Why isn’t Harlan here???
Wonder where his son is going - did he say?
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I don’t recall, he was buying a fan for him and mentioned he’s going off to college on the fall.
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Earlier int he season he posted a video showing his son finishing applications at like 11:58 PM on the deadline, so even Harlan isn’t safe from kids pushing deadlines!
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How do we know if he isn’t ? 
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Stole one hour of my life? You are referring to me reading
The last 200 comments regarding the poor 500k/year people complaining…… who am I kidding, I loved it
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Hope that your visit is clarifying.
Spoken as someone who loves Philly, you get that it’s funny for a Philly resident to take too seriously another city’s (unfounded) bad reputation, right? 
I found Cleveland - and particularly the parts of Cleveland near CWRU, and the parts near the Lake/downtown (which is quite close to CWRU) to be fun and appealing.
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We enjoyed Bear Day on Saturday despite the disruption - this was a particularly sensitive matter for our family and to the administration’s credit, I felt they pivoted well and their formal response was both timely and appropriate. We were impressed by students we met and the families were incredibly friendly.
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I know. A lot of people have concerns about Philly and going to Temple 
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Heading to Temple for admitted student day, or open house or whatever it’s called, this Saturday. He’s admitted to the BArch program.
I’ve heard people beat the safety drum. But I’m more worried about financial aid. We still don’t have a package.
Congrats to your son! FEFSA is causing a lot of frustrations for everyone involved. Hope it will soon resolved.
OK, long story short (there are many “fun” substories), we pulled off the crazy St Louis-Poughkeepsie weekend, with the worst travel moment just being a delayed takeoff on the last leg home out of LGA. The rental car part actually went really well on both ends (EWR and LGA), although smart-aleck S24 started pointing out we could have just driven the rental car home faster than driving to LGA and flying. But we got where we needed to be for visits, and got home with no school missed, so I will score that a win for travel planning.
In terms of the visits, I wrote this up at length in the Visits thread, but I think for my S24, WUSTL won the weekend. It just keeps nailing exactly what he is looking for.
I made exactly that point several times! Bears are so generic, although in the end a brewer does not have much of a chance against a bear . . . .
Edit: Although come to think of it, the WashU Bear mascot, with whom D30 got a picture, sorta looks like they may know a brewer or three themselves:
The old one even more so, including an inexplicable sailor’s cap–this bear had a hard Saturday night:
Same all around. I could tell they were a little rattled, and obviously you want an important event like this to go smoothly if possible, but I think they handled it all quite well. And as indicated in my writeup in the Visit thread, it did not in any way stop my S24 from having a very favorable visit. So I think they should feel really good about that.
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I think for some students, seeing a protest (of whatever sort) would have actually ADDED to their interest in the school and the student body by indicating a student body that was passionate and engaged with larger political/social questions … I know, however that from WUSTL’s perspective, any protest, from any perspective, alienates some members of their prospective student audience.
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Read your other post. Sounds like the visits did exactly what they should.
+1 to WUSTL
-1 to Vassar
WUSTL is like Disneyland - with its paths, etc. to the residential side.
I could see it being visually appealing to anyone.
If you’re lucky (assuming WUSTL is at good cost), he’ll come away from Carleton with a heck yeah (of course now you have a problem with multiple I like) or - it’s too small.
And then you have a winner - well if it’s just those three left. I know there was St. Andrews and forget if there’s another.
The I don’t like are just as helpful or when you have too many, more helpful, than - I love it!!
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I always thought Vassar was an outlier for your son so no surprise it didn’t rise to the top - but good you went and had a look! That way there were no what ifs. Vassar does not seem able to put on a good admitted students day - it’s come up here before - but I’m sorry he didn’t get a chance to meet other kids - lunch and getting to meet other prospective students was the highlight of my D’s admitted student day in 2022. Good luck at Carleton and getting a decision so you can move onto the next phase!
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Yes, and in fact there were some activists on the same issue at Vassar set up outside the dining hall.
The big difference is the WUSTL protesters intentionally disrupted the Admitted Students event, and apparently that is going to result in some sort of disciplinary action for the students involved. But intentionally disruptive college activism is not new, it was big at my own college back in the day in fact, and I felt like most of the families were not particularly disturbed.
A few families, though, were visibly upset, and that is understandable–without getting into the details, the protesters were trying to be shocking. And I can see why that made the admins nervous, but I suspect most of those families understand this is going to be a thing, it is how it gets handled that matters.
Exactly! We need to get this down to just one, and we went (I believe) from 3 to 2. Solid result.
Yeah, between us–there is a reason after visits some schools rose and some schools fell for my S24. But I think the basic issue is just that some of his peers are thinking about colleges differently, and even though he sorta opted out of their way of thinking to do his own thing, he keeps having doubts about whether he should really be doing that. And I think this experience was therefore an important affirmation about who he is and what he wants, which doesn’t have to be what other kids want!
This gets down in the weeds a bit, but my S24 is not necessarily going to take a lot of initiative to meet kids in a setting like this, so some structure designed to make that happen makes sense for him and kids like him. That said, it all sort of started when we sat at a table and one kid just introduced himself to S24, and they apparently built up a group for the day from there. Same thing with us, actually, we just started chatting to some other parents and I think they might have initiated.
So as usual, so much of this might just be random. Or is it the Midwest nice thing? I don’t know, hard to say, but it might have less to do with the actual programming than just who ends up near you at critical moments.
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Agree that Vassar campus feels incohesive…that’s what I remember from our visit–amazing library and also we were totally lost when we had to leave the tour early and find our own way back to the starting point. And I’ve been a little dismayed at college visits this year at how little chance there’s been to interact with other students. I guess overnight visits mostly disappeared with covid, which is too bad–S19 had some really great overnight visits; shadowing an actual student for an evening and seeing what life outside of class is like is so helpful. S24 will be hosted by another student for 2 nights at Amherst this week, though, since he’s traveling by himself. I just have to keep reminding him not to judge the whole school by one person if he gets a dud (or, you know, just someone he doesn’t mesh well with).
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They claimed this is all designed to make sure the community is reflecting and interacting as they meander from place to place. I kinda see that, but it probably works a little better over longer periods.
Yeah, overnights will not be part of S24’s process, including because he had so many constraints on the time he could make available for visits. But as you say, though, it seems like less of a thing anyway.
Although I think at Carleton at least he will be able to sit in on a class! That will also be a first (and I guess last) for him.
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Were/are there no opportunities to sit in a class at WashU?
Oh, so very much this! And there’s so much serendipity in it.
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I love this, and the last bit is not surprising. The groupthink can be hard to shake.
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