We are from the east coast and my D22 loved Oberlin (as did I). It was her second choice (got into her ED school so never applied). It’s a gorgeous campus, everyone was super nice and willing to talk to us (even during the pandemic) and she actually really liked the town. We didn’t visit any of the other schools on your list, but we were really limited in the visits we could do due to, again, pandemic. I would have loved a trip like yours!
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Actually attempted very similar in-reverse last summer-DC ending in Grinnell. We started from hotel Kent State, and then Wooster, Dennison, Kenyon. We made error of attempting all in day, tho it looked short commute, it wasn’t, due to scenic hills, 2 lane biways. Each of Small OH schools had I felt unique vibe. Teen disagreed and felt “bombarded by marketing” and said all same after two. —Your plan to break it up overnight looks much better, that is if seriously considering these, agree w other posters, if dislikes on sight, move on. That said, I bet would be more fun w friend. Cautionary note: The last leg Oberlin-Carlisle drive is Long and unrewarding w construction, traffic.
By coincidence toured Maine SLAC over break…due to congestion NY-BOS corridor sounds even More intense trip. My thought is after a MN-OH-trip the kids may want to veto some of contenders from list, by comparing virtual tours to past visits. Or help drive.
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Neither kid is a driver, unfortunately (actually – I don’t need the additional grey hairs.)
But at least for the NE trip I’ll have my spouse along for the ride.
I keep checking and double-checking my math on these connections but in general my operating principle is: if schools are co-located (e.g. Clark/Holy Cross or St. Olaf/Carleton), 2 in a day is doable. If they are not co-located, they need to be no more than a 1-hr drive on Google maps apart, and I need to allow for at least twice that to get between schools in case of (insert obstacle). The thing I’m most worried about for the winter trip is an extreme weather event. I’m also trying not to do two schools in a day w/out an overnight in each place (so, staying at Granville Inn and grabbing coffee in town before Denison. Staying in Gambier and possibly hopping on the first morning tour/grabbing breakfast in an on-campus cafe before proceeding to Wooster…etc.
I also had to cut a bunch of schools that would have been interesting to see (e.g. Lawrence, Beloit, Grinnell, Madison, Chicago-area schools). I expect our spring plans to flex a bit after our winter trip but (for example) I’ve already made peace with not making it over to Hamilton/Colgate/Rochester/Ithaca/Syracuse because one just can’t do it all (unless kiddo gets a bee in his bonnet about any of above, in which case we may need to jettison the CT schools).
Maine is (I think) non-negotiable – yeah, those schools are going to be reaches. But I just learned about the global experience semester at Colby and I think it might be an amazing fit for my son. I have warm and fuzzy vibes about Bates (maybe biased by all the Bates warmth around these parts?) and we have relatives who live halfway between Bates and Colby and want to put us up. Also? Lobster.
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It will all sort out over time. You will learn a lot from this trip, what your kid likes and doesn’t like in colleges, what sort of visit schedule works, for how long, and so on. It will make planning the next trip a lot easier.
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Couldn’t agree more. The “co-located” 2 in a day that worked for us were Denison/Kenyon, Bard/Union, Colgate/Hamilton, Colby/Bates, Dickinson/F&M.
But the bigger thing you’ll work out this time is time needed at each school. We found 1/2 day was plenty and that DS felt he could get what he needed in that time. At bigger schools, or for kids with specific requirements (music lessons, department visits, coach visits), shoe-horning all of that in on a timeline of less than a day is rarely possible. And of course, what appeals and what doesn’t will become apparent.
Can’t wait now for the reports back!
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I think this suggestion/advice is very personal. My oldest graduated from Oberlin this past year, and not one, LITERALLY not one, student she was friends with was from Ohio. Everyone she knew was from both West/East Coast. Tons of friends from the Bay area and LA, tons from NYC. None from Midwest. The open curriculum was great for her, and she had friends across all majors. We were extremely impressed with the school; especially their commitment to help students secure funded internships. My D had a fully funded internship + stipend in NYC the summer of her junior year (school helps secure and completely funds) and was hired for her dream job before she even graduated.
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I would normally have agreed that if kid dislikes on sight to move on. However, when we pulled up to Kenyon my DD did not even want to get out of the car because the surrounding town was so small. Plus it was in the summer and kind of empty. Since we had a tour scheduled, we made her go, and wouldn’t you know it, she ended up loving it and is applying. On the flip side, we pulled up to Oberlin and she fell in love on sight only to decide by the end of the tour that it was definitely not for her. So, you just never know with these kids!
