked with academic merit money. This is an important data point for D26, an aspiring vocalist who probably needs a little more than the highest academic merit to make this school affordable.
Next came the academic departments fair, which was more helpful than the Tulsa version because individual departments were represented - not just an “arts and sciences” rep, but dozens of professors representing individual departments. We learned a lot about choral groups for non-majors.
At this point, there really should have been a lunch provided (it was 11:45 and the event was 3.5 hours and counting), but no…there was a 45-minute student panel. It was fine, but we were tired and hungry and mostly checked out. At the conclusion, we and others who had registered in advance were invited to attend a Trinity football game on campus for free with a concession stand voucher for “lunch,” but that sounded like too much work and not enough food. So we left campus and ate at a local burger joint nearby, which was excellent.
The event was too long, but prior to the exhaustion, D26 liked Trinity quite a bit. It’s on the larger side for an LAC (~2500), which she has discovered that she likes, and they have great music opportunities that include non-major scholarships. And unlike our friends at another small college in Texas that rhymes with “Jouthwestern,” Trinity is proud to welcome students from 47 states and 58 countries. It’s moved way up the list.
D25 loved the big game/school spirit aspect of PSU but worried about life after 10+ weeks of football; didn’t love the rural aspect outside of campus and lack of city offerings. We’ve heard of more than a few students transferring from PSU becuase it was just too big for them and D25 didn’t love that some portions of campus may require a bus or loooooooong walk to get to point A / point B. She applied and was accepted fall UP start but this school fell behind others after additional tours elsewhere. Will likely still attend an admitted student day this spring to make sure as this seems to be her 2nd choice currently.