<p>thanks ct-woods. if only the college websites would feature “the worst view from our campus” so you wouldn’t have the shock and disappointment of discovering if for yourself.</p>
<p>WOW
You people are amazing!
Thanks for all the additional travel advice. Last year for our summer trip we drove - it wasn’t too bad from South Florida to Virginia stopping at schools on the way up and back, even a day in D.C. Seems like the most practical (and most economical) way to go for the next college trip is to fly up north, then rent a car. Hopefully by next summer we will have narrowed down the list of schools to visit. We are still in the “window shopping” phase at this point.</p>
<p>" By car, neither is that far from civilization."</p>
<p>Well then decide if your kid is going to have a car. Constantly trying to mooch rides off of others, who do not necessarly see the word “Taxi” emblazoned on their car, after a while, is a strain on relationships.</p>
<p>Even with a car, to make an impact on routine existence the question is: where can you get to within an hour drive? Or less.</p>
<p>I don’t know why anybody’s even talking about New York City, only Vassar is anyplace near it:</p>
<p>Williams 3-1/3 hrs
Dartmouth 4-3/4 hs
Vassar 1-3/4 hrs
Colgate 4 hrs +</p>
<p>With Vassar, also there is train access from Poughkeepsie via commuter rail to Grand Central. This makes NYC access at least feasible to non-drivers, on a weekend anyway.</p>
<p>But it’s certainly not something to count on for routine, day -to-day quality of life.</p>
<p>Face it, at each of these schools, and many others, you are basically left to the resources of the school’s immediate environment, particularly without a car. So it’s important to evaluate the sufficiency of these local resources.</p>
<p>Monydad:</p>
<p>“Routine, day-to-day quality of life” for most colleges is focused on campus, except for a few highly urban schools, maybe. All of these colleges have great campuses and great day-to-day quality of life there, and cute towns with places to get expensive coffee or ice cream if you want it.</p>
<p>Going someplace like New York or Boston may happen never, and it may happen 3-4 times per semester. When I was in college, taking the train to New York (and back) 3-4 times a semester was an important part of my experience. There are plusses and minuses to everything, but I understand if some students want that option on occasion. </p>
<p>Yes, at Vassar or Bard, it’s possible, without a car, to go spend the day in NYC and to come back at night. Students do that a lot. At the other schools, not so much (Amherst/Boston maybe, but the train schedules aren’t so good). With a car, NYC or Boston still really aren’t a day trip (except, again, for Amherst/Boston), but a weekend trip is very doable.</p>
<p>Terrygreg, my D is a junior at Dartmouth, and we looked at Williams, Dartmouth and Amherst. We did not visit Colgate or Vassar.
We are from the deep South.</p>
<p>Dartmouth feels more remote to me than Williams, although neither would ever be mistaken for the city. There are so many things happening on campus at Dartmouth, though, I don’t think most kids would really notice. But if your child is expecting to go clubbing every Saturday night or eat super Cuban food - s/he’ll be disappointed.</p>
<p>It is helpful to visit when the student is contemplating making such a drastic change of weather and atmosphere. It is also important to assess how much extra cost this adds - my D had to have an entirely new wardrobe, and it takes a full day for her to come home, we have to plan far in advance to get any kind of discount ticket, etc.</p>
<p>Logistically, we did Williams and Amherst in one day, then drove up to Dartmouth the next day. D liked Amherst and Dartmouth, hated Williams, so there is definitely more to their decision making than size or location, because on paper Dartmouth and williams, and williams and Amherst have much in common - Dartmouth and Amherst probably have less in common.</p>
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<p>Those three schools – especially Dartmouth and Williams – not only have a lot in common “on paper”, they have a lot in common, period. Based on 35 years or so of observation, I would guess that their student bodies are nearly interchangeable. Dartmouth is somewhat bigger (but not all the way to “big”), has a few academic grad students around, and plays D-1 sports (sort of). When my son saw Dartmouth for the first time, his immediate reaction was “Explain to me how this is different from Williams.” Amherst is a lot smaller, and has more brick, but also is otherwise indistinguishable. </p>
