@homerdog Thanks for such a detailed post. I don’t think we’ll make it out to Chicago so reading about school visits in your area from a first person perspective is always interesting. It looks like your S is forming an idea of his preferences, which is one of the objectives for the visits for our kids, esp. my S who is so malleable that his favorite school is the last one he stayed at or visited…I don’t see him applying to many because his needs are not many. His sister, on the other hand, will probably apply to too many.
Actually @homerdog sounds like most of the college tours that I’ve been on. All of the guides and panel members try and “sell” the school . They all go over admissions process including how to choose an essay topic, recommendations and applications. Not everyone reads Fiske or USNWR . Also, I have never been offered breakfast at a tour , but have been offered a meal ticket for lunch when attending a open house type of event . It’s great that your son was able to identify both positive and negatives of the school . And yes, tours can be quite exhausting at times .
@carolinamom2boys good to know that I should bring my own coffee! And I guess I expect them to sell their schools. But a little humility might be nice.
@ThinkOn I think S19 is a bit like your S too. He really focused on the things he liked about the school. I had to press him for negative things. I hope that means he could be happy at lots of places. Right now, I’m guessing the one thing he really prefers is the intellectual-type feel and discussion type classes. I bet we could find that at most schools in one way or another.
@homerdog You’re probably not going to find humility at superselective schools. That’s one of the ways they become superselective by tooting their own horns and making everyone believe that they can offer things no other school can.
@carolinamom2boys Totally. My husband laughed out loud when I told him there was no coffee. He said to wait until we get to a less selective school and there will be coffee AND donuts.
@carolinamom2boys we also got a 3 in AP World. I called this the “warm up” AP test for S19. Try to avoid the forum for AP world , as it seems the kids who post there are the 4’s and 5’s
If we go to one that offers donuts/cookies/cupcakes, I guarantee it will be my d19’s favorite. The way to her heart is definitely through her stomach.
It makes me jealous because she’s tall and thin and can eat whatever she wants. Obviously, it’s partly because she is young but even when I was her age I couldn’t eat everything I wanted without it showing.
@sdl0625 My son isn’t on CC. He’s very happy with his score which will get him 3 credits of college credit at all of the schools that he is looking at, just as a 4 or 5 would. Interesting , according to the score distribution only 8% of testers received a 5 and 20% received a 4. https://www.totalregistration.net/AP-Exam-Registration-Service/2017-AP-Exam-Score-Distributions.php
Both mine aren’t on CC either, though they both are aware of it and know I read and post here.
Mine didn’t take AP World, but I can just imagine the sheer amount of info required for that test. D took AP Euro and despite her dire predictions, managed a 5. S took APUSH (and based on sheer luck I think given that his sister informed him about a week before the test that it was redesigned about a year ago and he was like “no, really?”) and somehow squeezed out a 5 as well. They know that getting these scores doesn’t mean you’re better than anyone, or smarter for that matter…only that they had a bit of luck on their side given the essay questions must have been up their alley because how on earth can these kids cover so much info for these AP tests?
DS19 has a very good attitude about it. My DS16 only received 1 score out of his 8AP exams that wasn’t a 5. I am very lucky because my boys have a wonderful relationship and both boys are very supportive of one another. Not competitive at all, and for that I am truly grateful .
DS19 isn’t on CC. He knows I am though. He got a 5 on both AP Statistics and World. My kids aren’t competitive but DS19 was happy that he did something his brothers hadn’t done already. (They got 4’s when they took them)
@carolinamom2boys and @sdl0625 S19 is a member of the AP World 3 club too 
The silver lining is it will bump up his grade in the class by .5
It’s a full point increase for a 4 and an A for a 5 but we will gladly take the .5.
It will count at some schools and not at others, and is about the result I expected with the level of effort.
@homerdog never count on coffee. Always being your own as even if they do have it (less than you’d think) it might be awful! And if it isn’t, consider that a bonus prize.
Wake Forest had coffee and pastries, in front of a real fire. It was like checking into a ski lodge!
We are heading to St Augustine for vacation next weekend. Plan to tour Flagler College ( mainly because of the architecture. It’s an old hotel with Tiffany windows) They’re a small , private college with slightly less than 2000 students . They’re COA is about equal to instate tuition , so we thought that we’d take a peek. Does anyone have any knowledge of this school?
FWIW, Colgate gives out locally made chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches at the end of their tours, so there are at least some hyperselectives that make such moves.
And @carolinamom2boys, when we lived in Florida we’d go to St Augustine a few times, and toured Flagler once. I figure, any college that can charge the public for its tours, that’s an amazing campus! (I’ve long been curious whether prospective students have to pay—I’ve assumed not, but will be interested in knowing for sure.) Their endowment worries me slightly (<$100M), but the couple of transfer students from there I had in my classes at the huge public I worked at (a LAC isn’t for everyone, after all) were solid enough, as I recall.
@dfbdfb From what I understand there are actually 2 different tours, one for potential students and one for the public that mainly focuses on the old hotel. I’ll let you know .
@carolinamom2boys We live in FL but I have only been to St. Augustine once for a night. The town is cute and the people seemed to be very nice. We drove by the college but never walked around there so I don’t know much about it - looked pretty though. I know they have a big deaf community up there - we met a sign language teacher from the college and one of her friends at a bar and they were telling us all about it. They also have a great amphitheater right on the water that gets some good concerts - no huge bands but we went up to see Shovels & Rope play with Jason Isbell and I know Avett Brothers are coming this year.
A side note - if you are at all into Wes Anderson movies you have to go to Cousteau’s Waffle & Milkshake bar. Besides having amazing milkshakes (didn’t try the waffles) the entire place is filled with pictures and references to the movie The Life Aquatic. We didn’t know this when we went in but my husband picked it up right away and it cracked him up!
@Gatormama and @mommdc -
Funny you should mention my son going to Fredonia. He and I just got back from orientation yesterday. It is FAR - took us 15 hours each way by public transit, but he loves it and as @eandesmom says, he found his “tribe” there. Every time i got a glimpse of him, he was smiling, happy and chatting with other kids. He actually came over to me on a break and HUGGED me and said, thank you for letting me come to this school
I am not sure about envi sci. Techson17 is getting credit for APES and will be taking an astronomy based class for his other science gen ed. We met a lot of kids going into the bio and/or chem programs and I had not realized that the school has put a lot of resources into science - there is a new building which parents who toured it told me was nice. I didn’t bother with that tour.
I also don’t know anything about the sports there but I did hear some moms say their kids are on teams. Techson17 has zero interest in sports and, in fact, a big sports atmosphere was one of his college turnoffs.
Good luck in your search.
@techmom99 my d19 would prefer to avoid big sports schools too but it’s going to be a bit harder to do with a chemical engineer major at a school we can afford.
I’m surprised it took that long each way. We took the train from Rochester to NYC once at its was closer to 7 hours, IIRC. A couple of summers ago we drove from NJ (cruise port) to Buffalo and IIRC it took about 8 hours. You must have taken a bus with lots of stops? That must have been exhausting.