<p>Congrats and sorry Keil. Good luck, maybe there will be more off the waitlist this year. French immersion is a great thing to do before college too. (I did it for a whole year before college.)</p>
<p>I wrote up the college report offline and will paste it in here without benefit of spell checking, so be warned. K- good luck on the TASP waitlist.</p>
<p>Here is a short update. I am working today (for the most part) and then heading to NJ for Wed/Thurs for the wake/funeral. Still trying to figure out where to say, might be back to ask some NJ people their opinions.</p>
<p>both Colgate and Hamilton seemed to be full on NY/NJ students. All the tour guides at both were from both these places, and although I know neither one is really diverse, but I think the tour guide sample got me looking around the campuses and there was very little racial diversity, I think less than I noticed at other ānot diverseā campusesā¦</p>
<p>things I took away from reading the student papers-</p>
<p>Hamilton- they are fully joining the NESCAC athletic conference for all sports but their teams are at the bottom and they pay their coaches much lower than the averages in the league. I will have to check the numbers, but what I remember was Hamilton avg $17K, league avg and Bowdoin level $48k and tops and Williams? level $72kā¦ I will have to check these numbers.</p>
<p>Colgate- there was a sorority put on probation last term, guide wouldnāt say what happened. Also about 40% of the paper was sports coverage, which was fine but I wanted my not-very-sports-interested daughter to be aware of that focus. There was a police log that had very very few entries. Both the tour guide and the desk clerk at the Inn said things do not get wild and there is a good town/gown relationship.</p>
<p>general impressions and from the tours and info sessions- Both our tours had four total people, us and another mother/daughter pair! Very few people on college visits at this point, there were more seniors than juniors and at both they split the seniors out into separate groups.</p>
<p>Hamilton- nothing really stood out and gave us a compelling reason to see this school as different. They have an open curriculum. Their test scores requirements for admissions are very strange and I can provide more info if anyone wants. They will superscore the ACT. They donāt seem to have much structured programming on campus on the weekends, tour guide was asked what he did last weekend and he said he initiated his pledge class and partied, and thatās basically what he does every weekend. There are no greek houses. D did attend a class, a seminar style class on gender identity and she said it was good and most of the students were engaged in the discussions. We were not able to hit a dining hall but the food is supposedly very good. All dorms are mixed years and all but two are coed including bathrooms. Choice of single/triple/quad or suite, we saw a quad which had a separate bedroom and private bathroom. The drivers on campus and in the town area were obnoxious, not yielding etc.</p>
<p>Colgate- we stayed overnight at the Colgate Inn and walked up (the very big hill) to the dining hall for dinner. It was a hot day and there were kids out on the grassy areas and outside the library, lots of people bustling around. It was the day after a big planned party weekend, and there were bags of trash outside the frat houses, but generally decent upkeep. Food in dining hall was good, we were at the end of the dinner hour and some things were out. Tour guide was a junior psych major from NJ. There are supposed to be great research opportunities available on campus (tour guide had not participated) study abroad both for semester and 3 week section tacked onto the end of some courses, (tour guide had not participated āshe had never been away from home beforeā what do you call college?) and intership opportunities through strong alumni network (tour guide had not participated, worked for her mother every summer) Sometimes I wonder about these tour guidesā¦ The info session admissions woman said the president likes to say they āteach better than a university, and research better than a collegeā It is a LAC despite its name, they only confer a handful of Master of Teaching degrees each year. Div I sports, the guide said she has several sorority sisters on the crew team and thinks many people walk on. Freshman are all housed in one area of campus, Soph in another, upper class either live in the greek houses, other houses on the same street, or in some townhouses. Guide said 40% are greek? The paper said there will be about 200 women pledging this year, so I can check the numbers. </p>
<p>Outcome- Hamilton is neutral and Colgate was a like. They will probably both be on the app list as they both have free online apps.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>I do too. Tour guides and info session leaders. Our tour guide at one of our āuber-reachā colleges was quite unimpressive, and the info session leader (a student/alumn) was abyssmal. Made you wonder how in the world they got in, given that this college has an acceptance rate below 10%. Colleges really need to be more careful about who they choose to represent them.</p>
<p>jackie, thanks for being so generous and posting this. Could you elaborate on Hamiltonās test score requirements for admissions when you get a chance? Thanks.</p>
<p>vp, you beat me to it. I was gonna say the very same thing!</p>
<p>Weāve had some abysmal tour guides. Itās not that they were unintelligent, but they seemed to have trouble speaking without Umms and Whatevers. Very annoying.</p>
<p>Dās best friend is just graduating from Hamilton. Will answer questions if you have them.</p>
<p>Weāve liked all our tourguides, but except for Vassar the info sessions have been subpar. Vassar had a very preppy young man, who seemed smart and peppy and a young woman, who was also very peppy. They took turns answering questions and gave a good over view of both what admissions is looking for and what itās like as a student. Nice to get two student views too from two different fields.</p>
<p>Bardās info session had a young woman who had graduated from there and came from less than 20 miles away. It made me wonder why she wasnāt putting her āgreat educationā to more interesting use. </p>