<p>There are eensy-weensy differences among them, including degree of remoteness. Of course, a student can prefer one to another. But love Dartmouth and Amherst and hate Williams? That’s so random, it’s a great argument AGAINST visiting. Looking at random bits of vivid information from three practically identical institutions over a short period of time, a student could conclude that there were actual, meaningful differences among them. By and large, that would be wrong. </p>
<p>Visiting is great, but potentially very misleading. You have to take it with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>Quote:“But love Dartmouth and Amherst and hate Williams? That’s so random,”</p>
<p>JHS - not so random. My D came to the same conclusion after visiting all 3. There was something about the campus feel at Williams and the area she didn’t like. That’s why visiting IS so important. I didn’t questioned her conclusion. Doesn’t matter if we, as parents, like these schools or think they are all pretty much the same. I figured she was the one who would have to spend four years at that place and if it didn’t fell right, for whatever reasons, I wasn’t going to push it. Every school we visited, I reminded her “This will be your home for four years.”</p>
<p>thelongroad – I don’t really mind if kids make decisions like Dartmouth vs. Williams based on irrational reactions. After all, they have to cut down their lists somehow, and eventually they generally attend only one college. Anything that helps them make up their minds is fine. But don’t call it nonrandom or rational. It isn’t. If your daughter had never visited any of the schools, and had found herself at Williams, she would have loved it or not to the same degree and for the same reasons that she would have loved or not the other colleges. The “something about the campus feel and area she didn’t like” would have vanished in 3-4 weeks, as she got actual experience of living and learning there, and as the place acquired memories and actual meaning for her.</p>
<p>Ha – my son loved Dartmouth and Williams and hated Amherst. </p>
<p>Go figure!</p>
<p>JHS - you are missing the point completely. The purpose of the visits is to let the kids themselves decide. I also don’t agree that if a student doesn’t visit they will end up loving the place. These school are not as similar as you think. Different strengths in different academic areas, different major available, etc. It’s not all location and size. By the way Dartmouth is very different based on the fact that it has the D-Plan and runs on a quarter system allowing more flexibility and opportunities for a term abroad and internships. Dartmouth also has an engineering school, which the other two do not. The fact that my D didn’t like the school when she saw it and didn’t like the feel is very important. Otherwise why visit at all. We should just select a college based on their website and viewbook. Because, according to you, the student will love it once there. We visit because it is important to get a feel for the place. They are all great schools and on paper they may all seem the same. On a visit they will seem different, based on size, location, and how the campus is set up - i.e. spread out vs. more compact, whether the academic buildings are together or not, location and arrangement of dorms, location of athletic and other facilities.</p>
<p>Actually, JHS, there are very good reasons (to her) why she didn’t like Williams. During her visit, the adcoms were at a retreat, so a senior intern and an upperclassman did the info session and the tour. They asked each student there not only to tell where they were from, but something about themselves. Every other student - and there were about 40 in the room - played some sport, including one pasty-faced young man who looked like he had never seen the light of day, let alone a tennis racket! That was enough for my D, since at that time she played no sports at all. Was this an unrealistic, snap judgment? Sure, to some extent it was, but they have to decide somehow. Since her list was basically safeties and reaches with one borderline safety that she would have been quite happy to go to, it didn’t really matter if she took an instant dislike to one of the reaches.
