@doschicos Exactly! We saw Hamlton and Colgate in the same weekend, and while both were beautiful, what I found so appealing about Hamilton was all the options for places to hang out. I think that’s especially important when a college is located in a rural area and when they have long, rough winters.
^^^ We made the mistake of touring Cornell, Colgate and Hamilton all in the same day, in the summer. Drove up to Cornell the night before, took the morning tour, then drove the Colgate for the mid-day tour then drove to Hamilton for the last tour of the day. Did the info sessions for all three too. S was so exhausted and burned out by the end of the day that I think it colored his impressions and later he said Colgate and Hamilton blended together in his mind. Though he did apply to Hamilton in the end, and not the other two.
Funny about both first impressions of the surrounding as well as the admin at Lafayette. Spring of DD junior year, she and I looked at Lafayette at the tail end of a long tour that took us through Skidmore to Syracuse, down through Ithaca Cornell and then Bucknell. We entered Easton late in the evening, tired from all the driving, and walked to the restaurant. Everything struck us as sketchy, especially after seeing the surrounding area of Bucknell.
Almost exactly a year later, Lafayette suddenly comes through with a scholarship 3 days before the big decision day so DD, DH and I drive down within 24 hours notice to see the school. This time we found Easton to be eclectic and up and coming and DD and I couldn’t remember exactly why we didn’t like it the first time. Doubt it really changed that much in one year so it was probably more our perspective than anything else. Ate in great restaurants and stayed in a charming inn. Administration went out of their way to win my daughter over with a personal tour, lunch etc and one of the top admin guys even ran out of his office as we left to make sure my daughter got a Lafayette t-shirt as a take away. DD had some great choices for schools but Lafayette came out of almost nowhere to the top of her list and she is a supremely happy first year student there now. DD was a very good high school student but not a superstar so their reception felt very sincere. We also saw a lot of students greeting and joking with the top admin personnel, which isn’t something I remember seeing at the larger schools. Not saying anyone is right or wrong about the admin at Lafayette, though there certainly are enough people complaining here that indicates there must be something there, just that we had such an opposite experience so wanted to share it.
Good point!
As a WPI alum, I was concerned as I knew that their recent growth had put pressure on the campus residential space. They recently took down the oldest gymnasium (one of three) and are in the process of constructing their new innovation center on the cite. The top two floors of this center will include more dormitory residence in the middle of the campus, but will not be open for residence until the fall of 2018.
I have to say (and I think others might agree), the information session is more important than the schools might realize. If the admissions office seems pretentious or rude–as lots of posters have commented on–the opinion of the school will certainly drop…and that’s before you even start walking around the campus! For me, the schools that had engaging info sessions where I learned something new stayed on the list or moved up. Meanwhile, dull lectures really set the stage for disappointment (especially when before the tour; when the sessions were after the tour, it was easier to look past the banality).
**Information sessions that were particularly helpful: **
-Tufts: The man leading the session actually read out multiple example essays from the past year’s applicants, telling us why the essays were good or not. I know Tufts publishes “essays that worked” online, but it was the only info session I went to where essays were the main focus. I really got a lot out of it. Before that, I didn’t really know the optimal writing tone. The ones he read were creative, and I got some ideas for my own essays.
-Villanova: Engaging, inspiring…I think I was a freshman when I went because my older sister was going through the process, but I was paying attention throughout the whole thing! The speaker was so friendly and he was continually asking the audience questions. Without that session, I don’t think Villanova would have been on the list, especially since it was rainy, which limited the tour.
Sessions that didn’t really change my opinion:
-Yale: Had an old video of students singing like a musical…“That’s why I chose Yale!” While I thought it was charming, my mom thought it was really cheesy. The actual info session speaker was super polished. I didn’t get anything especially useful out of it, but it wasn’t boring.
-William and Mary: Nothing stand-out. It seemed slightly scripted. We toured W&M twice and I already liked the school and knew a lot about it, so the session didn’t make that big of an impact. But the tour guides were always friendly and accommodating.
Bad information sessions:
-Brown. I’m not kidding; this was probably the worst we went to out of nearly 20 schools. There were far too many people in that lecture hall and the sound did not travel. What made it worse was the lady running the session: she spoke softly, went over things that everyone in the session obviously knew, especially if they were coming from a tour, and hardly talked about things that people wanted to know about, like AP score credit. And she spoke SO slowly: “So that’s the open curriculum. (pause) Any questions? (5 second pause) No? (pause) Okay…now we’ll move on to Satisfactory/No credit…” We were all about to fall asleep. I didn’t end up applying to Brown. Tour-wise, they had us pick our tour guides, and I felt bad because after the guides introduced themselves, nearly everyone went to the same three guides, and the guide with a quiet voice had like two families.
