I’ve visited Macalester, Carleton, and University of Wisconsin-Madison, if anyone’s interested… It’s so helpful seeing everyone’s impressions of campuses. Thank you everyone who’s posted! 
@ZBlue17 Alright!
Tulane’s campus is huge (or maybe that’s just how it looks from my gigantic stature of 5’1"). It has many buildings on many streets, including St. Charles Ave (pretty popular parade route). The dining area is adjacent to the bookstore. It has a flew perpetual waterfalls encased in glass near a few tables. Outside of the dining area is a massive lawn where almost every day you will see students playing a game (probably rugby).
I don’t know if this is common at other colleges, but its newspaper stands are spaced out on campus. Tulane has quite a number of residential halls, many of them occupied by women (I believe 60% of Tulane’s undergrad population is female).
As for academics, the only 5-year undergrad program I know of is in architecture, and they do not offer a computer science major. All undergrads are required to do some sort of service before they graduate.
You can also get a full tuition scholarship from the Dean’s Honor Scholarship, the Paul Tulane Award, Stamps Leadership, or (if you live in Los Angeles or New Orleans) a Posse Scholarship.
I recommend all of you look at the Posse Foundation if you live in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, D.C., Houston, Los Angeles (Bay Area if you want to look at University of Puget Sound), Miami, New Orleans, and New York.
Every month there is a festival going on in New Orleans, so you won’t be an ounce of bored during your time in New Orleans. And the weather fluctuates, so you may or may not need a jacket/coat when you’re down here.
It may be worth mentioning that I spent a week at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and Kenyon College for a non-college affiliated summer camp, so if you want my perspective on those locations, where I did stay in on-campus dorms, feel free to ask. I feel I have more of a feel for Kenyon and not-so-much for UMich though.
Wow I haven’t been here in awhile. I just made my college visits! I visited Rutgers, Princeton, haverford, and swarthmore. My favorite was a tie between swarthmore and Princeton–they were both AMAZING. I’ve now sold my soul to them and there’s no going back…although I did love all the colleges I’ve visited. If you’d like my perspective on any, feel free to PM me or tag me here!
Also, I’m kind of freaking out about summer programs. I got into YSP at FSU (which was a miracle because my app was postmarked 3 days late–yay!!) but I’m still waiting on SSP which I’d much rather attend, and which I have a somewhat advantage in getting in since I’ve done research in planetary science with some faculty affiliated with the program + have good enough stats. However, while YSP is free, SSP costs about 5k, and I’m very very unlikely to get financial aid. I was already forced to confirm my attendance at YSP, so if I get into SSP, I’ll have to not only come up with a way to generate 5k (probably getting in debt to my parents + a gofundme campaign or something), but also burn a lot of bridges at FSU. While I’m definitely not going to FSU for college, I hate being shady and making people mad. So yeah I’m stressed 
@coffeeaddicted Congrats on your acceptance to YSP at FSU! If you don’t mind, could you tell me about Princeton?
@Faultystart thanks! And omg idk where to start…well the campus is REALLY historic, and the majority of the buildings are old and have really rich stories (like Nassau Hall, which got fired upon during the Revolutionary War). They’re all really pretty and I mistook some of the academic buildings for cathedrals.
The campus is basically surrounded by a forest (along with some suburbs/shops/eating clubs, apparently), and the entire area really pretty. The social atmosphere was, as I gathered from the people there, quite intellectual (although not as much as Swarthmore) and very friendly. They have a bunch of random traditions, like where a cappella groups sing under the arches (there are lots of arches), called “arch sings,” and a lot of traditions involving their rival, Rutgers (I saw a red “R” spray painted on a tree there lol). The residential halls, while I didn’t get to go in, were really nice from the outside, and they have a lot of help from advisors in the residential halls.
One of my favorite parts about Princeton is the senior thesis (and the junior papers and the freshman seminar class, which was REALLY cool), which they talked about a lot. The general emphasis on inquiry and going in depth in your field is exactly what I’m looking for in a college (in my opinion, it’s the best preparation for grad school). I loved how they make the coursework really rigorous (that’s also what I loved about Swarthmore), because that’s also one of the best ways to prepare for grad school/career.
OH ALSO I loved how the faculty are really willing to help students (since it’s primarily undergrad) and give them research and other opportunities. Also, (this was something I noticed a lot between Haverford, Swarthmore, and Princeton) the students have a lot of opportunities to get involved with the school and make important decisions for the school. I was quite surprised because my high school does not trust anyone at all (we have a guilty-until-proven-innocent absent/tardy policy LOL), but at Princeton students really do get a lot of opportunities to heavily involve themselves in things, and pretty much everyone does a lot of activities in addition to academics. It overall seems like the perfect environment for undergraduate learning and I want to go so bad. Also, pretty much everyone knows this but financial aid is fantastic. I just have to get in (much much MUCH easier said than done). But fingers crossed, right??
@neoking Okay, so Stanford is absolutely beautiful. It’s spread over a large amount of land, but the main campus is where people usually live + congregate + go to classes (however, there’s also the hospital, the mall (yes, Stanford has its own freaking mall; most of the stores there are super high-end, though. Macy’s is probably the least preppy store there), and the acres of reserve land it has). The main area is the Main Quad, which has the Stanford Memorial Church–absolutely beautiful. Easiest place to get food on campus is Tresidder Union, which is a short walk up from behind the church, although I’d say food is better down on University Avenue and at Stanford Mall.
