University of Houston - UP (I’ve posted this info elsewhere in CC so sorry for the duplication)
Had an excellent visit with UH. We attended the Honors College Open House and the Engineering School Admitted Students Day. Both events were well organized and well attended. The weather was perfect.
I was very impressed with the design of the Honors College curriculum and how it is FULLY integrated with the student’s major. S will need to take many core courses for engineering and he will be able to take them in the Honors College - for example Accelerated Calc 2 & 3, which briefly reviews Calc 1, then moves on the Calc 2 & 3 over the course of two semesters. These classes will have 25 Honors students max, compared to 200+ at the regular college. Same is true for Intro to Engineering, Physics, and Chemistry. The Honors College does not have a boatload of “extra” work for the students - they just truly enhance the courses required for all students. Honors students live together in a relatively new dorm for their first and second year. The facilities were good (not great) but getting better. Dean was very excited to have a NYC student at the event - he pulled my S aside for a nice 15 minute chat about the College.
The Honors dorm in Cougar Village I was very nice, also very quiet…maybe too quiet. Facilities were clean and up to date. Laundry is free and there is a general store on the first floor. The rooms were suite style with 2 bedrooms each with two beds. The four suite mates share one bathroom which they are responsible for cleaning - this horrified me. My son will not clean someone else’s toilet - could be a problem.
The Engineering Admitted Students day was informative and genuine. They know that they are competing with UT and Rice and they work very hard to impress upon prospective students that if you apply yourself, you can have as good an experience as any student at those other schools. I believe this to be true, especially considering their research opportunities and their placement/salary statistics. All engineering students take an introductory course on engineering to help them decide which discipline they should focus on. For Honors students, this course is much smaller and more personal and very hands on and interactive. My S is interested in Aerospace/Mechanical but he may change direction after a full semester or two learning about the different disciplines - I like this approach.
The commuter/suitcase feel was real. One event was late on a Wednesday night, the other on a Saturday. The campus was relatively empty on both occasions and several students noted that many kids go home after class and/or on weekends. This is disappointing, but something they are ambitiously trying to change at UH.
Bottom line: We walked away feeling much better about the school than we did walking in. UH climbed a couple of rungs on S’s list.
UP- Ursinus College. This was a school we didn’t have a good feel for prior to the tour and came away impressed with the program, the welcoming students and faculty, the top notch performing arts facility, the beautiful campus, overall diversity and “vibe” and the better than most food. Is a top choice, S could see himself there and would do well, but the financials are unlikely to pencil at the end of the day.
STAYED THE SAME - University of Vermont. Loved the town, the program, the vibe. Wasn’t overwhelmed with the student interaction but a truly outstanding faculty meeting. Remains a top choice for program though the cost keeps it from moving up higher.
DOWN - Allegheny College. Loved the program, impressed with faculty and students, best food we’ve had and the campus is lovely. However those couldn’t make up for the town in the middle of nowhere (a big deal to my urban city kid but fine for many) and what felt like a lack of diversity in personality types. Not so much racial but rather a strong athletic/academic vibe that left my hipster liberal feeling like he’d struggle to find his group.
DOWN - Goucher College. Absolutely disastrous faculty meeting and class experience left my S feeling there was no real program for his area and unimpressive academics (at least in his area) and was an immediate deal killer and has been crossed off the list. Overall vibe didn’t resonate, nor did the campus.
I don’t think the poster was registering surprise at the number of Jesuits, just noting that the religious piece was, for her and/or her kid, a turn-off. Which is what this thread is about: What turns each of our kids on or off. Could be location or population or mascot or … you name it. My kid refused to look at anything with a “Saint” in the name. Arbitrary, but a lot of this is arbitrary. No weirder than some other kid saying University of Miami has “too many palm trees.”
A lot of visits, but will only mention the “movers”. None of these schools received applications from anyone in our house regardless of opinion / comment.
Off: Villanova - tour guide issues beyond repair.
Off: Colby - Information session leader was dismissive / aggressive with a student who obviously had cognitive issues. It was so uncomfortable that I wrote the dean of admissions, who replied with an equally dismissive email response. They seem very interested in climbing the rankings.
