Aww, your trip brings back memories of our summer 2019 college tour–Knox, Grinnell, Macalester, St. Olaf, Carleton. Carleton got off the list quickly: didn’t feel artsy enough for our daughter + our tour guide wasn’t super enthusiastic (and then we realized it didn’t give merit aid, so it was an easy decision). This daughter is graduating from Kenyon in May (Kenyon and Oberlin was a separate trip in the spring of 2019), had amazing 4 years there. Hope you like it, but all these schools you’re visiting are excellent.
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A thought experiment- how many college kids do all of you know who cite campus architecture as one reason why they love or hate their college when they are home on break?
For me it’s zero.
It’s easy to fixate on architecture when you are visiting- it would be like ignoring the Eiffel Tower when you are in Paris. But the Eiffel Tower is a one hour experience-- the Louvre takes days. The Musee D’Orsay takes hours. Both have interesting and distinguished buildings, but it’s what’s INSIDE that makes them world-class centers of art, history, culture and civilization.
Please encourage your kids to focus on the steak and not the sizzle. In the pre-internet days, who even knew what their college looked like before they showed up? My spouse arrived on campus for orientation carrying two suitcases and a trunk off the Greyhound bus. Looking for a world class education at an affordable price (terrific aid plus some subsidized loans). Got that and more.
Was the library too gothic and the quad too sterile and the dorms too “19th century”? Probably. Did it materially impact the education? Not one bit.
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We all loved Macalester and it was our daughter’s top choice for a while, but Kenyon won out in the end. She did her study abroad through a Mac program and made great friends, so she kind of attended it anyway 
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We’ve discussed this a bit before, but there is quite a bit of science behind the idea that outdoor spaces, including but not limited to building facades, can influence emotional moods, social interactions, and so on. This includes in urban environments–yes, what is inside matters too, but the outside time we spend in parks, walking streets, and so on is all part of the living experience in cities. And many college campuses consciously replicate a walkable urban experience including dedicated park-like outdoor spaces for studying, lounging, play activities, and such.
Of course if the physical environment was negatively affecting a kid, likely they would cite the emotions, the social feelings, and so on, as the problem. And indeed they might not even be consciously aware if the physical environment was a contributing cause to those effects. However, when actually focused on the question, they might at least be able to assess whether walking or socializing or lounging or playing or so on in the outdoor spaces was something they enjoyed or not.
Anyway, for these reasons, personally I consider the outdoor spaces part of the steak and not just sizzle, both in campuses and in fact in life in general. But of course in the end it is up to the kid to decide what to prioritize.
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I’ve noted this before, but I tend to think one of the reasons why these SLACs do so well in terms of networking later in life is that alums tend to not only look out for kids from their own colleges, they also recognize kids from the others as kindred souls too. Of course not uniquely, I think there are broader networks like that which sometimes build up around, say, sports conferences and such. But I think there is often a type of passion about the SLAC experience specifically that is particularly conducive to this sort of effect.
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I don’t disagree with you- but the “shabby dorms trope” gets very tiresome on CC sometimes. And the “unimpressive labs”? Some of the world’s most cutting edge scientific discoveries come out of physically unimpressive places, and it strikes me as a weird way for a kid to evaluate the rigor of the curriculum, the depth of faculty involvement, and the amount of outside investment (corporate research contracts, NASA, or whatever the relevant research parties happen to be).
So sure- how nice are the walking paths, how easy is it to access trees, nice landscaping, etc. But a layperson evaluating the extent of a U’s research facilities based on what?
The “shabbiness” of some of the worlds top research facilities would likely surprise you. The money goes into scientific enquiry, not architectural distinction.
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I feel super special that I’m following your thread, because I absolutely love the extra color you’ve added here. The Up/Down thread is missing out!
Looking forward to the next updates.
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So I would treat that as a both/and rather than either/or issue. Absolutely, if you are interested in things like the research going on in a certain department at a certain college, you should be doing things like going to the department pages online, looking at faculty pages too, and so on. On the other hand, I think as STEM majors have become increasingly popular, it is completely reasonable that colleges have been investing in new STEM facilities that are not only suitable for research, but are also better places for studying, socializing, and so on.
Indeed, frankly I think the whole image of the STEM kid as being so completely caught up in the life of the mind that they would be perfectly happy stuck alone in a windowless lab 24/7 was never a good idea, that it was in fact always unnecessarily serving to discourage some people from pursuing STEM majors and STEM careers. And in fact this is something at least many firms in STEM industries have also realized, and they have put real money into making their places of work fun, social places to be. Not least because again there is now quite a bit of science behind the idea that when people socialize and chat and such, there can be positive synergies for their work.
So I don’t think it is all a coincidence some of these new science buildings at colleges look at lot like, say, a typical Google facility. That recognition that STEM people are in fact people, and that you can attract the best people and maximize their productivity with thoughtfully-designed common and social spaces, is now very mainstream.
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When we visited they told us there was van service that did a loop to Carleton and town.
I’m not sure why, but when reading OP’s visit notes, I had a gut feeling that while they are “meh” now, in a couple of months they may become a “remember when we visited X? I think I want to look more into it”. Either that or there is going to be some campus they walk onto and immediately know it’s where they belong.
