Different way of looking at colleges

Parents Forum
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<p>Carolyn, I’m a big fan and I hope you do write a book, but I think you should leave this chapter out.>></p>

<p>Idler, LOL! Yes, I have definitely arrived at the point where I am getting too “touchy feely” myself.</p>

<p>Cur - My daughter insists that she simply HAS to visit every school before she will even consider applying because she can’t tell ANYTHING about a school without experiencing it first hand.</p>

<p>We’ve had our share of visits to schools which she thought on paper would be “perfect” for her… until she arrived on campus and was turned off by something or other that turned the “perfect” school into a “wouldn’t-go-here-if-it-was-the-last-college-on-Earth” school.</p>

<p>At one campus, I swear to you, the “turn off” was a piece of trash blowing in the wind. At another, the fact that the tour guide wore pearls.</p>

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<p>Very useful thread. I’m thinking you might want to plot a kind of “graph” with X and Y axis. Y could go from high masculine (+) down through the origin to high feminine (-) or vice versa. Then the X axis could be another characterisitic spectrum–say -from
(-) intellectual /academic towards the left to (+) intelllectual/ academic to the right.So, for example, Bryn Mawr would be in the lower right quadrant–high feminine +high intellectual. Columbia might be up higher towards the masculine, but also further right, while Dartmouth was maybe higher on the masculine end but also to the left of Columbia. Sounds complicated, but visually would be easy to grasp. And you could have several different coordinate sets. If you used transparencies , you could layer one over the other and see an in depth picture of how the college fits your personality/preferences.</p>

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<p>pyewacket, I like your idea.</p>

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<p>Thinking of schools “to the left” or “to the right” of Columbia will only get us into political trouble! :)</p>

<p>Perhaps part of the difficulty is that it makes more sense to speak about the culture or personality of a small college than a large university? For example, someone mentioned UC Berkeley and – while it has its stereotypes – it is so large that you can find every type there, from hippie to aspiring entrepreneur, from evangelical to Stalinist. It’s easier to discern a campus culture when there is a small self-selected group who chose a college for its campus culture. For example, Colorado College, or Swarthmore.</p>

<p>I throw out another possible dichotomy for discussion: colleges for introverts vs colleges for extroverts.</p>

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<p>sac, which colleges do you like for introverts?</p>

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<p>U of Chicago? MIT? CalTech? Help, I think I’m getting myself into trouble here…</p>

<p>I thought of this because someone mentioned that everyone at Colgate is an extrovert and my son’s friend at Colgate is, in fact, one of the most extroverted kids I know. So, I began to wonder where the introverts should go.</p>

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<p>Sac, I think this is a good issue. So I started a thread on this. I think it is hard for introverted students to find a place.</p>

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<p>Sac
I don’t see why you’d get into trouble for your suggestions. I think MIT and Caltech would be prfect for introverts. Caltech has houses–think Harry Potter–which have a culture, blend of all ages. Sports are open for everyone, 7 bands/orchestras. School is so small that anyone can join clubs, newspapers. Some clubs meet at professor’s houses, who graciously feed the kids. School stresses collaboration and research, and since first 2 terms are P/F/, keeps competition down. Yet I don’t think of it as ‘feminine’. Almost all teachers are male, and one female S had has world-class honors.</p>

<p>I’d suspect engineering programs within universities, or math, CS, would attract more introverts. I have harder time generalizing to schools e.g. Harvard, which attracts all types.</p>

<p>I think there are enough of us on CC to make Carolyn’s book a success. I’d buy a dozen copies to give as gifts.</p>

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<p>Visiting is everything. You can chart it, read about it, talk about it, see the videos – unless you get feet on the ground – preferably for overnight – you can’t get the real-feel.</p>

<p>Because of our geographic location our son needed to make all his visits in one fell swoop. There would be no opportunity to reconsider and go back for a second look. Our rule was no visit, no apply. We had 12 schools on our list. </p>

<p>Son felt that he wanted a LAC but still looked at Yale, Brown, Michigan and Tufts. After visiting Yale and Brown stayed on the list; UMich and Tufts fell off. </p>

