My kid crossed a school off of our list because our otherwise lovely tour guides didn’t make eye contact with or otherwise acknowledge any of the groundskeepers, custodians, or kitchen staff who crossed our path during the tour. (These staff members stepped aside and looked at the ground while we walked by.)
She nixed another school because she noticed that as we walked through the campus, other students would greet only one of our two tour guides but neither greet nor return the greeting of the other one. I didn’t even notice, frankly. I had the impression it was the warmest and friendliest school of all the ones we visited, but I guess I was focused on how people (especially adults) interacted with us, not how we saw students treat each other.
Oh, @CaliMex your child is observant, and very caring too, to be so tuned in to how others are being treated on such a bit nerve-wracking situation as a tour & interview day!
I forbade my child from applying to a “perfect fit” school because at the orientation/welcome activities many students had dressed in a way that to me was intentionally “gangster” style. I’ve spent many years serving families in a very low income community where there are significant gang problems. It really offended me to see mostly white kids (& what I would assume were many wealthy kids) dressed up how they thought gangsters would dress.
My son was so upset that I wouldn’t let him apply. He accused me of misinterpreting their dress. Right in front of him I googled one very specific thing I saw 3 kids had done with an item of clothing. Bam! Countless search results: “gang dress,” “signs your child could be in a gang,” “gang signifiers,” LAPD alerts, gang task forces. That specific thing was a much lesser known gang signifier not popular at all in the school’s region (but a bit known on the opposite coast); it was also a really odd way of dress no one could do accidentally. It verified to me the students had googled how to dress like a gangster & did it on purpose.
The bigger problem was I saw this on an official video on the school’s website (actually on the site’s front page)!!! It’d been edited, background music added, then posted there & on at least 2 social media sites. Also, the kids were most definitely not in costumes for a theater or dance production (it was their choice to dress this way for a school event). Because the video was professionally edited & posted on the school’s site, there were lots of adults involved who worked on that video, who could have at any time been like, hold up, this doesn’t look good. To me, the fact the school posted it showed really bad judgement. I don’t want my kid being cared for by poor judgement, lack of common sense adults. And I’m also not keen on him living at a school where students make fun of people in less fortunate circumstances.
When my DS and I went to visit his presumed first choice,he got in the car post-visit and said it was off his list. The reason? It didn’t have a defined entrance like gates or a large name sign sort of proclaiming you were “on campus.”
It is funny, because that is the exact reason I chose UCSB over UCLA, admittedly a better school. UCSB has a VERY defined campus, more so than UCLA.
Annoying, unexpected meeting with choral director who gave us a CD of the school’s award winning choir. Kid was a musician but an atheist and not a singer. Know your audience folks! Silly in that she could just have ignored it and gone to the school for other reasons but seemed to feel that if she went there she’d be chased around by the choral director for 4 years.
A local day school, but still fits the theme- son almost turned down his eventual choice because the name sounded too much like our family’s private baby word for passing gas.
@SFTreat he went into the dining hall (even if it was closed) of every school we visited and checked the milk machine.
Funny, because we just finished a college visit and he gave it a thumbs up for the same reason. He quickly proceeded to down two large glasses! ?
Opposite: We almost DID apply to a school that we really disliked after a class observation & tour, because as we drove off, two cows and a dog turned and smiled at us.
School X was “known” for being very artsy, but the art was just awful–mostly 3D animals and really bad art everywhere.
We also didn’t like that every poster and thing hanging up was a call to action/SJW type. Nothing about what was going on, just demonstrations to attend.
We visited one school that I loved. Unfortunately, my kid said the buildings looked like a “summer camp”. It was outside of the northeast, so I think there may have been a disconnect.
Forgive me if I posted this earlier, Kiddo got really turned off by the size of PEA - too much “like Harvard” (funny) and didn’t like the dorm’s shower set up - looked “like a bathroom in a submarine”. Also girl tour guide mentioned all the sex that went on. Funny impression. Also saw a triple at Loomis that (at the time) was a huge turn-off… maybe now has changed.
I’m pretty sure we faced the Happy Birthday ‘game’ with our TG at one of the schools we visited few years back (cannot recall which one though…getting old :)). After about the 2nd or 3rd wish, we asked him if it was really his birthday and he sheepishly admitted it wasn’t and it was something of a joke. Didn’t think much of it and we went on with the day. Guess it won’t be happening on Zoom school tours now!!
One reason our kiddo didn’t apply to and/or attend a couple of schools was due to their dress code…fast forward one year and the school implemented a dress code.