<p>We spreadsheet the packages into elaborate breakdowns. Helps see the numbers more clearly.<br>
When my older son was visiting schools, I wax-papered the Ivy leaves and had the collection over my kitchen sink in a prayer sanctuary…okay, make fun of me, I deserve it! The school he ended up going to was the only one we did not get an Ivy leaf from until after he was accepted. Go figure :)</p>
<p>We did not make it to the CTCL Fair last year, but had already been to some of the schools. I will make a point to do so next time around, in 2-3 years! Looking forward to a hiatus from touring, actually!</p>
<p>I’ve often used the house buying search analogy for the college process. </p>
<p>First step - You look at the area and pick potential houses (colleges)</p>
<p>Step two - You look at the houses (colleges) and figure out what you like and don’t like. All is still good and you think you have some choices within your budget, but there might be one or two that are out of budget but maybe they’ll take a low offer. (reach schools) </p>
<p>Step three - Crunch time - you but in your offer (application) and wait to see if they will accept it. </p>
<p>Step four - Anticipation - You’ve done all you can and now you just hope for the best!</p>
<p>Step five - Acceptance(!) and you now own a new home or with the college experience - it will be like you are just paying for another one!</p>
<p>kathiep, I love your last post!! You can also look at completing those fafsa, and profile forms as similar to applying for a mortgage. LOL, the monthly payments can be similar to a mortgage payment for many. Only difference is that you are preapproved for a mortgage when buying a home today, but middle class and low income students don’t know if they can afford the college until that package comes out!</p>
<p>I owuld love to see an uninhibited discussion among the Presdients of those schools which are near CTCL schools, and similar to them, about how many kids they have lost over the years because Loren Pope chose Ursinus over Muhlenberg, Juniata over Susquehanna, etc.</p>
<p>And a chart of how their admissions difficulty has risen since publication would be interesting, too. </p>
<p>Gweeta, re “The Office”, my son told me I would not like the show. I asked him how that could be, given how much more time I had spent in The Office vs. him. I decided that, as part of his desire for independence, he needed to have a show I did not watch, much as I wanted to have a show we both watched.</p>
<p>It seems unfair that, after years of watching stuff like Pokemon to be with a child, just when you could watch things together, they want privacy, perhaps because they don’t feel comfortable laughing at sex jokes in your presence.</p>
<p>Good point yabeyabe2 - As someone that has visited all four of the colleges you’ve mentioned, I think that they are all the same in their uniqueness. I’ve found that each LAC has something that they tend to emphasize. For fun, on our way back from NC a couple of weeks ago we came up with a few words for each college of our quick impressions.</p>
<p>For instance, Guilford was - Crunchy, down to earth, student centered
High Point - Disneyworld creates a college
Queens - Girly, compact (school is 70% women)
Elon - Friendly, academic research</p>
<p>(I could go on, but don’t want to monopolize the thread)</p>
<p>I’ve mentioned this book before but perhaps it bears repeating, “Following the College That’s right for you!” This is a book for B students and it gives a nice write up and basic facts for tons of colleges, both LAC’s and state Universities.</p>
<p>We took a quick trip to Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY this morning for a Junior open house. We had a great visit and son really likes the college. We talked to a CS prof for quite awhile and he was very knowledgeable and made it clear that there would be personal attention, internships and most likely a job at graduation. All things that are music to a parents ears. The college itself is lovely and sits on a hill overlooking the town and rolling hills. This one is going on the short list!</p>
<p>Really enjoying hearing about so many schools my Junior D and I need to hit this summer!</p>
<p>I have a different take on the whole “Where’s that?” response I get from peers who only seem to know about schools in our area OR the Ivies, Near Ivies, Near the Near Ivies, and so on. In response to the question I ramble on about these schools I’m looking at, praising them to the rafters, and I notice that lots of folks are kind of amazed that I know about all these schools they’ve never even heard of. It doesn’t sound disdainful or even neutral to me. It sounds like they’re impressed that we really got to know our kid and are doing a lot of research to find the right place for her.
