Is Princeton even worth a visit for us?

College Search & Lists
21

So first, William & Mary is very special. Not at all like most publics, really much more like a private, and a very nice one in fact for the right sort of kid. So you are very fortunate to have that as an in-state option, and there is nothing wrong with recognizing it.

It is so special in fact it is indeed hard to find non-Reachy competitors, particularly if you want to stay close to VA and also are not interested in LACs (in many ways the W&M experience is actually more like an LAC than a large public).

I agree Rochester is a good suggestion, but is it close enough? Up to you.

Some other ideas. Pitt and Delaware are actually nominal publics with a similar history. They are very old (although not as old as W&M!), and were not originally publics but affiliated later. And I think they can still feel different as a result. Of course they have all sorts of kids, but you can find your people, and it wouldn’t hurt if you got into their Honors programs.

And actually, Rutgers is yet another of these, with an excellent Honors program.

Another idea would be UNC Asheville. This is a public LAC, so may or may not be of interest, but again it is pretty special. Miami of Ohio is yet another idea, and closer to Virginia than some may realize. College of Charleston too.

But we are getting farther than Rochester now. So again, up to you.

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22

I agree if LACs are on the table, Wesleyan and Vassar could be good choices.

I’d also suggest looking at Bryn Mawr. Maybe women’s colleges are a no go, and on its own it is not big. But its BiCo relationship with Haverford makes it a bit different, and it is obviously relatively close to Virginia.

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23

Agree with the others…if she loves W&M and you have the bonus of being in-state then it is just a fabulous option. I know many kids who loved their time there and had great outcomes.

Also agree that Princeton strikes me as more preppy than quirky. Some schools mentioned by others above may be better fits. Nonetheless, if she is interested and you can go it may be worth the trip. I learned a bit more about how both of my kids mind’s worked, what made them tick, etc. through these trips so they were all valuable even if the school we visited was not the right fit. I think of the college trips with my kids as the last great road trips we took together – mix in a nice lunch or dinner if you can and enjoy.

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24

We never visited any of the schools that my son applied to. We visited a couple only after the offer of admission, on pre-view days. Saved us a whole lot of time, travel expense and energy. I don’t see the point of pre-admission visits to schools, particularly those ultra-high reach with the admission rate below 5% and no demonstrated interest taken into consideration. Visit after being admitted.

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25

My younger kid was applying during the height of Covid so no visits for him, even after acceptances🙁.

I enjoyed my college visits with my older kid though!

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26

W&M for sure which she seems to like. Then also Rochester, CWRU, maybe Brandeis.

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27

We know a family in a similar situation - quirky, high-stats S25 looking for an intellectual, nerdy vibe who initially dreamed of Princeton. After further research and visits to several schools (Princeton included), they are now strongly considering Wm & Mary even with out-of-state tuition. As others have said, you are so fortunate to have that as an in-state option.

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28

Princeton is not quirky. Look at Macalester, Oberlin, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, and Wesleyan.

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29

I would agree, except visits have yielded a lot of info for us, surprisingly. They are a pain in the butt, but for example she thought Swarthmore would be her dream school until she visited it and was totally turned off.

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30

Think about it- today, there is a kid just like yours who lives in New Hampshire who is wondering “how am I going to find my 'peeps” at my instate option?" or any one of 40 states, which really don’t have a public U which is anything close to what you are describing.

So lucky you and lucky D!

I think Princeton is worth a visit if you can combine with a few more realistic options. She may hate it. (one of mine did- too suburban, too shiny which is not a word I would use to describe a lot of 19th century buildings but whatever.) But it’s a valuable datapoint IMHO.

Agree that one of the women’s colleges might hit her sweet spot. Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Smith?

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31

Unless either your daughter is seriously considering using Princeton as her SCEA (Single Choice Early Action) school, or has a burning need to see it, there’s no need to go to any hardship to tour it before applying. Princeton doesn’t consider demonstrated interest, so they could care less whether a prospective student tours or not.

In general, this is true of the vast majority of the top reach schools – touring is purely for the benefit of the student, optionally, and plays no role in admissions. You can determine if a college tracks and cares by googling “Does [COLLEGE NAME] track demonstrated interest.”

You know your daughter, so if she loves tours, and/or feels to need to see every school she applies to, by all means go for it. My first two kids got tour fatigue, and my last one refused to tour any schools – just wanted to apply and see where he got in before considering tours. The other danger of tours is that it is far easier to find a reason not to like something than to fall in love with it. My oldest son kept eliminating accepted colleges during post-acceptance tours or accepted student events because he found little issues until he ended up at the last school standing so to speak. But he probably would have found issue with it if it hadn’t been the last. And he probably would have loved any of them had he attended.

All that said, Princeton is personally my favorite college campus, having toured or visited probably 50-ish over the years. It strikes the right balance for me of not being too rural or too urban. It’s in a pretty area. It has mind blowing resources and facilities proportionate to its student population (which makes sense as it also has the largest endowment per student). And it has a great, thriving commercial village across the street. Endless trails, bike paths, etc. And a train station right on campus that can get you to either NYC or Philly in about 75 minutes (if timed right).

