How was it? Really curious to hear your impressions.
We aren’t going to get the full admitted student fandango – hitting Union on Friday for a class visit and informal campus tour (which at that point might honestly be all we have energy for).
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I would love to know as well! We are so sad to have missed it.
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I work for a LAC that offers a 3:2 engineering option. It’s actually a point of contention within the faculty because students really can’t have the full liberal arts experience if they pursue it, unless they enter with the right college credits in math/science. Otherwise, they need to know on day 1 they’re doing it to get the right course placements. I feel bad for students if they never told anyone they were interested, thinking they can opt in as a second semester sophomore. By then, it’s too late if they haven’t taken the right math and science sequence. On the other hand, if they know that’s what they want to do and communicate it to an advisor, they can be placed in the right classes with at least one to two other courses outside the program. They can always leave the program and major in something else without a problem. It is a commitment. That’s for sure.
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Honestly, I’ve got to own here that my conception of college is just not what happens for engineers, and that’s okay. I’m just rapidly adjusting my priors throughout this process. I remember my engineering boyfriend took philosophy w/ me freshman year, so our college experience did allow for more early exploration…but I’m sure he was also taking a heavy math/science load from the outset.*
*Actually, just checked the FAQs and it sounds like my memory of Princeton being more flexible/academically integrated is accurate.
Example:
"Q: I’m an A.B. student but I might be interested in engineering. How do I keep my options open?
A: Take Physics 103-104 or 105-106 and Math 103 or higher (depending on your preparation) in your first year. The other two courses can advance you toward the A.B. degree, so maybe a language course and a humanities or writing course. If you really want to take the full B.S.E. program, you could also take chemistry, but we can usually work that in later unless you want to do CBE. If you’re interested in Computer Science, take COS 126 sometime in your first year."
Too bad it’s become so inaccessible. S25 didn’t even bother to apply.
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I posted on the 2025 page but I thought it was good but I think C25 would have preferred the visit a class method you are doing. Breakfast was great. Mock class was ok but C25 just thought it was fake (cause it was). Several student panels were very good and I really felt it was a great sense of community. BUT the pre health presentation fell flat for us. I was hoping it was just me but after 45 minutes of listening, C25 said “she didn’t mention vet at all, so want to ask her”. On the way up, we asked the 2 pre med students if they had any pre vet friends and they both said no, that they didn’t know anyone but knew it was possible. And when C25 asked the advisor, the answer wasn’t great and somehow turned it around to hospice care which was her specialty. C25 didn’t feel like the pre health advisor was for her and combine that with the distance from home and the added cost, Union has dropped a bit.
That said, I think everything else (except the weather) was wonderful.
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To add to the story. C25 loved Union so much last year but recalled that a lot of it was the tour guide. They actually documented about 20 quotes from the tour last year….mostly humorous things to remember. I don’t think they could have done anything to live up to that tour unless he also gave this one.
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Union does send graduates on to Veterinary School. A search of their website revealed multiple examples. Here’s an article about the work that one alumna is doing as a veterinarian, published in December’s Union College magazine:
I’m sorry that the pre-health presentation fell flat, but none of the things that you and your daughter liked about Union before have changed. It’s still strong in the sciences and it’s still an excellent SLAC which will offer a personalized approach to learning. I encourage you to follow up your visit with a phone call to the pre-health advisor and have a frank conversation about your hopes and disappointments. See what she says.
My guess is that pre-vet majors are rare at any small liberal arts college and that unless you select a school that offers a major in animal science or has a Veterinary School on campus, you’re not going to find many pre-vet majors anywhere.
One of the advantages of studying at Union in this case is its trimester system, which provides greater flexibility for internships since each term is only one third of the year rather than a half. Having shadowing or internship experience is important in this field. It’s not uncommon for aspirants to change their mind after they have hands on experience - especially because of a veterinarian’s responsibility for euthanizing animals. What college would be the best fit for her if she changed her mind about her career plans? Students change their minds all the time.
I wish you well with your decision. Just wanted to share some random thoughts in reaction to your experience. 
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Update #2: Case Western Reserve.
