<p>Just back from an 1100-mile weekend trip to look at Evansville and Wittenberg.</p>
<p>On Saturday, attended an open house day at Evansville. First impression: DD two days before had declared that she couldnt understand why ANYONE would pick a school based on the appearance of the campus. We were walking to the reception center for the open house, and she says, This is a beautiful place I could really see myself going to school here!</p>
<p>It is a beautiful campus very compact for a school with nearly 3,000 students. Although all the buildings (except one) date from post-World War II, it does not have the brick-box-institutional feel that some campuses of like provenance have. Someone has spent some serious time designing and landscaping the campus, and it has a very homey feel. Especially moving is the memorial on campus to the 1977 mens basketball team, which perished when their charter flight crashed on the way to an away game.</p>
<p>Im guessing there were 300-400 families there at the open house. All in all, it was a very, very valuable experience. We found out a LOT thats not on the website, or anywhere else that weve seen.</p>
<p>And the best part is, DD loved almost everything. This is a safety school for her, and based on this visit, she says she would be totally fine with going there. Its also the most affordable private school on our list (at least in terms of sticker price), and with just a little bit of aid (which we appear likely to get), it would be someplace we could pay the freight.</p>
<p>The day began with several addresses in the auditorium, by the director of admissions, one of the business professors, and another luminary whose name and position I did not catch. This was a standard whats wonderful about our school spiel and was the least helpful part of the day. They spent a lot of time, here and elsewhere, talking about the advantages of a small liberal arts school; Im guessing they see their main competition as IU and other large state schools. With me, talking about the advantages of LACs is preaching to the choir, and Im moving DD in that direction, although she still wants to look at UIUC and UIC.</p>
<p>The opening session was followed by a period in which each academic department (and each athletic coach) had a table, and students and parents could visit and get brief overviews of the programs of interest. My D was able to get several specific, important-to-her questions answered.</p>
<p>Next came two 45-minute periods for breakout sessions, at which more in-depth information was given about each program. They suggested that if a kid was interested in more than two programs that the family split up, which we did. DD decided she wanted to go to the sessions on education and languages, and she assigned DW and me to the sessions on neuroscience and biology/pre-med. I was very impressed with the professors and the programs at both of my sessions; the bio/pre-med one included a tour of the labs, which seemed very complete (although admittedly, I really have no basis for comparison). DD came back from her two sessions gushing about the education program she especially liked that ed majors start working with kids in classrooms as freshmen and about how cool the Russian program seems and how enthusiastic all the language department professors are about their subjects.</p>
<p>After lunch, the obligatory campus tour our guide was enthusiastic about UE but otherwise mediocre and then they split up the students and parents. The students were to a student-to-student panel, and the parents to a session on the admissions process and financial aid.</p>
<p>DD said she was impressed by the current students on the panel but unimpressed by some of the stupid questions that prospective students asked. She said she was sitting next to one kid who kept complaining (to her and nearby neighbors) that nobody had talked about parties. Since its a dry, Methodist, almost-Southern school, Im guessing that theres not a huge party scene, which suits DD (and me!) just fine.</p>
<p>The parent session was extremely useful. Some of it (the basics of FA) was not news to anyone whos been through it before or whos been on CC for any length of time, but then they got into the specifics, both about what theyre looking for in prospective applicants and how they make decisions on merit awards. Especially valuable was the Q-and-A session; there were a number of questions that I would not have thought to ask but that nonetheless elicited useful information.</p>
<p>The final event was an ice cream social. At the end, after most families had left, DW and I were sitting in a couple of comfortable chairs waiting for DD, who was off socializing with a new friend she had made, when one of the admissions reps came up, asked us how we had enjoyed the session, and sat down with us. We spent 20 minutes talking to him (DD joined us half way through), getting a number of very specific questions answered, and having a real in-depth conversation that cemented our familys overall very favorable impression of the University of Evansville.</p>
<p>On Monday, we visited Wittenberg not an open house, but a standard college visit, with a tour and an interview. I wont go into the details of the school, because I cant add much to mspearls excellent post of last week (<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/12920753-post6490.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/12920753-post6490.html</a>). Unfortunately, it looks like its going to come off our preferred list, because of one major downer; not something that is of general interest and not something Im comfortable posting publicly, but if youre really interested, PM me. I say unfortunately because D1 graduated there a number of years ago and had a wonderful experience, and I was hoping D2 would like it; but some things are not meant to be, I guess.</p>
<p>So this coming weekend, after heading east last weekend, were headed west, to check out Truman State and St. Louis University.</p>