Of course, I do tend to see the world through rose-colored glasses. Must be all that Pinot Noir drinking…</p>
<p>kathiep - I like your brief description of each school - summed up in a few words. Cute idea. I think it would be great if as people on this thread visit schools - they could keep posting descriptions, but use your idea as well.</p>
<p>I love this thread! My favorite on CC - particularly due to the down-to-earth vibe (finding fit - just like colleges). I thought I would share some results of where our low B students were accepted this year, particularly to help those who do not have Naviance. They are:</p>
<p>Allegheny College, Arizona State, Beloit, Butler, College of Charleston, Christopher Newport, Clark Univ., Coastal Carolina, Eckerd, Flagler, Florida Southern, George Mason, Goucher, Greensboro College, High Point, Hobart and William Smith, Lake Forest College, Loyola New Orleans, UMBC, McDaniel College, Ohio University, Ohio Wesleyan, Roanoke College, Rollins College, Shenandoah University, Stevenson University, Towson University, Ursinus Colege, Wofford College, and College of Wooster.</p>
<p>I do not think that 3-4 word descriptions do justice to a school. OTOH, they could rule in/out a school quickly, which could be a good thing. For example, if one describes a campus as rural, and a student is looking for a city school, it works. Writing a few words after a visit may help to jog memories for those who know more about the school, and have visited and attended an info session.</p>
<p>Describing a school as “Disneyworld creates a college”, doesn’t say may much about research, study abroad, internship opportunites. It does not speak to the neighborhood outside campus, class sizes, etc. It might project opinions that the campus is fun, if that is how one perceives Disneyworld. It might tell me that the campus is seen more like an amusement park than a college, or a school that should not be taken seriously too. I think this is something to keep in mind. These ideas might be accurate, or might be off the mark.</p>
<p>Real stories about where people have gotten in are so helpful! Thank you! They mean so much more than the “average stats” info.</p>
<p>I agree about the college epithets, in principle. What I think makes them useful is that they could spark some interest - even if it’s a “really? Disneyworld?” kind of curiosity, or if someone has also visited that school and gotten a similar/different impression. I’ve glanced at the “schools crossed off after visiting” thread, and I think there the helpfulness is not that the people’s impressions are “true,” but that their comments show how differently people can react to a place. It’s tempting to say “No! It’s not like that!” but really people (read: kids) get very quick and lasting impressions and it’s kind of fun to see the variations. </p>
<p>My D was turned off by both Wagner College (where we toured) and Drew (just a drive-through) last month, for a few solid but mostly more gut reasons. If I had to write a “quickie” comment about her impressions, I’d say Drew: too many student Lexuses parked in no-parking zones (we saw kids getting in and out of them); Wagner: middle of the road, bland. We’ve heard in other places that Drew is a bit full of well-heeled suburbanites, and this followed suit. We’ve heard Wagner is a nice, solid school, and it was - but my D wants a little quirkier, artsier, and seeing both of them showed she shouldn’t look at the standard, “nice” LAC so much. She’d do better in the “quirky” crowd at a state school, probably, in my opinion; those will be her safeties rather than the less-stringent little colleges. These quick feelings are important.</p>
<p>Again, I look at that list in the earlier post not as “here’s what these schools are” but “here’s what we found our quick reaction was.” The funny thing is that there are dozens of lovely little colleges, and they are 80-90-even 99% the same on paper, but we will all get different reactions. I love it that we have kids on this thread who love/hate schools that are practically identical, for just whatever personal reasons. When it comes time to choose - for the lucky ones who have a few choices at the end - those arbitrary reasons will sometimes end up tipping the coin, or will be seen in the final days as not as important after all.</p>
<p>What scares me are the stories that say “S/he hated it on the first visit, but loved it when we went back.” Aaaah! I think I’ll stick to the validity of the first impression, while I can …</p>