<p>At the very top of his LAC list were Amherst, Haverford, Trinity, Wesleyan and Hamilton. Kenyon and Skidmore were in the “okay if I must” category. Connecticut College was a mystery. Williams and Swarthmore were not on the list. We’d read all about them and knew they weren’t for him. One too jock-y, the other too brainy. Or in other words, too masculine, too feminine. Well, after three weeks on the road, this is what we learned: </p>

<p>Kenyon was magical. Loved the campus, loved the kids. The sincerity and perception of the admissions director swayed him over.</p>

<p>Haverford made him break out in hives. Don’t know why, it seemed fine to me. Husband said it was a “guy thing” (whatever that means). </p>

<p>Since we were in Philadelphia we popped over to Swarthmore. Loved it. Student interviewer was also an international. Understood third culture kid thing perfectly. Plus they had a Balinese gamelan orchestra! “Why Swarthmore” essay was in the bag. (As New York snobs, we didn’t especially like Philadelphia, but let that go.)</p>

<p>Trinity was a “let’s just keep driving.” All those wonderful programs and enthusiastic kids could not counter the urban blight of Hartford.</p>

<p>Skidmore had a lot to offer. Saratoga Springs was a real draw.</p>

<p>Wesleyan and Hamilton were just as expected. Positives. </p>

<p>Connecticut remained hazy although oddly enough it was the ONLY school of the 14 that we ended up visited that actually had the art department on the regular tour.</p>

<p>Amherst just didn’t connect. We loved the town. Husband and I started thinking about retirement. But when our son asked about the art department in the info session, he was referred to the student-receptionist who, annoyed about being interrupted the middle of her knitting, conceded that the classes were “okay.” Prophetically, Amherst was in the throes of the annual Teddy Bear Festival. (Not related to the college.) It was a zoo, a fuzzy zoo. So we decamped over hill and dale to Williamstown. Stopped at MassMoCA and were absolutely knocked off our feet. We have seen a zillion museums, but had never even heard of this one. </p>

<p>At Williams everything clicked. The artist, actor, poet was fulfilled. The boy scout, regular guy, nature lover was fulfilled.</p>

<p>So of the original top five, three former favorites were x’d and two “no ways” moved to the top of the list.</p>

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<p>What I find most interesting about momrath’s post and my own experience visiting schools is how often the interpersonal interactions with an admissions counselor or tour guide or regular students influence the “feel” that students have for a place. I think our(parents) desire to make sense of our kids reactions to schools, especially when they won’t get out of the car, lead us to categorize schools in order to make sense of this whole process. I wonder if it soothes our anxiety that despite inheriting our genes and being under our care for the past 18 years, we often don’t have a clue on how our kids thought processes work even for something that we think is as important as choosing a college.</p>

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<p>Momrath, Thank you for your post. I have been dreading taking a wild 5 state college tour over spring break in March — but your post reminded me that I need to listen to my daughter when she says she “has to” visit. Thank you.</p>

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<p>Carolyn, I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful trip. Believe me, we parents of college students would LOVE to spend Spring break with our kids., but I’d put that in the when Hell freezes over category.</p>

<p>I never argue with the kids. If they visit and it’s a no, then that’s the last word. </p>

<p>I think an interesting subplot to this thread is the strategy of applying against the grain of the perceived stereotype. It seems to me that LACs are actively recruiting kids who are not obvious fits and using them as a PR outreach. For example our tour guide at Swarthmore was a fraternity espousing soccer player, at Wesleyan our guide went out of his way to mention that he voted Republican, at Williams the student at the info session was a poet.</p>

