My son would have had the exact same response about the social life there. It’s why we didn’t add Trinity to his list. It would not have been a good fit.
Hoping Conn College knocks it out of the park for you guys. It seems like a great fit. My son really liked it a lot.
Good luck!
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There was a lot he liked about Vassar so I know he is still considering it.
I think UW might be the one for him though, he just can’t see himself anywhere else as much as UW. Honestly, there’s a lot to like about it. We all love the campus, the location, the vibe. The dorm situation for lgbtq kids is really good. I think he would feel really accepted. We are ready to embrace him being a husky. If he changes his mind and picks another school I don’t want it be because of us. I want him to really own this decision.
It’s also cheaper than most of his other options. He said he could see himself living in Seattle too.
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So nice to have them back on your neck of the woods!
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Yes, she ended up at College of Wooster. The college was a great fit, Ohio, not so much. Which was great because she came home with a greater appreciation for the PNW.
I think your son is so lucky to have amazing and diverse choices. Big, middle and small size, midwest, east coast, west coast! If I could ask one question it would be, do they want to have an anonymous college experience where they are known only to the groups of people they seek out and the professors they choose to engage with? Or are they wanting to be known by all? Having professors email if the miss several classes, having classes with almost everyone on campus? Or they still have a choice that would fit between those two options.
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I think that is pretty common? That was my experience with my kids.
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woo-hoo for RIT - I am so excited for my '25 to attend in fall too.
in regard to the other ongoing question:…
How they decided…
Good reputation for their major choice (engineering) but also had a creative vibe at the school - all the photography and illustration and film people.
I honestly think they felt very at home from the first visit and was secretly their first choice all along. That said, took them a second visit to decide.
Their verbal explanation was that the state schools that were in the final running had too small an engineering program for their major and they they didn’t want to “deal” with the short terms at WPI. I think it was TOO engineering focused for them.
RIT also had some unusual clubs and opps that aligned with their HS ECs. WPI had one of these, but not the other. State schools had other had neither.
Some schools were dropped pretty early as they didn’t have engineering (which wasn’t a foregone conclusion as a major back in fall).
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I loved this set-up. A few schools did it for tours as well. Really allows two separate sets of concerns and interests to be addressed.
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You bring up a really good question and it is exactly what I asked him last week- do you want to be a bit anonymous? He said yes, that was part of the allure of the big school. He wanted some anonymity, didn’t want to know everyone- but that was only on the social side. On the academic side he really prefers the small school offerings- both professor access and support/resources.
I think that is the crux of his indecision. He can’t have it all. He realizes there are going to be some compromises, so he’s going to have to figure out what is most important to him
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it took me way too long to realize that for my son, this was a feature, not a bug. He wants to be noticed when/if he chooses to be noticed, but tends to like to glide around in the background of a busy place, observing and unobserved. I think this is part of the appeal of cities…
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With regards to how they decided, both my kids had instant connections a few minutes into their first campus visits. It was obvious even to us as parents. For D24, it was a safety school or she would have likely done ED. For D24
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For some reason I can’t edit. Anyway, for D22 it was a safety school or she would likely have done ED. For D24 it was a reach so we did everything we could to make her like other schools. I think we were successful as she wavered on doing ED as she liked so many but at the end of the day she knew that one school was her favorite and did ED. Thankfully, she got in so decision was made early on.
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Some of my besties are folks I met through livejournal! That’s actually how I met my ex-husband, too.
Same for my C23. That kid, if anything came in that said “At {insert college name} you’re a name, not a number”, it immediately got taken off the list—and I do mean immediately. (It happened mid-watch during an embedded video in an email Occidental sent, I recall quite vividly.)
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This is exactly where we are in the process! Did your son stay with the school where he made the deposit or did he switch to one of the schools where he came off the waitlist?
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He took one of the WL offers, so we lost the deposit.
I suspect he would have been very happy at any of the schools he was considering. We – especially his CC - were really surprised that the WL came through.
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First official admitted student event completed at Princeton–may be of interest to alums here. Overall, highs and lows on the visit. Highs: Magnificent campus, one of the most impressive I’ve ever seen; great faculty, of course. Lows: Very little outreach to parents from the college; also, they were fairly strict that only one parent could accompany a student to the event. I showed up (as second parent) anyway, and they had to call to get authorization to let me in. Um, okay–is it really an imposition to let two parents attend, given the importance of the college decision? Also a low point: only one hour of time scheduled for my son to meet other admitted students (and no overnight stay at a dorm). He feels that he didn’t get enough information about the vibe and fit of the college. So, it appears he’s scratched the school off his list. Now, he’s at the MIT admitted students event (without parents) for the next two days and apparently having the time of his life. At MIT, the students have hundreds of events they can attend and plenty of time to meet with current and admitted students–a much more helpful process. I’m hoping for a phone call from him but am not holding my breath.
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I don’t think schools typically offer an overnight stay in the dorm, some don’t even allow you to tour the dorms at all and just offer online tours because of student privacy.
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no school we’ve done admitted tours have overnights. They don’t have space to house the students let alone the admittees
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This is our first admitted student event, so I’m no expert. But, S25 is in a dorm now at MIT, and will be staying in a dorm later this month at Stanford, Harvard (I think), and Yale, if he goes to that one. Maybe these schools are anomalies given that their entering classes are very small.
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I have never heard of overnights other than maybe sports recruits, but it sounded like their original comment thought that was unusual and disappointing.