Background: this is a reach for S25, and he was deferred during EA cycle. We had shown zero interest prior to this visit and his grades aren’t quite up to par so this was both last ditch effort to signal interest AND effort to generate interest (he had no preconceived notions about the school, really.)
Readers, we LOVED IT. And it was something like 10 degrees F when we started our tour this morning. Need to rest up for tomorrow but quick notes:
– Campus vibes actually reminded both me and S25 of Oberlin – expansive, integrated with surrounding neighborhood, architecturally diverse, vibrant.
– THIS school seems to have figured out how to integrate engineering and humanities – the kids we met who were studying engineering all seemed to be minoring in some humanity or other, and we also heard multiple stories about kids who started in science and migrated to art history (or actually vice versa – someone started in art history, joined the baja race team, switched to mechE.)
– They talked a lot about their “open door” admissions policy, which seems relevant – students are admitted to the university, not to any particular school or program – and all schools and programs are consequently open to all undergrads.
– The admissions presentation was one of the most engaging I’ve seen, skillfully weaving profiles of alumni to tell the story of the school. One got a sense of almost unlimited potential. The tour was COLD and fairly standard but as I mentioned, campus is interesting. S25 liked the dorms (probably especially the fridge/freezer in each room!) Apparently 80-90% of students live on campus.
–Campus is surrounded by museums, a botanical garden, the Cleveland Institute for Music. Students get weekly free admissions to any of the museums. The symphony hall is actually in the middle of campus. They make it so EASY to access cultural amenities.
–We had great Middle Eastern food at Sittoo’s (try the cauliflower!) and the breakfast at the Glidden House Hotel was delightful – not just the standard continental fare, but eggs, kielbasa, home fries, Belgian waffles tucked into wax paper sleeves, really fresh and yummy assorted scones, real bagels, greek yogurt, etc. (amazing tea, too) We were also able to leave our car in their lot until 4 PM, which simplified things.
–I strongly recommend the engineering tour if one’s kid is remotely interested. It’s not very long, and it ends with a tour of the Sears Maker Space, seven stories tall. Our tour guide talked a lot about how much she appreciated the collaborative nature of students at Case. The clubs and organizations are open to anyone (which is definitely not the case at a lot of reachier schools). She said she’d be hanging out working on a problem on the whiteboard and a random 3rd year would come up and offer to help. She talked about the public service she does, and the anthropology courses she takes, etc. We were smitten – all three of us, I think.
On our way back from the tour, S25 actually chatted with a girl (!) who was excited about studying aerospace engineering and minoring in CS. The whole thing felt super positive.
Pitt is off the list at this point (although they did email us and offer to reimburse up to $1000 of travel costs, which feels amazingly generous. I don’t think we have the chutzpah to take them up on the offer, however – especially given how hosed they are likely to be if the federal research funding cuts materialize.)
We set off for Rochester this afternoon under a “lake effect blizzard warning” but (knock on wood) the snow didn’t show. Checked into our hotel in the East End neighborhood (Inn At Broadway, kind of underpopulated but very comfortable); ate really underwhelming ramen at the boba tea place across the street (don’t go there), and lucked into a free jazz concert at Eastman just by wandering into a building (do go there!)
Tomorrow we see U of Rochester, attempt to go to the original(?) Wegmans, and drive to Troy, lord willing and the lake don’t blizz.
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Take them up.
We did an online session and they gave us a free to apply code - Hail2Pitt - not sure if the same.
They are budgeted for it and include breakage (kids not attending) - you won’t be hurting anyone’s feelings.
Crossing fingers for CWRU for you.
So glad to hear the visit went really well!!! That’s exciting, especially since a good experience like that can be tough to come by, but can make taking the time to go very worthwhile.
Hope you have some more good stops in the coming days. Good luck, bundle up, and safe travels!!
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Re: CWRU, it might not hurt to have your son send a note to his Admissions Officer. If he doesn’t have any questions, it can just be sort of like a thank you for a great event. If he takes the time to highlight all the things that really appealed to him about the program, the students etc - it can both give nice positive feedback and kudos to people who did a job well but also show how clearly interested he is in the program and how impactful the visit was.