On: Hamilton - Stopped on the way home from a visit to Colgate, and were blown away by the place. Great campus, nice people, clear focus and value proposition.
Off: Colgate - It wasn’t Hamilton. Worst information session ever (fake Q&A focused solely on getting a job).
On: Lafayette - Head of admissions does a nice job selling the vision. Light on details, but engaging.
Off: Lehigh - 3 out of 4 left feeling as if they had visited the set of a horror movie. Lots of dark corners and late night walks through the woods up and down the hill?
Off: Princeton - Only people that smiled either day we visited were the busload of Japanese tourists. 2 visits, no smiles.
On: Bryn Mawr - nice campus, great tour guide / info session.
On: Dartmouth - Super nice Engineering prof stopped to see if we needed help at 8am on a Saturday morning…when he was obviously there to do other things.
I hope colleges read these posts. Just look at how info sessions and tour guides can make or break a visit. I’ve seen lots of posts here where a school is taken off a student’s prospective list with one bad tour guide and schools moving up a student’s list because of one nice professor.
@homerdog Interestingly enough, we were on a tour recently with a new tour guide who didn’t make the best impression. She actually said some things that could have turned us off, but despite that, my D absolutely loved the school. Maybe it’s telling when even when the tourguide is bad and/or admissions people are not that great you still want to go that school.
@EyeVeee I agree with so much of what you said. Especially about Lehigh. All I thought of was walking to and from those fraternity houses late at night in the dark on those wooded hills.
@EyeVeee
You really made me lol with the Lehigh description. Exactly how I felt, though my kid kind of liked it.
I do think it’s interesting to see the range of ad coms and tour guides described in this thread. For instance, our info session at Lafayette was hands down the worst we encountered due to the arrogance of the ad com. You obviously had a different presenter. And our info session at Colgate was one of the best, in part due to a very engaging prof, who was on hand to give his perspective. We also had a top notch tour guide at Villanova, - you certainly had someone different. On the one hand it’s great to have an authentic tour guide or info session presenter, instead of a heavily scripted, robotic one, but you would think a school would want a bit of consistency in messaging.
homerdog, , you are so right. My daughter didn’t want to consider Skidmore for the longest time, she just didn’t like the name. Several times I told her it should be on her list. Finally, she asked if we could visit on the way home from Hamilton. While there, we had time before our tour, and walked over to the Dance studio, and ran into a Dance professor who was moving in, Freshman were moving in and classes hadn’t started yet. Those 5 minuets with the professor, who simple showed us a Dance studio and talked about the school made such a positive impression. When we asked at Bowdoin if we could see a Dance studio, they gave us the run around and we just left. She never applied to Bowdoin and Skidmore is now one of the front runners.
We visited Lafayette the other day, and there was no info session offered, except to what appeared to be a group from China. Still, it made a good impression. Neither of my children expected to like it, but both did. My son especially loved the library; it felt to him like exactly the environment he would like to study in. The campus is beautiful, and the way it is both relatively compact and situated in the heart of a good-sized town gave it a more “urban” feel than we expected. (My son doesn’t like spread-out campuses with lots of green open space.) So it definitely moved up in everyone’s estimation.
We were both impressed with Lafayette’s library. D didn’t like Lafayette though.
D didn’t like Connecticut College. It was never “on the list”, but it could be visited as an easy day trip, so we went. We had a bad guide. She wasn’t unpleasant, but she was very bumbling and awkward. D thought the giant green lawn was boring. I actually thought there were plenty of smiling students, but D later said she saw no one smiling. I was unduly annoyed with the over-abundance of expensive glossy printed material in the admissions office. It seemed over the top. Conn left us with almost no impression really, and was never given another thought.
^ We felt the same about Conn College. It seemed like they were trying very hard to impress us. We found the school to have no character at all. Felt like it is rarely a first choice for anyone.
Similar impression of Conn College here. They’re part of the “8 of the Best Schools” roadshow, and theirs was the only presentation that fell completely flat. I know a kid who went there and is thriving, but they’re not selling themselves well.
@porcupine98 We attended one of those roadshows, and do you know what? I forgot that that was one of the colleges until you just mentioned it. Clearly we were not terribly impressed. I do remember them stressing the honor code a lot, but not much else.
