The person in Texas wanting to stay in state should look at Rice, Trinity, SMU, TCU, and Southwestern.
@ClaremontMom I didn’t imply it in a mean way at all. Many “universities” are spread out over 100s of acres. I fully agree. BUT, my DC thought it did not feel like a “university” and felt like clusters of office buildings embedded in a posh neighborhood
@BoiDel - okay…it did give me a chuckle, though.
I do disagree with her impression of a cluster of office buildings. I can see where she might say that about Mudd which is pretty much two rows of buildings, but I wouldn’t lump in the entire 5C’s — especially not Scripps or Pomona which are beautiful campuses.
^^^Well isn’t that kind of the point of this thread – that the same college (or consortium in this case) can strike two people very differently (heck, even my own two kids had different opinions about some colleges they both looked at)? Vive la difference!
Yes, that is the point of the thread…I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. Just providing another point of view.
Fl state usually does so well on tours, that some people prefer it to UF. Honestly, the kids I know who attend there are quite satisfied.
Moved up:
-Kenyon: It just felt right; the scenery, the people…
-Swarthmore: Expected to love it, and I did. It was actually perfect.
-Smith: Visited as an add-on last minute, and so glad I did. I loved the house system and the people seemed super focused and awesome.
-Haverford: Really impressed with the people. The library is AMAZING and all of my life goals. However, it seemed pretty stem focused.
Stayed same:
-Mount Holyoke: Nice campus, very friendly… a little too friendly, came across like a big sorority.
-Bryn Mawr: I visited, interviewed, etc. I liked it but it didn’t make a lasting impression.
-Oberlin: Nice tour guide and campus. Went to a class and the professor was great. But the kids were pretty unfriendly…
Moved up:
Williams: S absolutely lit up at the description of the tutorial-style classes, the easy availability of working with professors on research projects (and not just in the sciences), Jan term, and the number of kids who study abroad. I liked the entry way system in the freshman dorms. The new library is absolutely stunning. Easy access to skiing and other outdoor activities a plus. And Mountain Day sounds like such a fun tradition.
Georgetown: it didn’t feel as urban or as religious as S feared, so it exceeded expectations. S went to the information session at the SFS and was impressed by that (even though not sure if that’s the route he’d take).
Moved down:
Johns Hopkins: maybe it was just the tour guide he had, but S walked away with the impression that JHU is just all about the sciences. Their website has plenty of information about humanities, but none of that came through to him on the visit.
Amherst: felt too much like S’s current school (architecture looks very similar). I had concerns that the 5 college consortium looks better on paper than it is in practice.
Stanford: felt too big and spread out, and S came away with an impression (which fits my general view of the school too) that the majority of kids there are very focused on college as a path to a certain career (i.e., law school, Wall Street, Silicon Valley) and not as interested in learning for interest’s sake as he’d like
A person above mentioned the new cap on OOS admissions at Berkeley. Here is an article. It is supposed to be phased in over time.
The 5-college consortium works well. I’ve known several people who have taken classes at all 5 campuses over the past several years. There’s a free transit system. Really. It works well.
D18 and I just returned from a three day visit to UBC in Vancouver. It was her second visit but my first. Impression for both of us went up. Honestly, coming from middle-America, I thought the school would be much more hippy-ish. My stereotypes are showing, I suppose. There is an outdoorsy element, for sure, but the students seem very serious and focused. I’ve heard the school referred to as University of Billions of Chinese, and I couldn’t help but chuckle at that every time I was caught in a mass of people.
We didn’t just visit the campus, we really exhausted it. We stayed four nights at the on-campus hotel. We went to the special event for American prospective students (and UBC knocked this out of the park. Earlier in this thread I mentioned that it matters how well a university organizes an event. I was wholly impressed with how UBC hosted these hundreds of visitors. It was masterfully done and every one of their student ambassadors was a star.) We met with an advisor to ask questions and sketch out a sample degree plan. D visited three classes and chatted with each professor afterwards. We hung out in the evening hot spots. All of these were very valuable experiences. The downside to immersing herself in the student culture like that is that now my junior has a touch of senioritis!
Moved up Yale, Columbia, Rice, Northwestern. Moved Down Wash U, Penn, Swarthmore, Haverford, William and Mary,
@Houston1021 why did columbia move up and Penn down?
She liked the NYC campus and the core course philosophy at Columbia. She is an undecided major. She did not get the same vibe at Penn and didn’t really like Philly. She felt like Penn was more focused on business.
@ShrimpBurrito - we visited UBC when S was applying and loved it. Hands down the friendliest group of people we met on any college visit.
Moved down (actually off): Rice, but that’s probably a “familiarity breeds contempt” thing because we live in the Houston area. He just didn’t get a good feeling about Rice and won’t apply there.
Visits that maintained interest but didn’t move up or down: UT Austin and WPI. DS expected to like both and he did like them.
Moved up the list: UT Dallas, U Tulsa and MIT. All three visits were my suggestion; DS was open to visiting but not particularly excited about any of the schools beforehand. He absolutely loved U Tulsa (it’s currently his number one pick) because of the beautiful campus and excellent personal visits with a CS professor and the head of the honors program. The UT Dallas tour was also set up as a prospective honors student visit, and the one on one meetings with the CS honors head and the overall honors department head were outstanding. Plus the UT Dallas dorms and dining hall are fantastic and really appeal to DS.
@Houston1021 - I would imagine that if Philadelphia was a non-starter, Swarthmore and Haverford went the way of Penn. What happened to Wash U.? Anything else about the Philly schools that made them less desirable?
Having grown up in Houston, my daughter wants a school in a big city or at least near one. We started one college tour in NYC and saw Columbia then went on the train to Yale and Princeton. From there we went on to Philly. She did not like the Philly/Penn setting compared to NYC area around Columbia. She thought Haverford and Swarthmore were pretty but too small and remote. Most of the classes she wanted to take at Haverford were only offered at Bryn Mawr.
Another trip we started in Chicago and saw U Chicago and Northwestern then went on to St. Louis to see Wash U. We stayed on Michigan Ave in the Chicago Hilton (on U Chicago special rates). She loved Chicago, and Northwestern’s setting on the lake is spectacular. She thought Wash U was pretty but just didn’t like campus vibe or STL.
@Houston1021 - Thank you for your suggestions. D18 is not likely to get in at Rice. We have already visited and crossed Southwestern off the list it was too small and a the facilities a bit outdated. I should have clarified that by in-state I meant a public university not private. If we are paying for a private university we may as well look outside the confines of Texas. In the end I suspect that D18 will end up out of state like her sister.
Staying on the List - LSU. We did a campus and dorm tour last week. It will remain on the list as a safety as D18 will, in all likelihood, surpass the auto admit threshold. The campus was much nicer/scenic than I expected. We saw some really nice dorms and we saw some seriously awful dorms. Parental Concerns: the sheer size of student population, the really low graduation 69% after 6 years, (although the freshman retention rate is good at 84%ish), no requirement to meet with advisors, testing lab, for a school of it’s size the library is not open 24/7, the vast majority of students (I think they said 73%) living off campus may give it a commuter school feeling. There seemed to be a fair amount of school spirit (one of the criteria I use to judge how much the students like a school is how many of them are dressed in school swag). D18 seems ok with LSU overall.
At state flagships, it is very common for only freshmen to live in campus housing. That doesn’t make it a commuter college as the rest of the students live near the college. They may even spend more time on campus to study or meet with groups as the small apartments they live in have little quiet time or room in the apartments. Some live in Greek housing, a few do live at home and commute, but again may spend a lot of time on campus.