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That’s awesome that he had such a great visit. The original Wegmans is in Fairport/East Rochester and it’s got a midcentury look unless they’ve changed it since I was there. Your visit to Rochester is reminding me of going when my kids were little. We took them to the Museum of Play which has a little play Wegmans inside. What a fun museum. My D knows someone from her high school who goes to U of R and looooves it. I don’t know what Rochester is like as an undergrad, but from my non-urbanite perspective, it seems like there are some cool areas, like Neighborhood of the Arts. You should get a garbage plate while you’re in town!
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Case is a great school. Make sure to have your son sign up and watch as many of the live online info sessions as possible to show interest. Their general ed requirements are setup to be very flexible which allows the students to explore interests, take dual major plus minors, plus study abroad, etc. My son really likes Case and got accepted EA - it’s just the cost that is a down side. And, he didn’t dig the first year dorms or the location of the second year dorms, but it seems most colleges have dorm issues.
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So excited to read this update, especially since Case checks so many boxes for S26. We’re heading to one of their open houses in April. Now I’m really looking forward to it!
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I am right there with you on this. My daughter has always excelled at math and science and she likes solving real-world problems, so engineering seems like the next natural step. But as it gets close to decision time, I can’t help thinking about all the classes she won’t be taking as part of an engineering curriculum. Ultimately it’s her path and if she chooses to hop off I won’t be sad.
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Update #3: Rochester, RPI, Pitt redux (this one is LONG.)
TLDR: liked Rochester (though not quite as much as Case); couldn’t quite get a firm read on RPI but it seems fine. Lots more detail/color below.
So, closing the loop on the Pitt offer to reimburse us for our travels – they sent a follow-up email, stating that apparently the original offer was sent by mistake. Oops! one less thing I need to feel guilty about, either way.
On to Rochester. I don’t know that I’d recommend the hotel we stayed in unless one’s goal was to be in proximity to Eastman (in which case it does make sense). There was something vaguely Shining-esque about it. We had an early start the next day, it was snowing big fat fluffy flakes and the roads were a bit dodgy, and the hotel breakfast was meager. Fortunately there was a Tim Horton’s on the way to campus. University of Rochester’s River Campus (which is where the bulk of education seems to happen) is about a 15-minute drive from the downtown area, next to a large historic cemetery, the Genesee River, and a large medical center. Aside from a large mixed use development called (but not actually resembling a) “College Town,” there’s not a lot nearby retail. The campus itself used to be a golf course and wasn’t built until the 1950s – but the architecture is pretty traditional (red brick collegiate echoing Colby and Dartmouth). There are tunnels and skyways connecting some of the buildings but we didn’t explore them on the tour for some reason (even though it was COLD and snowy). This school has a lot of the same things going for it that we liked at Case – culture, city features (albeit a bit removed from campus), a flexible curriculum with unfettered access to just about any major and a lot of opportunities to try different things, medium-sized student body, good engineering AND humanities AND social sciences. We all liked it. The dorm room we saw seemed comparatively spacious, there were tons of great study spaces in the library and student center, and generally it seemed like a solid place to go to school. We didn’t try the cafeteria – instead we headed to the huge Wegmans flagship store and met and old friend for lunch. Wegmans did not disappoint – we had yummy lunch there and left with some of the famous cookies and some fruit for the road.
Our drive to Troy that afternoon was mostly uneventful although there were narrow bands of lake effect snow. Made it to our Troy hotel by dinner time (the Best Western that @OctoberKate recommended), walked to De Fazio’s Pizza, which was supposed to be a local highlight, and hit the hay.
Some quick notes on Troy for those who are curious: it’s a city with good bones that has fallen on hard times but appears to be turning around. One thing that we noticed in both Rochester and Troy was generally icier roads and sidewalks. Our 3/4-mile walk to De Fazio’s was icy and kind of treacherous. Aside from the ice, it didn’t feel particularly unsafe, although as a woman I might not have wanted to do it on my own unless I was more familiar with the area. Our pizza was good but not great and the restaurant only has three tables and seems to do more take-out business (note to those who might be trying to follow in our footsteps – they take reservations. But again…it wasn’t all that special. I think there are good places closer to downtown.) This morning we somehow missed breakfast in the hotel but discovered Little Pecks, which had decent coffee, great pastries, a solid breakfast burrito, and amazing indoor space – plants and fireplaces and exposed brick and cozy places to hang out and work. It felt like quintessential Troy – beauty and innovation emerging through the cracks.