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<p>Actually, We had a GREAT time doing the spring break college tour thing . I contacted old friends from undergrad and grad school and had wonderful get-together’s in virtually every city we visited. (My s. was amazed that we knew so many people in so many places). We were also able to arrange the trip so that we were able to spend one weekend day skiing, and my h. and younger son spent an extra day on the slopes that are 15’ away from Williams. Then, there happened to be the NCAA ski tournament at the Dartmouth skiway when we were there, so the h. and younger s. checked that out as well. In addition, we met several other families from our home city who were also on spring break and were doing virtually the same college tour circuit, and as many of our school visits overlapped, we’d end up rendezvousing with them at the next campus if we were there on the same day. We could also compare notes or share info on schools they’d seen that we were off to next. As we were a mix of boys and girls, it became a social event. What a hoot. And, with all the “contacts” that are being made on this board, I am sure many of you can figure out in advance if you’ll be at the same school at the same time, and can arrange to meet face to face. That’d be fun.<br>
When my s. and I took a trip to CA in the summer to see Cal Tech and Harvey Mudd, we happened to be arriving in LA the day before the ESPY awards, so we detoured to Hollywood and spent the afternoon driving through the Hollywood hills (partially because we took some wrong turns, but it was entertaining) and spent the evening watching them set up the red carpet and stage in front of the Kodak Theater on Hollywood Blvd.for the ceremony. These are wonderful memories that I will cherish, and the Hollywood side trip definitely beat spending the evening lounging in the Claremont Inn, where we had arranged our overnight accomodations (a rather sad place in desparate need of a facelift). I would strongly advise against trying to cram too many college tours into too few days. You will get oversaturated, you won’t care about the last one (which for us happened to be Harvard) and unless you take good notes it’ll all begin to blend together. There is, if I recall, the basketball hall of fame outside of the Amherst/Northampton area (we never found time to get there) but there are great things to to that make the trip fun and memorable. Please, enjoy it, don’t suffer through it. This will be one of your last trips with your offspring when they are “kids”. You’ll miss them soon enough.-- Have fun with them.</p>

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<p>My daughter and I took a 6 colleges in 6 days trip last April during Spring Break. We had a good time but it was quite grueling. In contrast to what jym626 reported, the last one we visited was her favorite and she ended up applying there ED. I think by that time she had seen enough colleges to be able to recognize one that was right for her. The most fortunate part of the whole trip was the fact that she had retaken her SATs in March and we based our choices of colleges to visit on what we “hoped” her new scores would be, as the scores from her first SATs in January would have put most of the colleges we visited out of her reach. The scores were posted on the Internet on the evening we were making our 500 mile drive home, and she called a friend on the cell to ask to check her scores. To our great relief, they were much improved and were fine for the schools we had just visited :)</p>

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<p>I have mixed feelings about visiting colleges. There are certain colleges that I feel are essential to visit because the culture is not for a lot of kids and the only way you can really get this culture across is to visit the school. Descriptions are often deceptive. How else can you explain the differences among Amherst, Williams and Swarthmore, Wesleyan? They are there, and distinct but I really find it hard to verbalize and feel that anything I say that is meaningful about the schools can be misinterpreted.</p>

<p>I also believe kids should visit a range of colleges to get some idea of what is out there. Ohio State is very different from Case Western is very different from Kenyon. When you get some idea what it means to go to a flagship school, a city school without a campus, a remote LAC, you can assess schools sight unseen a bit more. </p>

<p>Finally, though I have sent my kids on visits, understand that some visits are recommended and for some schools necessary for admissions, I am not entirely convinced that they are always the way to go. My son had a visit to hell, that made him write off a school, only to return for the audition which he was doing only as a practice shot, and find out that his visit was not at all representative of a typical “day in the life”. Kids tend to get caught up in some details that may not be pertinant to life in the school. Parents too. If you run into a rude person, the guide is incompetent, see an unfortunate event, it can ruin a visit , and it is hard to keep into perspective that this may well not be typical. My husband and oldest son visited Brown at an unfortunate time, and H saw the seamy side of Brown undergraduate life which is certainly at all school, but was the only place where it hit him in the face, and it really turned him off. The presentation of the way Brown’s academic programs work was done very poorly and in a way that was the worst possible pitch to someone like H. So visits can be misleading. Comparing a middle of the week visit during a stressful academic time and comparing it to another school visit over a weekend or festival time is also asking for trouble. My oldest son enjoyed a weekend visit at one school so much that he really was tempted to go there when he really was not that interested in the school, and knew that the weekend was not representative of life there. It was still with regret that he let that school go. </p>

<p>We had some great times at college visits, but also some lousy visits as well. Not necessarily corresponding to the college visited or the fit of the college to the student.</p>

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<p>Jamimom~
Exactly. On the one hand, a visit puts a face to a name; it gives you a flavor of what going to this school might be like. And, of course, for some schools, visits are regarded as absolute expressions of interest – don’t visit and they might think you’re not all that interested or [shudder] they’re your safety school.</p>

