<p>We attended an accepted student day this past Monday…the picture in my mind of the cartwheeler is hysterical…</p>
<p>The only thing that really turned me off, mostly by those who were admitted (not those already attending), was that a number of the guys felt the need to be wearing their jeans belted below their butts (yea, a pet peeve of mine) and a couple of others felt the need to keep their hoodies on their heads during the presentation (another pet peeve…)…I realized that I must be getting old and to get over it (but it really annoyed me)</p>
<p>My visit to Harvard last spring was our worst college visit. They didn’t take into account that it was during high school spring break and both the info session and the tours were way overcrowded - about 70/tour guide. The tour was also one of the worst - just a few stops outside of buildings saying blah, blah, blah. The admissions office was very cold and impersonal. Needless to say that it didn’t impress me at all so I didn’t bother applying there.</p>
<p>Visited Stonehill College twice. Once on a lovely fall morning around 11 am - noon, and once in on a nice sunny weekday in the spring, when we were there all afternoon (accepted students/honors program session). Have also occasionally driven thru campus when I was in the area, since we live about 45 minutes away. Where are all the students? There were a FEW kids outside playing frisbee each visit, and a FEW in the dining hall. I have no idea where the rest of them were. The campus is very spread out, but the lack of visible students made it feel dead. I don’t know where they all hide. Son liked everything the tour guide said, and I liked the merit $$ they offered him, but even when we toured the dorms there was no one around. Where do they all go? He ended up chosing a college where the kids were out and about and seemed happy to be there.</p>
<p>I hate it when you and 30 of your tour-mates are being shown the dorm, student union , library, whatever and everyone goes single-file through one door of the double doors leading into the building. Yes, I know it’s irrational but it has happened on nearly every tour AND I HATE IT EVERY TIME IT HAPPENS!!</p>
<p>Not on a tour and not a parent’s experience, but still an irrational turnoff:</p>
<p>My D attended a UCLA info session at her school in a conference room. The officious rep chastised my D first with “Don’t use your cell phone!” (she was turning it off), and then “Don’t drink water while I’m talking!” D later told me, “I never, ever want to go to UCLA if that is what the people who work there are like!”</p>
<p>My niece was touring a well-known California campus-by-the-sea… and was rather aghast at seeing frat boys peeing off the balcony… nope, she’s not going, even though she got into the selective honors program with a prestigious scholarship.</p>
<p>When the Dartmouth rep who visited the school on family college night kept handing out his business cards and telling prosperous looking parents about his investment opportunities.</p>
<p>When we were touring Smith College we got panhandled by a disheveled apparently homeless guy whose pants were falling off. It was a little more “local color” than D bargained for.</p>
<p>^ Well, I’m very glad to hear that. Wish I were exagerrating but in fact I’m being pretty understated in the telling of the whole awful scenario. D did not apply to Dartmouth.</p>
<p>mammall, was he a college employee or an alumni rep? Either way its inexcusable, but if he works for the college and has another business on the side he’s pushing, that’s even worse.</p>
<p>You know, I can’t decide which is worse, an employee or an alumni. The employee is shafting the school, no doubt about it, by giving an awful expression. But an alumni would be using doing service for his school as a mask for peddling his investment services. Really skeevy.</p>
<p>I assume that since it was a group session the rep was an employee, but I guess not necessarily.</p>
<p>I believe the fellow was a paid employee because he does not live here in our city - would an alumni travel to give a school pitch? I have to be careful here, though. D’s boyfriend was accepted ED at Dartmouth and is attending. And he’s just a great kid. Don’t mean to slight Dartmouth.</p>
<p>Well, there was the small liberal arts college where the tour guide did not say a single sentence without “random” or “totally random” in it and told us all the crazy traditions about students breaking down your door and throwing you in the lake on your birthday and girls stealing your ties and … DS decided he didn’t want to go to college with airheads into public humiliation. </p>
<p>Then there was the highly ranked LAC where all the students looked like grim death and every bulletin board had all sorts of radical liberal (grim) events and not a thing fun or moderate (forget conservative). They needed some diversity alright - ideological diversity!</p>
<p>We did lots of college visits:
Georgetown: Our first college visit! First slide in the presentation was how much it cost. Huh? Tour guide was robotic - she asked “any questions?” in a loud voice every 60 seconds or so. Must have said it over 50 times. Not a good impression.
Duke: Spring break. HUGE group - over 50 I’d say. Couldn’t hear anything. Felt like cattle.
UNC: Too bad cause I liked the tour even though it was too crowded. We stayed overnight (Friday) and the place cleared out (it was Easter weekend). A ghost town - very weird. Not a good impression.
W&L: Very professional tour - great guide. But session was a bit strange. A parent asked about the #1 party rating and was told it was overblown - and that kids were voting multiple times in the survey. yeah…right.
Penn: Great tour guide. But the session was a bit snooty. How great they were and how hard it was to get in. Yeah…we know.
UVA: Very professional tour. Food was bad (dining hall). Session moderator seemed to spend a lot of time talking about how hard it was to get in. Too much, I’d say. Yeah, we know.
Our favorite tour was W&M. Beautiful campus. Funny, engaging tour guide. Informative session. Of course, that’s our opinion…our son crossed it off the list (nothing happening in Williamsburg).</p>
<p>A(rare) sunny spring day in the Pacific North West, we took the tour of a small LAC and wandered by a group of students sitting in a circle on the quad and our tour guide explained it was the “Naked Book Club”, and sure enough, they were in full uniform!</p>
<p>Add any tour where parents caught that sweet sharp smell faintly remembered from concerts in the 70’s. More than one in the North West.
I did without chemical enhancement back then (ok, excluding lots of beer) . I didn’t expect to have to help my children make the same decisions. Somehow we thought the drug culture was a one-time thing… we got past it and so our kids would never have to suffer.</p>
<p>Paying3tuitions - my daughter had the same impression of Wesleyan. She was admitted and we went to visit a few weeks ago. On paper, and chatting with folks, she fully expected to fall in love with it. We arrived and a huge lacrosse game was going on right next to the Admissions office parking lot. We walked around and a baseball game was in progress right in the middle of the main green, near Foss Hill. As we drove out we must have driven by some fraternity houses with big banners advertising a couple of beer companies and lots of bottles and cans on the lawn. My daughter’s comment was “is Wesleyan like a dumb jock school?”</p>