<p>Okay, my first impression of Wagner is: "Great view of NYC, lit up at night, close to city, artsy. So, perhaps that tells a lot about the school, and perhaps not. If I were looking to save spending money, I might think, ahha…close to NYC means I’d need lots of spening money. If I were a Broadway hopeful, I might think…yes, that’s the place to be! Does is tell me a lot about the school? Well, yes and no.</p>
<p>I can do the same for Drew: When I think of Drew, I think:</p>
<p>"Not all that close to NYC, but marketed that way, preppie kids, diverse campus too, old and new campus, contained campus, can walk to some shops/cafes</p>
<p>You tell me, good ways to keep or scratch a school from the list?</p>
<p>I think the issue is that there are SO many schools - and I think this came up when people were talking about Juniata, Susquehanna, etc., very similar in so many ways - that if you’re trying to make a list of 8-12 you might as well use a few subjective criteria in eliminating some of them. Something has to take them off the list, when the distinctions become harder to discriminate. Maybe at the end of the game we’ll have one rural and one city, one private and one public, etc., to choose from, and the larger value placed on those differences will sway her in her final choice. But in building a list, just really “liking” a school or not, for whatever reason, does end up being important.</p>
<p>I’ve watched my 2 very different Ds each at a half dozen or so visits. There was definitely a gut reaction to all of them, but one that could be described, not just a vague “I don’t like it” sense. Anything I’m saying here is subjective, from their point of view, and again I’m only talking about it as a way of exploring how people make decisions, not trying to sway anyone about a particular school.</p>
<p>Each time they didn’t like a school, it led us to a new school that made more sense within that gut feeling. D2 liked Bard for its artsy quirkiness, but then Hampshire went too far. Sarah Lawrence went back to what she liked about Bard. Drew and Wagner took us to another side of the “nice, kind of artsy” school spectrum, and it wasn’t enough. For whatever reason she would have liked them a little more … I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. It’s not always the same feeling, but she learns a ton from visiting and now has a great list.</p>
<p>I don’t want to put down a school here. It’s really all about her making a list that makes sense for her. I know I went through the same process myself, and didn’t look hard enough initially - it took an ED deferral for me to turn my thinking completely around and recast my net. And that definitely took visiting and paying attention to how I felt.</p>
<p>I think the few word snapshot of a school may be only accurate for the student that came up with the words and (hopefully) fun to share. What might be a positive for one student can easily be a negative to another. Northeastmom, we’ve talked before about how my son liked Guilford and your son didn’t even want to visit, but apparently we both loved Hartwick and liked Roanoke. </p>
<p>I don’t think I would pick or eliminate a college to look at based on just one person’s opinion but if someone doesn’t bother to do a visit report or mention it minimally here, then it might not be on our radar at all. I’ve found that when I mention one college, I tend to get DM’s from people about other similar colleges, which I find quite helpful.</p>
<p>BTW, I really enjoy the conversations we have on this thread!</p>
<p>Actually, my son did not really consider Guilford. It wasn’t that he wanted to visit or did not want to visit. He had visited another Quaker school and did not feel it was a fit, so he did not really consider visiting Guilford.</p>
<p>As far as Hartwick, he crossed the school off his list partly because in the not so distant past, Hartwick seemed to be considering the sale of some of their artwork, land on their second (rural) campus, and had made some cuts to sport teams. He also did not care for the hills, but that was secondary.</p>
<p>One way I found last year to gain some insight was to look at the Facebook pages for incoming freshman, especially if they have potential roommate surveys. You get a sense of where the freshman are coming from, georgraphically and otherwise. For example, often kids comment on their overnight visits and their reactions to certain majors; a page filled with kids encouraging anyone to “friend” them struck me as a good sign; lots of kids comment on their aid packages; etc.</p>
The school he ended up going to was the only one we did not get an Ivy leaf from until after he was accepted. Go figure :)</p>