<p>Keilexandra, have you looked at Princeton? The more you tell us about what you’re looking for in a college, the more I can picture you there.</p>
<p>Good morning. </p>
<p>Whew. I can’t keep up, so I’ll just throw our news into the mix. </p>
<p>We visited Dickinson yesterday. I kept my eyes open for zoosermom, her goateed H, 10 yo son, and 2010 S, but didn’t spot them. :(</p>
<p>Son really liked Dickinson. He says it’s now tied with Gettysburg for his favorite. <gulp> Pressure is mounting to raise his SATs. </gulp></p>
<p>I haven’t posted a visit report yet, but hope to this morning.</p>
<p>Looking forward to reading the compare/contrasts about Dickinson and Gettysburg. They’re both on my D’s radar.</p>
<p>thanks everyone for the visit reports, they are great to read! And welcome to loveblue!</p>
<p>Yes, welcome loveblue. </p>
<p>DougBetsy - looking forward to hearing your reports on Dickinson and Gettysburg. While neither school is on D’s radar at the moment, they’re both on mine. We’ll be visiting Lafayette and Lehigh later in the week, so whether she adds any other schools to her list will depend partly on what she think of them.</p>
<p>Thanks mathmom.
I will check more on Carnegie Mellon, I always feel it is a strong engineering university, and now I need to check on Art. I will consider the intense of the program also.</p>
<p>Ah, Princeton… I’ve thought about it, yes, with subtle parental pressures. I am a little annoyed at the new grade distribution policies as well as the old tradition of having exams after break, but the deal-breaker is that Princeton does not allow double-majors. I may or may not pursue that, but I must have the option at least.</p>
<p>In other news, I just found out that one of my very favorite LACs (Beloit) is not open to genre in creative writing workshops… it’s also an EA safety. But genre-friendliness is one of my inflexible deal-breaker points, so I don’t know. They do have the BSFFA, Beloit Science Fiction and Fantasy Association, which seems more geared toward gaming and anime.</p>
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<p>You wouldn’t be able to write two senior theses, hence the prohibition on double-majoring. But you can certainly take just about all the courses you like in a second subject. I majored in Biology at Princeton, took a ton of Art History courses, and wound up going to grad school in Art History. My grad school didn’t hold it against me that I didn’t have a major in the subject.</p>
<p>I would encourage you to visit, if for no other reason than to see one of the most beautiful campuses in the country. :)</p>
<p>Keilexandra, I’m glad that your Oberlin visit went well. As I mentioned, I really liked Oberlin, and found the campus culture rather quirky and appealing. D’s taste in schools has definitely evolved in the direction of research universities given that her current favorites seem to be Emory, Brandeis and U. Rochester. She still mentions Knox occasionally, although considering how uncomfortable she was with Kenyon’s location(in the same way that you were turned off by Williams’ location), I can’t imagine her taking well to a rather isolated small town like Galesburg. By the way, since you like Oberlin, have you also looked into Brown and/or Wesleyan?</p>
<p>Welcome to the forum, loveblue. As for your question, some ideas off the top of my head would be the Brown/RISD dual degree program, Oberlin, and perhaps on the somewhat less selective end–Skidmore…? </p>
<p>WhirledPeas2U–Good luck with the New England summer tour. As someone who LOVES Martha’s Vineyard, I can hardly think of a better final destination for it than a week on MV.:)</p>
<p>ETA: I noticed, while skimming the posts during the week that we were on the road, that there was a discussion about good hotels to stay at while visiting Pitt. D and I stayed at the Hampton Inn. The room was comfortable, the staff was courteous and helpful, the hotel provided a complimentary breakfast, and the hotel was located very close to the Pitt campus.</p>
<p>Sorry for the double posting.:o</p>
<p>Welcome Loveblue. Come often. The subjects on this thread are varied, informative, and fast paced. There is a ton of support, as well as great information. We were all lucky to have 2010er’s so we can “meet” here. :)</p>
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<p>keilexandra,
I live a few blocks from the Macalester campus. I can verify there are many lovely green spots on campus where you won’t see any cars. It’s a charming, quiet little oasis. I often ride my bike through campus on my way to and from work, just for the peace and solitude and the college campus vibe. Macalester is in an urban setting, but think low-density urban, as in green, leafy, comfortably middle-class urban neighborhoods, primarily single-family bungalows and Victorians but interspersed with small apartment buildings, essentially on all four sides of campus. There is a major north-south thoroughfare (Snelling Ave.) on the eastern boundary of campus, but campus buildings are strategically situated to shield the inner campus from direct exposure to that street. A lively east-west commercial street (Grand Ave.), full of interesting shops, restaurants, coffee shops, hardware stores, a vintage first-run movie theater, a Whole Foods, another major (slightly upscale) grocer, etc., runs through the northern end of campus, but as it cuts through Macalester it’s all Mac buildings on either side, and drivers usually avoid it in favor of a busier east-west thoroughfare a bit further north because Mac students and other pedestrians have priority. But that street, too, although convenient for shopping and dining, is shielded from the quiet interior of the Mac campus. </p>