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Same feeling. In fact, my S24 with vaguely similar preferences is waiting for 13 RD decisions (whee!) that are basically going to determine which of those two paths he goes down.
I think there are a few colleges where he liked his visit so much he is probably just going to pick one of those if any admit him. Then there are others where he was not as blown away, but he still applied because he knew they made sense, and he has (very maturely) agreed if they look like a top option after he gets decisions he should revisit before really deciding.
And I guess there is also Path Three–a total of four colleges he did not visit yet, but if any admit him and look like a top option we will visit (one of which, St Andrews, already gave him an offer, and we are going to visit over Spring Break).
So, uh, that’s a lot of uncertainty, but not really the bad kind! And if goldnymph (insect joke!) ends up in a similar state at a similar point, still keeping an open mind while waiting to see what options actually materialize, that would not really be a bad thing either.
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We saw St Olaf, Carleton, and Macalester in the same order in August. D25 liked Macalester the best. She isn’t a fan of big campuses and liked the focus on internships nearby.
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That’s encouraging! And I guess contrary to my prior contention, maybe order doesn’t matter for some kids, they truly just like some campus formats better than others, or simply prioritize other things like proximity to off-campus amenities and experience opportunities.
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There are colleges with thoughtfully designed common and social spaces (because donors love having their names on buildings) with under-resourced academic offerings. And HS kids don’t often understand the difference between a fancy facility and actual intellectual and scientific rigor. That’s something a parent can help with.
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I think, too, that depending on the kid, there can be some fatigue in the process. There is SO much that are simply table stakes that after a while, the “unlimited dining swipes”, “1000 study abroad options”, “free music lessons”, etc. are just yeah yeah yeah. Then, it takes something more exceptional to knock something up or down.
My kid’s top 2 choices were the last 2 he saw on a 7 school trip, and while I did think they were both a great fit for him, I also thought that part of their appeal was that the trip was now over! Order can matter, but it’s hard to predict how. As can weather, tour guide, and other random stuff…
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That’s really good to hear. Our tour guide seemed astonished that we’d consider walking to town and didn’t seem to think it was possible.
I am laughing because my son claimed at the outset that he wasn’t shallow and didn’t care about how pretty or Hogwarts-like a campus would be. And lo, the thing he mentions about Mac is the campus.
I really wasn’t comparing scientific facilities as much as some degree of vibrancy and the range and quality of undergraduate research shown in the posters. All three schools that we visited had impressive science buildings and none of the labs them struck my Caltech and Harvard educated husband as super impressive. You can’t compare world-class R1 research institutions full of grad students and post docs and NSF money with the typical liberal arts science facilities. So we were looking for student and faculty activity/engagement. I expected to see a lot at Carleton and was not disappointed. Mac has fewer physics majors per capita (or did at the time of the common data set publication) but the space still felt full of energy and the students clearly felt a degree of ownership. And the range of research in the physics department was wider than that of St Olaf. You are probably somewhat dependent on whatever your most active faculty happen to be doing. If after physics C the kid feels more serious about pursuing physics research, I think digging deeper into faculty interests at all the schools will make sense. For now, no school is disqualified.
I have heard from a lot of parents who liked Mac more than their students did. I like to think that this is a sign of our maturity.
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I don’t know about architecture per se, but the appearance and structure of the campus continued to matter to my kid. He picked his school in part because he liked the way it looked and he liked the way the buildings, quads, sports fields, etc. were laid out, and he did continue to value and talk about these things over the years. Maybe that was in part because he became a tour guide and ended up talking about these things with visitors, but still . . .
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Yeah, I loved this as well. I think the romance of the Gothic is overrated. But as a transportation and housing geek I really romanticized the Twin Cities and they did not disappoint. Shouldn’t have expected my contrarian son to like the same things i do…that would be too convenient.
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Yeah, I have become a very big enthusiast for the sorts of neighborhoods that Macalester is surrounded by, but I am pretty sure my 17 year old self would have cared far, far less.
On the other hand, I have never lost my love of Gothic. Probably too much Fantasy reading as a kid, but whatever, it still makes me happy to be around.
This is bringing back big midwestern college trip memories for me, too (actually, I feel like the last few years of my life have essentially been one big midwestern college trip 
) In our case our similar trip was after my oldest had been accepted to both Mac and St. Olaf (and waitlisted at Carleton, so we scratched it off the list). He just graduated from Mac last spring and had a great experience there. But I remember Macalester failing to impress both in the marketing materials (which I think have gotten better since then) and in person, and both my son and I being unable to pin down a reason. In retrospect I think at least part of the reason is that Mac’s understatedness is part of its appeal. It’s not flashy; it’s not too full of itself. I describe the vibe as smart kids who don’t take themselves too seriously. DS’s decision came down to Oberlin, Mac, or Hamilton, and Mac won mostly by process of elimination. Oberlin was too…earnest for him, and Hamilton was too sporty/preppy (he really WANTED to love Hamilton, but meeting with a bunch of math majors who all seemed to be going into finance after graduation turned him off). Mac got chosen mostly because it wasn’t too into selling itself, in the end.
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