@londondad - Goofy name, but good set of presentations for kids interested in small LACs. (And sorry: colleges, not schools.)
http:// www.8ofthebestcolleges.org/
Claremont McKenna College
Colorado College
Connecticut College
Grinnell College
Haverford College
Kenyon College
Macalester College
Sarah Lawrence College
^^^^ Grinnell, Macalaster, Colorado College, Sarah Lawrence, Claremont Mc Kenna, Haverford, Conn College, Kenyon.
There’s another program with Duke, Penn, G’twn and some others
@porcupine98 - ‘flat’ is exactly the word my D used to describe Conn College. She said it had ‘no vibe’ - whatever that means. My DH and I kind of like it though, and I do know a bunch who did make it their first choice.
@lindagaf – that lawn did seem really huge - almost too big for the school. They should build something on it, though I think their endowment is not the greatest.
We also visited Vassar, Brandeis, Wesleyan, and Trinity the past few days. D and I went to Wellesley while S went on his own to an info session at Boston U. No real surprises as to who liked which. Both loved Vassar, as expected. Our tour guide called it a joyous place, and it looked that way to us. Food (at student center) not too good, but is being replaced with company that handles Wesleyan’s food, which was amazing. D loved Wesleyan too, but was less impressed with Trinity, partly thinking it wasn’t intellectual enough for her, and partly just bored by our info session. S liked the urban location and a program they have at Hartford Hospital for students interested in medicine. Beautiful campus. Wellesley is also stunningly beautiful. I’m not sure the all-female environment is the best choice for my daughter, nor is she, although I’m sure she will apply there. We were a bit put off by a publication that gave “content warnings” for all its articles and which had decided to provide content warnings for articles that mentioned our current President. It’s hard to imagine how an intelligent woman could live in the real world if she was too delicate to read the news (and frankly, isn’t that the opposite of what a Wellesley grad should be?). S could see himself at Brandeis. D, again, found it not quite up to her intellectual standards (basically, she wants to be at a school where most other students are at her level, didn’t think that was true there). She also didn’t like the modern buildings. Off her list.
@Akqj10 - I taken the tour at Bowdoin 4 times for 2 kids (no applications in the end), and have yet to see an athletic facility, a dining hall, or artistic space (other than through the windows of the art building where the post works you can see from the main quad). Seems like a good place to be for 4 years…but the lack of diversity and the overriding feel of Cape Cod refugees scared us off. I also left with a strong sense that you see “Freshman Year” on the tour, and the later years are less glamorous as students migrate away from the center of campus. I didn’t list Bowdoin above, because in staying with the theme of this thread the visits never changed our opinion…other than Brunswick might be the central casting version of “College Town”.
@wisteria100 - It really goes to show you how random much of the campus visit process can be. Both of my children visited their ultimate campus 3 or 4 times before finalizing. Both of their final choices included overnight visits, and both of the overnight visits were unquestionable, unimaginable disasters.
My younger one had come off a perfect overnight the week before, and was in tears on the phone by 10:30-11. What happened during both visits is that the community around the school picked both up and made them feel welcome. Random acts of kindness…asking if they needed help, walking them to class, coming up to them (sitting alone) at the dining hall and sitting down, the conversation during the classes they visited…made all the difference. In the end, they knew they would never be friends with their host…but that their host wasn’t representative of the school. That’s a really bad statement to make about the recruiting priorities and management at some schools, but not my issue anymore.
I agree overall that the Bowdoin tour under-sold their facilities, though we saw one of the two dining halls during ours. The main sports complex is a couple blocks removed from the main campus so I’m not surprised they skip it on the tour. It’s quite nice, but can’t compare with Middlebury which is the nicest I’ve seen for an LAC. I don’t know why they don’t go inside the Pickard Theatre complex (two different stages) as it’s very nice and used as the summer stage for the best equity-level music theatre company in the region. Same with their concert hall or their art gallery, both their own buildings. Bowdoin is middle of the pack for for NESCAC on diversity, which is not a high bar. At least 60% of the class is from outside of the Northwest and while a small majority are not on financial aid the wealth doesn’t seem to be very conspicuous, not nearly as much so as some other schools. Excluding the sports facilities, the campus is really small compared to all the other NESCAC’s we toured, and 90 percent of students live on campus.
@porcupine98 many people use the terms “schools” and “colleges” interchangeably!
I think @porcupine98 was just pointing out what this gang of eight actually calls itself.
@EyeVeee what is a Cape Cod refugee?
@londondad - yes, as @Middleman68 pointed out, I was just correcting my error in naming the roadshow.
@EyeVeee Please, I’d also like to know what a Cape Cod refugee is lol ?
Searched google for “Cape Cod refugee”, no hits! Therefore it does not exist. :))
I took the Cape Cod refugee as a reference to the way they dress,(preppy) but I’m waiting to see how EyeVeee defines it, and once they do, it then exists.
In fact, it was a Cape Cod refugee that discovered the Clam Fart. 
Maybe. For a trip down memory lane, or a treat for the newbies:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/470497-clam-fart-oh-my-god-what-did-i-do-p1.html
That Clam Fart story is a hoot !( popular too- 27 pages worth)
That thread is the best thing about CC. It’s truly a belly-laugh.
^^^It’s hard to stop reading till you find out how it turns out!
I wonder if word ever got out at Cornell about his anonymous clam-fart fame!
Similar reaction by my daughter at Conn. We did an open house and it feel flat.
Wittenberg blew it for my daughter by having a panel of student present on student life and everyone of the students was involved in Greek life which had no appeal to her.
Mary Washington fell off the list for my other D because she saw someone she knew and it mean she wasn’t getting away.
I was trying to think of something analogous to allowing a tired-from-studying, 20-year-old tourguide to color one’s feelings about a college that might in fact be the best option for you. I mean I probably wouldn’t go to a brain surgeon who had a “S&#$ Happens” bumper sticker on his Audi, and I’ve walked out of a few restaurants that didn’t have soap in the men’s room. But I wouldn’t write off a whole airline because I found a typo in its in-flight magazine. And I wouldn’t write off a movie that had a Swedish actor playing a Norwegian.
@moooop Our feeling was that the college selected and approved the tour guide to represent the college so the school bears some responsibility. Usually tour guides are fairly sought-after paid on campus jobs so most colleges have some choice in who they select to lead tours.
In my experience visiting schools with my two kids if everything about a school feels right then a mediocre tour guide can be overlooked, but if a kid just isn’t feeling the school a bad tour guide can be the final blow. Similarly a great tour guide can’t salvage a school that comes off as a poor fit, but it can help to bump a well-matched school up on an applicant’s list.