Facilities are really pretty & generally awesome. The original campus was this Spanish-inspired yellowish stone with red stucco roofs, but some of the newer buildings are architectural marvels. The Green Earth Sciences Building, for example, is all glass and steel. The farther away you move from the Main Quad, the newer the buildings get. Sometimes, though, the insides have been completely renovated–Stanford’s D.School, for example, is all black and aesthetic-y. Everyone there is legitimately happy and they’re all really humble and passionate and ahhhh <3 They have some really interesting traditions, too–for example, Moonlight on the Quad.
Stanford and Cal have this long-standing rivalry and once in a while you’ll catch evidence of their… interesting… relationship. (Ex. I had a competition at Stanford once, and a Cal guy was proctor; he wore every single bit of Cal clothing he could find.)
Never actually visited their dorms (or at least last time I visited them I was eight), but I’ve heard that they’re pretty mundane–not amazing, but not bad, either.
University Avenue is gorgeous at night–they have lights strung across trees that make it absolutely beautiful. They also have some really awesome restaurants (chief among them Pizza My Heart–its pizza has really good sauce).
It’s located in Palo Alto, which, to be honest, is a pretty boring town, but around it are San Francisco and San Jose and a bunch of other big cities. Stanford itself is huge enough that there’s plenty to do on campus. The nature preserve is 1200 acres, so it’s absolutely huge. Stanford also has its own farm (and you can actually get coffee made from coffee beans grown on the farm at one of the Starbucks on campus!!!).
@eyrar99 How is Madison? I’m thinking of visiting soon because it’s about an 1 hr and half away?
@Faultystart How is Michigan?
@tigerman333 It was a while ago, but I remember some details. The dorms I stayed in were very nice, 2 people per room, air conditioning, but there were communal floor bathrooms. Every door required a keycard and password, which was a bit inconvenient when I had to use the restroom in the dead of night, but the communal bathrooms were very nice. (Pretty sure I stayed in Alice Lloyd Hall, not 100% sure though). The campus was very nice, there was plenty of green space. I liked the campus a lot, it didn’t ever feel too crowded. However, parts of campus had a very campus-y feel (distinct from the city) but other parts it was campus on one side, city on the other.
The dining hall food was good, and there was a variety of food to chose from. I never felt like my choices were super limited. I’m not sure how to describe the surrounding are. There were lots of shops (restaurants, a game store, there was a nearby 7-11 and arcade, not sure what else) and everything was within walking distance.
So far, I’ve been to Barnard, Columbia, Tufts, Boston College, Georgetown, UVA, University of Richmond, and UPenn. If anyone has questions about them, I’ll try my best to answer!
@eyrar99 CMC and Pomona seem to have a very close relationship, but that’s expected given they are basically right next to each other. CMC has a more modern look, there’s a glass box/studying area near the front of the campus surrounded by fountains, which I found to be pretty cool. One thing the tour guide at CMC talked about was the weekly dinner events hosted at CMC, I think it’s called the Atheneaum, and past guests have included Bill Clinton, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich. In fact, you get to SIT with the guest if you happen to be one of the lucky people who are placed at the same table. I’m pretty sure that all students in the consortium can attend, but CMC students get priority.
Pomona has more of an old-school feel, at least architecturally. Sort of like Santa Clara University, and to a lesser extent, Stanford. The tour guides kept saying how everyone says its the most Ivy-type school in the West, appearance-wise, though I don’t really agree. There were a lot of bark chips because Pomona is trying to cut down its water usage, so no more grass There are still lawns and the like, but I’m talking more about those little strips of grass in front of a building, or near a garbage can, etc. I know if you’re more science oriented Harvey Mudd might be better, but the science facilities seemed quite modern. There’s also this nice wall towards one end of the campus where you can write in paint basically anything. I think each dorm gets their own space, and if I recall correctly, it seemed sort of like a wall for activists to support their causes. Perhaps it could be used at other times for club promotions, I don’t know.
Apparently the food is really good at both places, but the perks of attending the 5C is that you can dine at any if you have your meal card.
Hope this helps
@tonystarkofwinterfell I love University Avenue. They have a bunch of nice restaurants there. I’ll suggest Joya, which serves Latin tapas, if any of you ever happen to visit.
One of the things I don’t particularly like about Stanford is the food court. I’ve been there for debate tournaments, and I don’t know if there’s another cafeteria/dining center, but each time we end up frequenting the one with a Panda Express, Starbucks, etc. I don’t know, I just don’t really like their overt commercial presence on campus.
@GrandBudapest oh god yeah the Tresidder food court (the one you went to) sucks. There’s a tiny Italian place on the side that makes good sandwiches, but apparently its ownership changes around every year. I prefer Treehouse (FRIES) and CoHo myself c:
@tonystarkofwinterfell Ok, stop it, please. You’re only making my attachment with this university worse. What am I gonna when decisions come out one year from now?!!!
Is Stanford also your dream school?
@eyrar99 Oh, and I meant to say Claremont Consortium not 5C/Five-College Consortium
@neoking yes it is, sadly. Agh why does Stanford have to be so hard to get into?
@bfc2017 can you give a comparison of columbia and penn? And what is Barnard like? Is its campus totally separate from Columbia’s?
@bfc2017 How is UPenn? It’s my top choice as of right now.
@GrandBudapest thanks! @tigerman333 I’ll write about Madison by the end of the day…