Downsides, besides getting in, are its not the right campus for someone who wants something more urban (plenty of other top schools for that) and it is kind of crazy big and spread out relative to its population. To put that into perspective, just the core contiguous campus is almost 700 acres large to support 8,600 students (undergrad and grad). (That doesn’t count the other 1,100 acres they own in the area that aren’t part of the core campus.) By comparison, Columbia with 36,000 student has a core campus of just 36 acres! UCLA with 46,000 students has just over 400 acres. Even if you take the formal tour, you really don’t get a sense of this because the tour concentrates on a very small part of campus. And some of the rest is hard to discern because its nestled in among the surrounding community (and a lot of trees).

Good luck in any event. (Oh, and W&M is awesome.)

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32

However, a visit to Princeton may help the OP’s D decide if she wants to ED to W&M or not.

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33

On the one hand, I think if for various practical reasons you can’t do pre-offer visits (or just don’t want to), you can still put together a reasonable list and then hopefully sort it out post-offer.

On the other, I agree with you that if you CAN do visits, it can possibly help you put together the most efficient possible list. Meaning not applying to many if any colleges you do not know you would be excited to consider.

But again, I would just emphasize this is all the more important when looking at Likelies and Targets. Like, suppose you “mistakenly” apply to a Swarthmore without visiting (mistaken in that if you had visited you would know not to apply at all). Odds are, Swarthmore will erase this mistake by not admitting you. And if they do admit you, you can visit post-offer and then obviously choose another college.

But hypothetically, suppose your daughter would love Delaware if she visited. Maybe not as much as William & Mary in the end, but more than JMU/GMU, or at least if she was in the honors program.

Would she even know to apply to Delaware without a visit?

As a final thought, I definitely think you can approach this as a multi-step process where you keep refining your future visit list as you get reactions. Like as you can see here, knowing your daughter really liked William & Mary (and not Swarthmore) helped a bunch of people offer other possibilities. And you don’t have to go down all those roads at once.

But if you did, say, visit a Delaware and she liked it, you could then maybe also visit Pitt (or vice-versa). And if she didn’t like the one, you could not bother with the other, but maybe could then visit a Bryn Mawr instead. And so on.

Just some thoughts. But you have time, in fact I was still visiting colleges with my S24 until well into the fall of his senior year. Again, not obligatory, but if you see it as a multi-step learning process, it can help sustain the process as it will get more and more interesting and useful as you go along.

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34

I agree unless you have finances and are considering applying somewhere ED.

I knew way more quirky kids at Yale, than Princeton FWIW. (know a lot of people who have attended both). And Brown is generally quirkiest ivy.

Adding, I think all of the top schools have quirky groups and elements, it is a matter of %%.

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35

I agree with NiceUnparticularMan’s advice about prioritizing visits to likely and target schools over reaches, but I thought I would mention Princeton has an unusual application requirement that might be of interest given your daughter’s writing talent. They require a graded paper, preferably in English or History, be submitted with the application. Perhaps that could help her stand out if she chooses to apply?

We visited Princeton. I don’t think the tour guide clicked with our kid, who lost interest after the visit. It’s funny how much impact a tour guide can have on a high schooler. Then again, maybe it was less the tour guide herself than the sense the school didn’t seem to feel a need to train or vet them.

Fwiw, I have heard Carleton described as quirky.

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I’ve mentioned before I really saw a connection between Carleton and William & Mary after visiting both with my S24. I suppose part of it was each time we had a pair of tour guides and they sort of reminded me of each other (in a very good way). But I also think there is in fact a real, substantive, common cultural commitment to embracing a combination of strong academics with a lot of creative/nerdy fun.

Obviously not close to Virginia, but there are a lot of direct flights to MSP (which is only like 45 minutes from Carleton), and it would definitely stand out to me as a college worth considering if the OP is willing to look farther out. And same with Macalester, in fact, which is even closer to MSP.

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The OP’s D has expressed a preference for mid-sized colleges so Carleton, and other LACs, may not fit the bill. Not sure how flexible the OP’s D is on this (especially with a great mid-size in-state option.)

LACs are great for people looking for that smaller school experience – but may not be the right fit for this student.

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38

Sounds to me like W&M and CNU (albeit more regional).

When I hear W&M, the next “logical” and it might be too far is Miami Ohio - it’s a larger W&M - literally - from look, feel, and everything else.

Much easier to get into but very well reputed - very well reputed.

Closer to U is Ohio U - which isn’t in the same mold - but has the Honors Tutorials which might be of interest.

Honors Tutorial College | Ohio University

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Rochester might be far but it’s worth researching.

I think the most important schools are those that are targets and likelies, and I would consider honors colleges within larger universities. Pitt, UDel, Rutgers come to mind.

Would she consider GW and American?

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40

Ah, sorry, I missed that. I was going off the Swarthmore visit.

In that case I would suggest considering UChicago. Another possibility might be Pomona (itself small but the Claremont Colleges together are a mid-size environment.)

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