<p>But, on the other hand, while a piece of the puzzle, and a kind of glossy, showy, interesting kind of piece at that, it is ultimately just ONE piece. You visit one day, perhaps two. You see certain things and miss 364+ days worth of other things. You talk to, interact with, observe a tiny, tiny percentage of the school population. You obtain certain information, talk to certain department heads or teachers, have good or bad info session leaders and tour guides. There is so much luck of the draw. It is statistically and logically very dangerous to base too much on this one visit. And yet, because it’s your visit, it’s very hard not to give it more weight than logic dictates.</p>

<p>Ultimately, visiting a school is sort of your chance to taste the food to experience the flavor. It’s neither the list of ingredients and breakdown of its nutritional content, nor is is the full review from your neighbors, a food critic, or your doctor who helps you decide whether this food is “good” for you.</p>

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<p>I’ll tell you a problem I see too often with visiting. People tend to visit the high reach schools first. Just for the heck of it, they often say. The next thing you know, they are visiting it again, and it becomes their vision of where the student belongs. I know that when you are putting a classical music concert together, you should put the less skilled kids first, and certainly when you have kids playing the same piece, the less polished one should play first, in order to keep the comparisons favorable. Well, for colleges, so it also should be. When you are visiting HPY & co, and then finally decide that you better take a look at the safeties, well, they just do not show as well. I see kids set up for disappoint all of the time. And the irony is that HPY couldn’t care less if you visit. Also your kid if he should get in can visit, and is very likely to go such a school even if the visit is not ideal. We did not visit HPY though my son applied to them, because it was not a good use of time, and I will not likely visit it until we drop my son off there. He may go up there earlier before signing the commitment papers, but I doubt if a visit is goign to make much of a difference. And yet I know kids who have visited Yale about 3-4 times in the last year, and are fixated on it, who are now biting their nails about getting in, ignoring Trinity College, an excellent school which is a more likely in for them, if they just show the school some genuine interest. Kids rarely can fool adults skilled in the admissions business about the level of interest. Those glazed eyes and body language is a give away. When we went to Hartford last month for some kids to visit Trinity and S to audition at Harrt, the kids wanted to go visit Yale enroute to Vassar. I said, forget it. All but S had already visited Yale at least two times, and they wanted to look again!</p>

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<p>I agree that it’s an imperfect system. For sure the visit is just one piece of the puzzle. An realistically positive impression can be countered with supplementary information. But a negative impression – very difficult to overcome.</p>

<p>A good question, though, did anyone’s kid find the real thing quite different from what s/he experienced during the visit? In my son’s case, I’d have to say, thankfully, no. What he loved about Williams, he still loves, and what he was concerned about turned out to be a non-issue, but I can see how it could have turned out the other way. I guess that goes in the “my child is so unhappy” column.</p>

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<p>Momrath: I think the process of researching is so variable with unpredictable results. As you said, it could have gone the other way regarding the concerns your S had about Williams.</p>

<p>My S wasn’t interested in visiting until acceptances were in. Did this for grad school too. Worked out just fine for him. My D agreed with us to visit all before applying, starting winter of junior year. We took 3 great trips (west, midwest, east) that involved a lot of driving and bonding. She placed one LAC heads above the rest and was accepted ED. My greatest fear was that during the interim 9 months she would romanticize the school beyond all reality, and that she would be underwhelmed and unhappy when she was finally there. Thankfully, she was very satisfied with her first term and found her expectations met, as well as new things to love.</p>

<p>To get back OT, my S’s schools would likely be considered masculine (big schools, big macho sports), while Carolyn has earlier classified by D’s school as feminine.</p>

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<p>jamimom-
Our HS’s college counselor suggests, to get a feel for the college tour process, that we first take a look at a closeby school that isn’t necessarily on our list of potential schools-- to just see a large school or a small school, technical school, a minority campus, a city campus vs urban campus, public vs private, etc. She isn’t suggesting we go to all, but to “practice”, as it were, at local school to get our feet wet before hitting the trail for real. I think it is an interesting idea, though I confess we didn’t do it. Perhaps it would cut down on the need to revisit a school tat was seen early on in the hunt. I also helps that we have a number of schools closeby…</p>