<p>For many of the veterans of this board, familiarity may be high with the many fine colleges and universities all across the country. As for the rest of us, the process of finding where to spend the next 4(+) years introduced us to places we knew little or nothing about.</p>
<p>For DS, at least he had a major (civil engineering) which greatly culled the number of schools to consider, but even so, of the six schools he applied to, only two were on the radar a year before the applications went out.</p>
<p>He eventually decided on Bradley, but the school that ALMOST snagged him which wasn’t even on his radar was the University of Evansville. Not only was our visit easily the most friendly, personal, and organized of the dozen or so we took, but the CE department had more positives than we expected (and subsequently won a major regional competition over most of the other finalists on his list). The only reason we even bothered to take a look initially was the expectation of lots of financial aid, and the major reason he decided against it was it was further away from home than Bradley.</p>
<p>During your search, was there a school you knew little to knothing about which somehow jumped up enough that you almost decided to attend? Please say 1) what got you to visit; 2) what impressed you; and 3) why did you ultimately choose not to attend?</p>
<p>I remember our high school counselor pimped those schools to us. But he was quick to inform us that those are solid fall-back schools in case your stats are somewhat impressive.</p>
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<p>Mudd - too small, boring, unattractive, super intense academics, grade deflation, low graduation rate</p>
<p>Bowdoin - cold, too small, somewhat boring</p>
<p>Hiram - too small, in the middle of nowhere, cold</p>
<p>University Of Pittsburgh: visited the school and loved it, met a few students on facebook who got me really excited about the school, in the end I thought that the civil engineering program was pretty lacking in quality.</p>
<p>St. Mary’s College Of Maryland: beautiful school, just decided that I couldn’t/didn’t want to do the 3/2 engineering program with UMaryland (since I’d have to transfer schools)</p>
<p>UNC-Asheville: same reasons as SMCM except it was a 2/2 with NC State</p>
<p>I have liked Flagler College and the only con is that it’s not really known for journalism. Also, lots of people outside of Florida have never heard it. But I would use it as a safety.</p>
<p>Goucher and Muhlenberg…I applied to both as safeties and ended up liking them a lot. They both offered merit scholarships, also. In the end, though, both of them lost out for a few reasons. With Goucher, I realized that I wasn’t a fan of the location, and the social life didn’t seem like it was for me at all. Muhlenberg came REALLY close, though. I really liked the people I talked with and I loved the size of the school. Socially, I think it probably would have been a great thing. I decided against it because I came to realize I didn’t want a school not in or near a major city, and I also felt that the humanities took a backseat to the sciences (though the humanities and social science majors I met seemed very happy).</p>
<p>Also, New College of Florida (not sure how lesser-known this is actually, since it apparently pops up on a lot of lists), because it’s in-state and very cheap. I wasn’t a fan of the people, location, or academic program there, though. So, much to my parents dismay, it was ruled out.</p>
<p>University of South Carolina-was my safety school, but became very enticing when they offered a sizable scholarship. Went down and toured the campus; it was beautiful. In the end, though, I ended up settling with UNC.</p>
<p>Bowdoin is a lesser-known school? A fall-back school? ARE YOU JOKING?</p>
<p>and I am going to assume that whoever mentioned Duke and Dartmouth misunderstood the purpose of this thread. but that person still sounded kind of snarky</p>