<p>Brandeis had a nice woman who just came off as way way too perky. She made everyone introduce themselves and exclaimed everytime someone was from the area that sheās responsible for reading. (At least half the audience.)</p>
<p>Tufts had a really pretentious preppy guy - graduate of one of the Maine LACs - forget which one. He concentrated a lot on figuring out why you want to go to college - weād rather have heard why Tufts and what are you looking for.</p>
<p>My only problem with tour guides is that everything is awesome!</p>
<p>Among the places we visited the best combination of tour guide and info session was Georgetown. Harvard was a close second.</p>
<p>Keil - forgot to wish you good luck with getting off the TASP waiting list. The French immersion program sounds like a great backup plan, so you canāt go wrong either way.</p>
<p>Jackief - thanks for the info on Colgate and Hamilton. Both schools are on the list created for D by her GC, but Iām not sure whether sheās checked them out at all. I was hoping to take her to visit them and U of Rochester at some point this summer, though that depends on her schedule.</p>
<p>Was financial aid discussed at either schoolās info session? </p>
<p>I canāt say that Iāve had a problem with the info sessions or tours at any of the schools weāve visited. Iāve had some complaints about a few info seesions, but Iāve taken away some useful info from each of them, so they were worth attending.</p>
<p>Exploring College Options:</p>
<p>We got some info from the main presentation. We might have gotten more if weād been able to stay for the break out sessions and/or met with recent alumni (who are invited to attend and are introduced after the main session.) However, our S wasnāt feeling so great, so we departed.</p>
<p>Swine Flu ā¦ NOT!</p>
<p>S was still exhausted Monday so he stayed home from school. Chipper today so off to school. I asked H to pen the re-admit note, glanced at it, then asked for a re-write. Having a note that refers to āflu like symptomsā is asking for some kind of reaction in this environment, and S was just really run down.</p>
<p>News report this AM said a private elementary school in Clarmont is shut for today, as a mother/daughter who travelled to Mexico came back ill (M had the flu like symptoms, D a runny nose.) Health officials said a school closure wasnāt called for and no confirmation of swine flu yet from the M. It was suggested that parents heard and were planning on keeping their kids out, so perhaps this caused the decision to close.</p>
<p>jackief:</p>
<p>How kind of you to think of your cyberspace buddies on CC and send in those reports, even though you are stretched thin and dealing with a death in the family. Take care!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I know! Northeastern? George Washington? What? Everytime I hear someone comment on the liberal schools up in the northeast when talking about schools that are really mainstream, I feel like giving them the website to Hampshire College. </p>
<p>Itās hard to explain to people that the fact that someone who is gay or just different somehow is not an issue at these schools. That quirky kids feel at home does not make the entire campus that way. With the exception of UT and a few of the smaller LACs here in Texas, the colleges tend to be very conservative, at least in appearance if not behavior. Which is absolutely, fine, of course, but very much not what we are looking for. </p>
<p>Another thing that comes up is that people are often surprised that weāre letting him apply to schools in Boston and D.C. I will admit to be a bit over-protective of my kid (he would say a lot!) but having grown up back east in a suburb of NYC, I donāt have any fear of city life. In fact, I think itās important that he learn how to navigate cities, as I did growing up. Iām looking forward to him trading in driving for a metro pass and walking.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That made me laugh. That is exactly what my H would do, then he would be shocked when the school went into lockdown and our kid was in quarantine.</p>
<p>pugmadkate, what about Rice for a girl who likes Berkeley, Carleton, maybe Mt. Holyoke and maybe Reed. Too conservative?</p>
<p>If my son were interested in going to college here in the Lone Star state, heād be applying to UT-Austin and visiting Rice to take a serious look. </p>
<p>Having said that, Rice is much closer to center left than far left simply by geography. Compared to Southern California, where we lived before moving here, Texas can be a shock. However, Houston is a fun city and Rice is known as a college with liberal students and professors. </p>
<p>From what I understand, the conservative minority is bigger at Rice than you might expect but they are still a minority. If your budget allows, I would encourage your daughter to visit. Before that she can email some student organizations that appeal to her for the inside scoop. </p>
<p>Hope that helped.</p>
<p>That helps a lot! Thanks. I like the emailing idea, too.</p>
<p>My nephew campaigned for Obama and is very happy at Rice.</p>
<p>test choices at Hamilton- some details are probably found on their website, but the gist of it is that you need to submit one quantitative test score, one writing test score, and one other. A and B can be sections of the SAT, but not of the ACT. So for example you can submit for A, a chem SAT II score, for B the SAT writing subscore, and for C the APUSH score. IB scores are also an option. I didnāt ask if they wanted official AP score reports but I would assume they would. So although a section of the SAT can be picked out for one of these areas, a section of the ACT cannot. If they use part of the ACT they will use it for the whole test submission but they will superscore. You can either tell them what you want them to consider for A, B, C, however sometimes kids donāt pick what is most advantageous, and they are bound to using what the kids specify. Recommend you tell them to figure out what is the best mix and they will take that.</p>
<p>Also they require a standard essay and also a graded expository writing sample including comments as well as grade.</p>
<p>LIMOM- yes they talked about FA but I donāt remember many details as I am running out of steam by now and as it doesnāt apply to us. I believe they both said they donāt gap. Colgate did talk about loans in an example in the info session.</p>