<p>By the way, within easy walking distance of Mac you’ll find among other things excellent Indian, Nepali, Middle Eastern, Moroccan, Afghan, Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese, Italian and Mexican restaurants, as well as several excellent pizza places—my favorite, Punch, serves genuine Naples-style pizzas, as authentic as anything you’ll find anywhere in the U.S. Of course, many Mac students never eat off campus because all the campus food is prepared by Bon Appetit, an excellent gourmet catering service.</p>
<p>We visited two very different school last week, Bucknell and JMU (on separate days!) I’m not good at the whole college visit report thing, but I’ll give my general impressions.</p>
<p>Bucknell</p>
<p>There were many families visiting, and we were split into two groups for the information session. The person giving it was not a good speaker, but the tour guide was quite good. I thought the Bucknell campus was one of the nicest I’ve seen. Everything seemed very well-kept. It was the first LAC we’ve seen–DD is interested in engineering, and they have a strong engineering school, maybe 20-25 percent of the students are in. </p>
<p>Being in the middle of nowhere, they bring in big-name speakers; recent ones include F.W.DeClerk (South Africa), a pot debate between a NARAL guy and a DEA agent, and the Myth Buster guys. They try to bring in entertainment three nights a week. Cafeteria looked good. Dorms were OK. Most students live on campus–need permission not to. They plan to build more dorms so that everyone will eventually live on campus. Nice little town next door to campus–we had drived by before on the highway and didn’t see the real part of Lewisburg. Seemed to have an emphasis on community emphasis.</p>
<p>I had some preconceived notions of Bucknell as being snobbishly elitist, but it didn’t seem too bad. Quite a few Uggs among the girls–no idea what that means. Based on the physical appearance of the campus, money is not in short supply. They noted that 98 percent of their financial aid is need based as opposed to merit. </p>
<p>James Madison</p>
<p>There were probably 400-500 people visiting–huge. Bused from parking lot to Festival ballroom for presentation. Broke into a dozen or so tours.</p>
<p>Large campus, and, yes, it is divided by Interstate 81. Noisy if you are close to it. There is a tunnel under and a road that crosses over. There are active train tracks running through campus, too. Lovely mountain views. Some new spiffy buildings, some attractive older ones.</p>
<p>Freshmen are guaranteed housing, but it looks like most upperclassmen live off campus. Dorms were typical cinderblock. Campus is nice, but spread out. Plenty of hills. Good school spirit. Mostly undergraduate, about 17 thousand. The campus seemed much bigger than UDel, though, which is about 16 thousand.</p>
<p>Dad’o’2 - thanks for those visit reports. Bucknell is one of those names that keeps popping up as a possibility for D. Will have to look at it a little more closely.</p>
<p>bclintonk - you made me want to attend Macalester! My D isn’t interested in going that far from home, but it sounds lovely.</p>
<p>Booklady - Aha, an alum in hiding. 
The issue is that my parents want me to have a “practical” second major aside from English; and I am determined to have an officially recognized degree in English or Linguistics or some other useless interest. Some of the schools I’m looking at (e.g. Scripps) also have a senior thesis requirement and people do write two theses. It’s doable; so I’m not exactly enamoured to Princeton to taking the choice away from me.</p>
<p>But really, I don’t want exams hovering over my head during break or a restriction (new, so not from your time) of 35% getting As. And I don’t need more reaches or applications, especially since I would prefer not to have financial pressures to choose P over a better-fitting LAC (like Oberlin or Mac).</p>
<p>momonthehill - I’ve visited both Brown and Wes, though both when students were not around. Neither really struck my interest, Brown for unfavorable comparison to my favorite LACs and Wesleyan I just didn’t jibe with.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info on Mac, bclintonk! Oasis is exactly what I’m seeking in an urban campus.</p>
<p>Yeah, you should do PR for Macalester. Sounds nice.</p>
<p>K: well ok, I’ll accept those reasons. (But you should visit the campus anyway, at some point.) </p>
<p>As for practical vs. useless, you never know what sort of degree is really going to turn out to be practical once you’re out in the world. D got an internship for this summer partly based on the fact that she’s a ‘useless’ Classics major, and I got my first job after grad school because of my Art History degree. Granted, none of these were in high-paying fields, but at least they were jobs of some sort!</p>
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<p>Wise kid. The hazard of applying is that you might actually get in!</p>
<p>bclintonk: That is a wonderful description of Mac. I am going to try and get D out there for a visit.</p>
<p>i think macalester is about to see a surge in applications-- from the parents on this board.</p>