In retrospect, especially taking into consideration how she has grown and changed over the past 2 years, she was exactly correct. There are some subtle differences between Dartmouth and Amherst and Williams AND there are some similarities between those 3 and Swat (believe it or not), and of the 4, Williams is the one that she probably would have been the least happy attending.</p>
<p>Having an engineering school or not – that’s substantive. Different majors available, that too. The D-Plan, sort of. At least, it’s a real difference.</p>
<p>But how the campus is laid out? The building materials used? Nope. Of course, I and everyone else will have personal preferences about that stuff, but it really doesn’t matter much. Unless that’s all you have time to notice.</p>
<p>I’m not a big fan of visiting, to tell the truth. I think it’s a necessary evil, and not such a bad evil, but an evil nonetheless, for just this reason. Of course, as long a a kid gets enthusiastic about a few places that work for him and at which he eventually gets accepted, it’s all good.</p>
<p>cangel: If you asked me I would say that Williams is the closest of the three to Swarthmore. But that’s just based on who I know at those schools, students and faculty. They are all sports-y (unlike Swarthmore). But you’re completely right that it didn’t matter why your daughter decided to pass on Williams, any more than it mattered that my daughter passed on Brown because the tour guide was a lightweight, didn’t know anything about the sculptures on campus, and talked about how great it was that there was a mall close by.</p>
<p>I disagree JHS. I think how the campus is laid out is very important. For example, we have seen several campuses where the science and art buildings are far from the dorms and other academic buildings. If you are considering an art or science major I would find that very important since you will spend a lot of time in those buildings with labs, independent research, studio sessions, etc. An athlete with 6am or late evening practices would want an athletic facility that was not 2 miles away from his dorm. On a very cold dark night or an early cold morning, those long walks won’t be pleasant. Also dorms that are spread out all over campus result in a very different social feel on campus. If it’s cold or other bad weather you would be less inclined to trek across campus to see your friends, attend social activities, etc. So yes, I think the campus layout, feel, etc. are important considerations when deciding between equal academic schools. Isn’t that the reason they do campus tours (as opposed to the info sessions and department/major discussions)? Why else would they lead you around campus and the facilities?</p>
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<p>Actually my youngest had to do this because he skipped 11th grade so we had not a moment to visit. He chose a list of 8 places to send applications, based only on website and other internet-based research. Since several were cross-country and last-minute air tickets exceeded our family budget just to confirm his website perceptions, in April, he had to send off the postcard “Yes” to an unvisited place. He was kinda concerned, but had no choice there. </p>
<p>When he packed up in August, we joked he was going to “meet his mail-order bride.” At orientation, peoples’ jaws dropped that he’d never visited the place and took it sight-unseen; ah well, but it was for the specialty major, so that made sense. We weren’t crazy or indifferent to his process; we were just doing the best we could. </p>
<p>In actual fact, he cared more about the major (researchable by website and emails) than any other nuance of campus living. If they’d teach him to become a screenwriter for film, he didn’t care if he did it at an urban or rural place, took elevators and subways or walked across grassy fields to get to those classes. The time and money spent on visits could have detracted from his SAT-1 and SAT-2 sittings that Fall, too, or pulled down his GPA. There are a lot of academic costs to visiting in Fall of sr. year, and yet people lament summertime visits as not being indicative of campus life…I guess there’s no one right answer here.</p>
<p>S figured out that “non-visiting search” was one of the logical consequences of skipping 11th grade (his choice l00%, why would we want that?) so obviously it applies to few students. </p>
<p>But wait-- the “unvisited choice” DOES apply to a lot of students. Anyone middle class or with financial concerns (yet not too poor to be flown in for diversity weekend), anyone whose parent’s health precludes lots of travel, or a significant subsection of the overseas students who make these important decisions from around the globe, sight unseen. </p>
<p>I’d like to suggest that, as excited as families are about visiting (remember, I loved my rounds of l0 visits with S-1 and D…), just keep the realization that it applies to a small select group and not all the applicants who might read these sites. I’m only asking for a bit of other-awareness, not to take anything away from an individual’s experience that visits were important and helpful making fine-line decisions among several Grrrrreat schools.</p>