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Totally agree. In our case it was reverse. DD did not want to get out of the car at Wooster, and then loved it. She was very excited at Oberlin, but after non-stop classical music even in restroom ( I love classical music) and info session with the guy (I think he created class about frogs - it was allowed by open curriculum) - she was sure that it was not her cup of tea. I dragged her for part of the tour, but it was clear not school for her (but would work for my oldest). So all the observations and feelings are very individual. What is winner for one, is absolutely unacceptable for another.
What these tours help is to get an understanding of where your child will be happy. Each of my two daughters strongly disliked only one school (the oldest disliked Northeastern, the youngest Oberlin). With youngest final decision was driven by acceptance to medical program and her feel of kids on Instagram, since social aspect was critical for her. The oldest committed to GaTech from waitlist without ever visiting (covid time, decision in 1 day after acceptance), but since I was an alumni who knew the environment and she liked CWRU there was no doubt that she would love GaTech. Both are very happy with their final choices. So @goldbug just enjoy the ride. Your kid will end up where he meant to be.
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You may also find you have a kid like S24 who is fine with everything he sees. He was not particularly enthusiastic about college tours but (in part thanks to our prodding) ended up visiting more than 15 schools. He liked almost every school he saw and had no particularly strong or informative opinions. In some ways, I think that is a healthy, rational reaction - most selective schools offer a lot to their students and it should be possible to find interesting classes and fun activities at any of them. Ultimately though, you have to narrow the list of visits (not to mention applications) somehow, and S24 did not make that easy.
He did decide early on that he preferred small, less urban schools. (Columbia was the first school he saw and the only one he has actively disliked.) But that still leaves an awful lot of schools! In the end, he applied to almost every single small college he saw - only one was dropped at the last minute because it did not offer enough classes in one of his areas of interest. And he added a couple of bigger schools for good measure when he started questioning his small school bias at the last minute. The period after RD acceptances come out could get interesting! If S24 does not get into his ED2 school, we may find ourselves going on college tours all over again.
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same, we have 5 kids, and only one parent at home full time, the other parents works out of state. for us to do college visits with our oldest - a senior - is just logistically a nightmare with 4 younger kids at home and no family nearby, so we are just visiting this spring the ones that she got accepted to and still has interest in.
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Very old school, but it works (and worked for me, my siblings, most of my hs friends).
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yup, laughing at old school, thats definitely me!
Yes, we traveled all over the country looking at schools my son’s junior year, but what we really learned from all that was just that he preferred small schools that were nice-looking and not overly political. The school he chose was one he never saw until after he was accepted. If people can do that first cut - big vs. small, rural vs. urban, etc. - by looking at schools close by, it would save a lot of time and money.
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It also helps if within the categories, you hit a few different vibes. Bard is quite different from Union, for example. And you’ll hear some different academic calendar descriptions, etc. This can help a lot of students hone in on what matters and what doesn’t.
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My favorite thread on this site is the one about colleges that went up or down on people’s lists after visits. Hope to hear how your senior feels about the different schools!
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my favorite, too!
So I’ve updated in the Up/Down thread and will just add some more color here.
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St. Olaf: similar look-and-feel in many senses to Rhodes (contained/cohesive campus, students seemed smart, purposeful and friendly without having that edgy intensity that I associate with some of the more rejective schools) but with a special Upper Midwest (as opposed to Southern) flair. While campus itself was compact and well suited to walking/biking, the surrounding area was a little less walkable/more car-centric than I’d love. That said, there are hiking trails right next to campus and they seem to provide shuttles to places students want to go (also only 45 minutes outside the Twin Cities and easy access to the airport). Lots of flags/pride in international scope of the educational experience. If I’m being really picky, I was kind of underwhelmed by some of the posters I saw in the physics section of the science building and wonder if another school might be better for a student interested in physics. But since my kid is so hot-and-cold (for a while he was sure he wanted to do history; lately he’s been more excited about physics; today after a great wildlife bio lecture at Mac he decided maybe actually bio; so…who knows?!), I don’t want to reject them out-of-hand. And anyway, of the schools we’ve seen so far, this was a) his favorite and b) the one most likely to accept him!