RPI DID separate out juniors and seniors for presentations (which Case and Rochester hadn’t done) and gave us a beanie when we arrived. Yay, SWAG! And yet the seniors presentations were kind of a swing and a miss. They were definitely trying to sell us on the school but there were some pretty awkward moments – e.g. the rather long video with bad sound that showed last year’s incoming class having fun in the sun at pre-orientation wilderness and bonding activities (none of which seemed very connected to the RPI we were visiting today), or the time when the staff member asked all the students to stop and take a selfie with their parents and post it to Insta, #RPI2029. I don’t think any of the kids in the room complied, but he waited a full minute. There was a student panel discussion in the architecturally stunning auditorium, and then we went out into the cold and poked in and out of buildings. We finished with lunch. The dorms seemed fine – better room layout than some that I’ve seen. The cafeteria was standard – definitely nothing to write home about, but not terrible. We didn’t go in the library or the indoor sports facility. We did go into what I’m thinking of as the church of the computer – a former church that now houses the IBM Quantum System One computer (the first of its kind at a university). Students can apparently use it with faculty sponsorship.
RPI takeaways from S25: seemed fine. He’s not ready to write it off. But he wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about it, and neither, I guess, were we. I talked to a student in the lunch line and he shared that he appreciated how cooperative the fellow students were – the work was hard and they helped each other get through it. My sense is that this is a place where students go to learn and get great research opportunities and/or jobs. I keep hearing from my friends in tech and academia that they are impressed with RPI grads. There’s no doubt he’d get a great education and leave with a strong brand on his resume. That said, I didn’t get a strong sense of students connecting hard with the institution, if that makes sense. It felt more like school-as-a-job than school-as-an-identity where everyone is enthusiastic and wants to tell you how great it is. It’s a decent option to have in our back pocket while we wait to hear from places like Case, Rochester, and the UCs. I don’t know if S25 would pick it over WPI. We do need to get him back to WPI for an admitted students event so that he can fairly compare them.
We spent the afternoon trading in our rental car (which was mysteriously stalling and had a check engine light) at the Albany airport and arrived in Schenectady a little while ago. Staying in The Landings Hotel, which is sort of posh but also connected to a huge casino. Tomorrow we visit Union, then drive down to Easton, PA for the final stop on our tour, a Saturday visit of Lafayette.
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Totally agree with your assessment of Little Peck’s, and Troy in general. There are a bunch of similar excellent and interesting small food places (my Mom was in Assisted Living near Troy, so for a year and a half I took her out to lunch there weekly). I am enjoying your report!
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THIS school seems to have figured out how to integrate engineering and humanities – the kids we met who were studying engineering all seemed to be minoring in some humanity or other, and we also heard multiple stories about kids who started in science and migrated to art history (or actually vice versa – someone started in art history, joined the baja race team, switched to mechE.)
Since you are looking at Lafayette on this trip too, I wonder if you’ll find it to be similar. That was my impression when we visited, but we did the general tour, not the Engineering one. They had a lot of examples of engineering majors with humanities and social science minors. And on the humanities side, if my daughter wanted to take courses in engineering she could. I thought she would rule it out for being too STEM focused, but seemed to have an interesting balance. If definitely moved up after the visit. We toured Bucknell on that trip too and the schools felt very separate. But that might partly be related to size or the tour that day. I’ll be curious to hear your thoughts on Lafayette.
As for snow/ice upstate, it’s been an unusually icy year and there are salt shortages.
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No kidding! I just took a massive digger on a sidewalk in downtown Schenectady (around the corner from Jay St.) It was completely iced over, as was the snow on the adjacent ground. Heard about the salt shortage from our friend.
I hope you’re ok!
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