<p>My experience:</p>
<p>I went to law school sight unseen. I knew the catalogue, and faculty and data, but I hadn’t even seen a picture of it. Everyone said it was beautiful, including my sister, an undergraduate at the same university. I didn’t have the time or money to visit.</p>
<p>When I saw it, I hated it. Completely. There’s no way I would have gone there if I had visited it for a weekend. And that would have been a massive mistake – it was perfect, for all the reasons that led me to choose it sight unseen over more prestigious schools, much to my parents’ dismay.</p>
<p>And you know what? After I had been there a few months, I no longer cared that I hated how it looked, and how the campus was laid out. I didn’t even care that the library wasn’t open 24-7 (unlike real university law libraries), another strike against the school. I had a key. In other words, I adapted to the environment.</p>
<p>The college I chose was my least favorite, physically, of the colleges I visited, too. And it’s one of those places with distant athletic facilities. Especially for crew. Especially for women’s crew, which didn’t HAVE athletic facilities until they all showed up in the AD’s office naked with T-I-T-L-E I-X spelled out on their backs, and several photographers in tow. You wouldn’t believe how fiercely those inconvenienced athletes loved the college, and still do.</p>
<p>I have seen all the schools you mention, so feel free to PM me if you wish.</p>
<p>I don’t want to parse minor differences either. I do think the rural schools have slightly different feels, and I don’t want to be a cheerleader for S’s school, though he loves it.</p>
<p>I want to make a distinction here between the feel of the campus and the accessibility of things beside campus. They are not the same thing.</p>
<p>Dartmouth: I can’t imagine really feeling isolated at Dartmouth. The HOP is fantastic and visually imposing and always has something happening. And as others said, with all the coming and going its students do, it’s a very vital place.</p>
<p>Amherst: Does not feel isolated in the least, at least to me. However, the campus, though large, does seem quiet. The town and consortium aren’t.</p>
<p>For us, Swarthmore felt the most isolated although it is in easy access of Philly. We felt overwhelmed by leaves. (I know many adore the campus.)</p>
<p>Vassar does not feel isolated because of the magnificent buildings, particularly the library. However, it does have the “gated campus” feel. I have spoken to people who don’t like this; I did and S did.</p>
<p>Wesleyan sprawls into the town the way Brown does, although the town is much smaller and less interesting than Providence.</p>
<p>Colgate is on a hill and does feel somewhat isolated, though the kids I know who go there love it.</p>
<p>Williams does not feel isolated to me because the main drag in the area runs right through it. The town and college are indistinguishable, so the feeling is of being in a town. </p>
<p>In the interest of full disclosure: S liked all schools but Colgate (too preppy, though beautiful.) For whatever reason, he liked Williams best and is attending. I think it’s because the music department made it very clear that he was wanted. He also likes the mountains and the stars. Would have also been very happy at Dartmouth (or indeed as JHS says, any of these schools.)</p>
<p>Just one bit more about Williams’ location: Does feel more rural by far than Amherst. IMO the school feels more bustling. Pitttsfield is twenty minutes away, and although it is not the size of Burlington, VT, it does have pretty much everything one would need and a hospital. (We did have to travel a bit to have S’s violin bow rehaired.)</p>
<p>About itinerary: I love the detailed agenda provided by previous poster, though we would do it somewhat differently. Would go from Williamtown to Skidmore (just a bit north of Albany) and then down the Hudson River Valley to see in order Bard, Vassar and Sarah Lawrence.</p>
<p>I also agree that the colleges of interest to the OP’s son and others in New England have differences in ambience, more involving personality than in degree of isolation.</p>
<p>Visiting was an eye-opener for my son. When we left home Amherst was on the top of his list. When he got there he realized that the art department was in actual fact a lot less impressive than it was in its description. We drove over the mountain to Williams (which wasn’t even ON the list) and found an outstanding art department plus world class museums. </p>
<p>A subnote: Williams wasn’t even on the list because our son worried about the superjock reputation. What he learned at the visit was that eventhough just about everyone he met engaged in somesort of physical activity, everyone was also involved in something else often art/music/theater driven. This multi-facetedness appealed to him.</p>