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Carleton: I was scared we’d all fall in love with it (because it’s so hard to get into) but needn’t have worried. While DH and I were impressed with everything we saw, the kids were kind of meh about it. The German couldn’t get over the maple smell emanating from the local cereal factory (apparently this changes depending on what they’re making and the direction of the wind; the locals also assured us that you stop noticing it after awhile). I couldn’t really get my kid to put a finger on why exactly he liked it less. Maybe he encountered fewer students? we didn’t eat lunch there or do a student-led tour. I’d work harder to give Carl a fairer shake except…the admission stats are daunting. I’d rather work to find more likelies and matches. Onward…
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The U (Minnesota): This was a drive-by, partly to check the “see a big Midwestern flagship campus” box. No interest was piqued. (this doesn’t necessarily mean he wouldn’t want to attend a larger school but he definitely wasn’t feeling the Ski-U-Mah this time around.)
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Macalester: Hard not to be a little underwhelmed by the campus scale and architecture if you’ve been spoiled by these larger, more conventionally pleasing schools. I do think that on balance it does “liberal arts campus in a real city” better than most places I’ve seen. The neighborhood reminded me of a much larger/grander Trinity Park (for folks that are familiar with Duke and its surroundings) – but with bike lanes, real transit options, and none of the safety issues that students in Durham and Memphis can encounter. I found the posters in the science building to be as impressive as those we saw at Carleton and loved seeing so many faculty making themselves accessible to students (I used to work in higher ed and boy is this not in any sense a given.) Carleton won on access to outdoors but there are a bunch of public ski trails and ice rinks in the Twin CIties, AND shopping/culture/local internships. So what if the dorms are a little less posh, the dining hall less deluxe, the buildings less Insta-worthy?
I hope DS ends up applying EA to both St. Olaf and Mac – seems like he might – and then if he gets in, he can connect with other admits/do an overnight visit/etc.
We flew to Columbus, grabbed our rental car (which was surrounded by actual ice and snow. Yikes!) and drove through the night to the crazy castle-like Granville Inn, where the nicest hotel clerk I’ve ever met showed us to our room and then went and dug up a rollaway bed for us (because most teenage boys don’t share beds if they can avoid it). This feels auspicious. Maybe Denison and Kenyon will strike a chord?
Quick local stay notes:
–We had good luck finding convenient AirBnBs near the campuses; the Scandinavian decor place in Northfield near St. Olaf was possibly the nicest AirBnB I’ve ever stayed in.
–The Twin Cities area still has Christmas decor up everywhere. Apparently this is a cultural quirk of the area.
–In Northfield we enjoyed the food at the Ole Store and found the caramel/cinnamon rolls at The Brick Oven Bakery to be WAY TOO MUCH (even for our sweet teeth). Pro tip: if you must, order the “mini” size, which is still quite large.
–Near Macalester, “Hot Hands” pie and biscuit shop was a tremendous hit with our whole family. I found these biscuits vastly superior to those served up at Cafe Eclectic near Rhodes. (and I’m a southerner) This is an essential stop for non-vegans.
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I disagree! I went to Carleton and walked over to St.Olaf on a regular basis to visit friends and eat in their cafeteria. And it is common for St. Olaf students to walk into town. I made the walk myself recently while visiting a friend who lives on the edge of the St. Olaf campus; we walked into town and ate at a coffee shop. It’s an easy tranquil walk going directly East from campus through the cute residential neighborhood, crossing the little highway at the light, then heading South into town.
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I feel like I am binge watching a show, sadly caught up on episodes, and eagerly awaiting the next installment!
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As I mentioned in the off-topic thread, my S24 scratched Macalester–a school I personally would attend in a heartbeat–for the same reason, he thought the campus including architecture was really meh. We had also seen Carleton before, and I actually wonder if future people should be warned about the order in which they do these tours! Maybe do Macalester first so it doesn’t suffer as much in immediate comparison . . . .
The other thing I think is simply true is that Physics is not known as one of St Olaf’s strongest areas. I’m not sure that really matters given that your kid seems to be in full exploratory mode (which is great), but again it is tough to have St Olaf face off immediately with Carleton in this area, since it IS a strength for Carleton.
All of which is leading me to the following thought–you may or may not need to have any of these schools on the application list in the long run. But I do think there is a scenario in which they end up on the list, they end up making offers, possibly offer merit, and then you are maybe looking at a short list. And at that point, a revisit might well lead to a less “meh” response, as I suspect by that point the focus will really be on specific things. Or not, but just something to keep in mind, that sometimes first impressions are not last impressions.
But again, no need to force it. If he ends up with enough schools that make a good first impression, that works too.
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