-UVA. Thank goodness I was going to apply no matter what the tour was like. The guy droned through the whole presentation at a podium on a stage. This one I might have actually fallen asleep. 
corbeaux, great post. At Middlebury it was standing room only and people sitting in the isles, but there were plenty of single seats not filled. Same thing later in the day at Saint Michaels, it was February vacation. The difference being, the lady at Saint Michaels asked every body to stand up, and fill all the empty seats since they were going to be full. I’m glad she did because it made my griping to my daughter not look so silly. This should be the first thing they teach to all Admissions officers who speak.
My kids start school mid August and end mid May. My D takes AP classes. Exams are in early May. The last week or so of AP classes is spent watching movies and such. For schools ending in late June (!), how does that work? It seems those students would have significantly less time to prepare for the AP exams, then lots of dead time afterwards.
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ShrimpBurrito, The teachers give the students projects to work on. If your a junior and are in a class with many seniors, you get to coast. Since it’s always been that way here, we never think of it as less time to prepare. I never even thought of other kids having such a different schedule until today. The end of Junior year was crazy busy, including time to pick out a prom dress, equivalent to taking one extra Ap time wise ; )
@ShrimpBurrito Exactly – that was the point I made previously. Our kids have to take the AP’s about 7 weeks before school is scheduled to end (assuming no snow day extension), so they do have less time to get through the material. What they do after varies by class/teacher. many do effectively coast, some use the time to teach more topics or do projects, etc. The school is pretty clear about which AP’s are predominately Seniors and those are the ones that mostly coast after AP’s because of Senioritis.
Isn’t this thread supposed to be about college visits?
Sorry, back to our regularly scheduled programming. This thread veers then eventually makes its way back it seems.
Cal Poly SLO (down) - did my at least 4th tour of this school. On the 3rd tour it was marked off list by D for various reasons, but the one that stands out is that while it is great for engineering, the feeling on the tour was the CS was the ugly step-child. Also, housing too crammed, when they do triples it is downright tight and it was a big incoming year for students/over-crowded housing per the admin (they have some years worse/better than others).
For 4th tour with youngest - School is ok, but San Luis Obispo isn’t the right setting for this one. Said it is just a big black spot at night - from the highway you don’t know anything is there. I know it’s an adorable quaint town, but this one wants big urban setting or at least more choices around the college town.
MODERATOR’S NOTE
February Vacation/snow days/ski weeks have nothing to do with this thread. 21 posts deleted. Let’s keep on topic, please.
Most threads seem to come around to the original intent in the end.
We focused on California and Arizona. For S1, he was interested in a school that had a flatter, more compact campus due to physical issues. He is also a very average student (3.0 UWGPA, 24 ACT). We looked at a number of Cal States and UC schools for him. He liked Irvine and Davis, but did not get into either. He did get into Santa Cruz, but the campus was hilly and too liberal. He also liked Cal Poly Pomona, even though it was more of a commuter school, but did not get in. Sonoma State he did not like at all, although we parents loved the campus. He liked the Chico campus, as did we, but he thought it was too far from home (we live in San Diego) and he also said “none of my friends has heard of Chico.” We visited ASU and he felt the campus was too spread out. He LOVED University of Arizona, which he now attends. He likes the diverse political viewpoints of his classmates, and the flat campus where everything is very accessible within 5-10 minutes from his dorm. It’s a great fit for what he was looking for.
S2 is a stronger student (4.0 UW GPA, 2240 SAT), and we visited Harvey Mudd, which he LOVED (he did an overnight visit as well - highly recommend), USC (not so much; he’s more of a “nerd” and not into the frat/sports scene), Santa Clara (parents loved it, he thought the students were too preppy), Berkeley (not a fan of the politics, but liked the campus and adjacent city full of game stores), UCLA (parents’ alma mater, again not nerdy enough), Stanford (admitted REA, has everything, campus is very spread out but at least flat, one of the dorms appeals to him, we will attend Admit weekend for a more in-depth look). He also applied to Rice, Vanderbilt and Carnegie Mellon, but we will only visit them if he’s admitted with a significant scholarship.
And to try to wrench the subthread back on topic, I’ll note that my D17 has started paying attention to when and how long holiday breaks are in her college search. (She didn’t start asking about it until very late in the college visit phase of her search, but it’s easily enough findable online.) Basically, having too short a winter break, or a spring break too early in the year, is a major downgrade.
^^^ Tell her that she’ll probably want to check to see when exams are … my kid goes to a school that has 1st semester finals after the Christmas break.
Oh, and one school was cut entirely from the list once DD discovered that it had a team sport requirement (either varsity or intramural).
Good to read the fine print!
@GnocchiB what school requires you to play a sport?
^^All the service academies do. Many of the religious schools require some type of activity.
GTech was already high on DS17’s list but pass/fail humanities and pretty generous AP credit is a nice plus.
Schools that require their engineering majors to take extensive humanities - without a “techy” flavor (and grant little AP credit) are down on the list. Some schools under consideration require PE &/or a swim test.
There are many colleges that require gym. Swarthmore, Bates, Carleton and Dickinson are just three that my D saw.