We visited University of Iowa for my kid who wound up at Wisconsin – we were charmed by Iowa. The campus is quite pretty, on two sides of the Iowa river – the health sciences and football stadium are on the (west?) side of the river bank and Arts and Letters, B School, and the town, are on the (east?) side of the river. Iowa City is a pretty good college town – has all the usual – pizza, coffee, music scene. University of Iowa is also famous for its MFA in creative writing, so there is a strong creative vibe in town. Lots of school spirit. I was impressed by how well run the admissions office was – something we started to pay attention to at the flagships we visited, as right or wrong, I took good organization, effective administration in admissions as a sign that the rest of the university probably functioned pretty smoothly as well. Iowa made a very strong, positive impression, and was a good safety for my liberal arts kid who was admitted to Illinois and Minnesota – for social sciences, not anything remotely STEMy. We are from the east coast originally, and live in Indiana, and know kids at Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Purdue, Illinois, OSU. Pretty much all of those schools have smart, talented, grounded kids. Out here, in the midwest, the default expectation for many kids is to attend the in-state flagship because they are generally quite affordable instate, so many talented kids who could have been admitted elsewhere are at these schools.