<p>As far as the isolation factor goes, visiting really helped to crystalize the differences. Williams for example is clearly rural, but as I mentioned above, Williamstown is accessible for basic needs. Hamilton and Kenyon which are also rural campuses felt much more “isolated” because there is no town or village at all within walking distance. This wasn’t exactly a deal breaker for my son as both of those schools remained high on his list, but it was a distinction.</p>
<p>JHS- lots of kids need different things even from similar schools. Neighbors of ours visited Dartmouth and found the Jewish community there… both the Hillel as well as the resources of the surrounding area, to be much more robust than they’d expected in a rural area. Not so at Williams; marginally so at Amherst (great resources if you want to look at the broader geographic area, less so on campus ). I can’t speak for every other ethnic group, religious group, or special interest group, but I can tell you that without visiting these things are tough to define. The standard wisdom is just to check the school’s website-- well, if you are Bahai and show up at a college sight unseen because the website claims to have an active worship group but the last active kid graduated in '06…</p>
<p>I don’t think visits are the be all and end all, but if you can afford it-- do it early in the game so you can start eliminating places. If you can’t afford it-- you end up doing the best you can. I knew lots of kids in college who hadn’t visited, and for some, Providence was a lovely surprise-- fine old homes on the Hill, a rundown downtown which offered the shopping basics, hospitals, nursing homes, school system, state government, daily newspaper, all of which welcomed Brown students as interns, employees, volunteeers, you name it. Other students found it a depressing and insular dump and spent four years plotting how to get to Boston or NY on the weekend. Providence has changed enormously in 25 years so I no longer would call it a dump… but there are kids looking for a different type of urban environment and they may be unpleasantly surprised, even by post-gentrified Providence.</p>
<p>I think the OP also needs to gauge the culture shock factor, which for some kids comes as a breath of fresh air, and for others is intimidating. Each kid needs to factor in his or her own comfort level in leaving their region and what that entails. As an urbanite, I was shocked to meet kids from other regions who regularly drove 100 miles in an evening to attend a sporting event or compete against another HS. In our HS we complained vigorously about attending programs that required “changing to the Red Line” on Boston’s MBTA, as if transferring subway lines meant crossing Checkpoint Charlie.</p>
<p>“I think the OP also needs to gauge the culture shock factor, which for some kids comes as a breath of fresh air, and for others is intimidating. Each kid needs to factor in his or her own comfort level in leaving their region and what that entails. As an urbanite, I was shocked to meet kids from other regions who regularly drove 100 miles in an evening to attend a sporting event or compete against another HS.”</p>
<p>Yes!!! That’s it! This was the biggest reason to visit, IMO. My d had been all over the world, but not to New England. I wanted her to sit in a classroom with students and see if she thought she would like to work, live and hang out with these people, because they would not have had her same schema. Her opinion is that many of the schools we visited draw from so far afield that it would be easy to find a buddy and wonderful to meet a spectrum of kids. If a school draws a “type” that would be nice to figure out ahead of time as well.</p>
<p>Thanks for saying it, Blossom.</p>
<p>Actually, my first cousin, much much younger than I am, raved about Williams Jewish community. The Jewish studies building is right across from the admissions office; it’s modern and quite beautifully designed. In fact, the large info. session on Williams’ super duper showcase day was in the Jewish Studies Center. We had to walk past prayer shawls to find our seats; even got fringe in our faces. S really like the informality of that, and certainly felt it a an affirmation of Jewish students. Cous said the Jewish community at Williams was her greatest support system. In addition, the prez invited students to his home to break the fast on Yom Kipper. Williams has a higher percentage of Jewish students than Dartmouth, too.</p>
<p>It didn’t matter to us because we’re completely non-observant.</p>
<p>I think this is part of JHS’s point: that visits can be misleading because none of us can be sure where to look on these college visits. Some conclusions are mistaken.</p>
<p>However, I still agree that visits can be very worthwhile. And if the kid misses something, who cares? A good education is to be had at all of them. If the student is excited about the college he/she is attending, it just enhances the experience.</p>
<p>If a student misses the Jewish community at Williams and chooses Amherst or Dartmouth instead, no harm done.</p>
<p>However, on a board like this, I think it is important to correct the impression that Williams doesn’t have an active Jewish presence. It most definitely does.</p>