@eclpts You saw the mammoth in the museum!
@doschicos @oldparent I get to Troy a couple of times a year to visit family. It is still a pit. I will admit there are some good restaurants to eat at, but still a pit.
@ Midwestmomofboys I know this is suppose to be about college we didnât like⊠but I have wonderful memories of drinking beer and eating 5 cent pretzels with friends on the terrace of Memorial Union overlooking Lake Mendota. I went waterskiing on Lake Mendota almost lost my bikini bottom. I first met my H in the Rathskeller at the Union one winter Friday night and had our first date months later on the terrace! Indigo Girls had a concert one summer night on the terrace; it was an awesome summer night!
@cag60093 Sounds heavenly! Indigo Girls on the Terrace? What a treat! (I heard them in Atlanta, back in the day . . . _
Visited Terrace one summer evening and saw Janelle Monae. She was unique.
Is it possible to totally hate a school you never visited? We went to an accepted student event for University of Hartford for D09. There werenât enough seats in the room, I had to wrestle the last (tiny) can of Diet Coke from some dad and then the entire presentation consisted of showing videos of sports events and parties. Midway through, the AO stopped the video, looked around and said: âOh, wow, itâs spring break, We should have brought some students with us to talk to you.â At that point, my D said she wouldnât go there if they paid her and we left. As we walked out, I turned around and saw people battling over our 3 vacated seats. Next morning, D emailed her decline of the offer.
@bookworm They have a name for your condition, Stockholm Syndrome. Lol Iâm sure MIT is right for some but 2 minutes into the presentation my daughter and I wanted to run to western Massachusetts. A little green area and better physical plant wouldnât have changed anything.
@Midwestmomofboys your positivity has been noted and weâre keeping an eye on you. Donât let it happen again!
Disclaimer: I am in a particularly sour mood this week because I realized that I wasted alot of my daughterâs time applying to private schools and we have no chance of receiving anything but merit aid. Iâm thinking of starting a new thread called, âMy daughter and wife hate me and it is my fault: a cautionary taleâ. Besides being cathartic it could offer some advice to future parents. Iâd do this except at the moment I donât think Iâd take my anecdotal evidence seriously.
Hey, just because a few people here donât like the campus doesnât mean your kid will feel the same way! Obviously lots of people like the campus or they wouldnât be at school there.
Old parent, if u canât quality for need aid, it means u have done well in life. Congrats
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@moooop Iâm an older parent and so should have greater than average wealth than parents in their 40s or early 50s. As a result of being older I also have fewer earning years. While my wife and I have modest combined income, our home equity by itself (also greater because of age) disqualifies my daughter from receiving financial aid (at least in my limited experience). In addition at my age Iâm not willing to take on debt. I know Iâm being somewhat self-centered but at the moment it appears to me that there is an age penalty.
Yes poor frugal me, but Iâm not prepared to share my retirement savings or my home equity with a LAC when my daughter got into some great public schools. Even if the schools were mediocre⊠I believe that the college experience is about stretching your limits and you can achieve that anywhere. There is no lack of great teachers and experience happens as the result of challenge and effort.
I know college aid calculators work for some but in my case did not prepare me for the actual financial aid results. My daughterâs merit aid while impressive does not bring the cost down sufficiently to âmeritâ LAC attendance.
Knowing what I know now I could have saved my daughter a lot of work and anguish and at the moment I feel naive and foolish.
Please excuse my off-topic rant.
Amen
@Old_parent One of the best things you can do for your daughter, is ensure that her parents are cared for in retirement, and will not be a burden. Itâs about taking care of your family. 
You really canât tell how financial aid may shake out, until you get an actually award letter from a school, especially if your finances are a bit complicated. Itâs better to have done it, and know for sure your best financial options, than to have regrets a few years later, wondering if your daughter should have applied to school X or Y. Now you both have a sense of confidence that your final choice is the best choiceâŠno regrets!
University of Rochester - extremely poorly planned open house with no organization, extremely dull speaker (the Dean of the college, not a good sign) and presentation, lifeless campus with sullen students . . . itâs a pretty campus and I really wanted my S to like it but aside from the campus, we just couldnât find any redeeming qualities.
Pace University (Manhattan) - both our kids liked the idea of going to school in NYC but the extremely non-traditional nature of the school turned them both off right away.
@Old_parent you should definitely write that thread. I similarly have been wasting time at lovely LACs with kids who just donât care. One hated every Middlebury/Bates/Bowdoin type campus as full of stressed students and not won over by the beautiful settings and nice facilities. I, however, loved them all and wanted a re-do in life (with accompanying money of course). And the students all seemed to me to be poised and interesting, not pinched at all.
Absence makes the heart grow fonderâŠ
âŠexcept when it comes to colleges. Iâve found that the schools we visited months ago have become an afterthought, and the schools we have most recently visited are the new favorites.
Is this normal?
Stem2017. Yes, we experienced that. We visited 20+ colleges and universities, and they fell into two categories: âmaybeâ and âno.â For the âmaybeâ schools, the advantage usually shifted to the last school we saw and the last coach who expressed interest. As we whittled down the âmaybeâ list, that ânew kid in townâ feeling was less pronounced.
Out of respect for the running topic, Iâll just add that we were also (in addition to Duke mentioned earlier) a little disappointed with Amherst. I really wanted to like it but found the campus a bit underwhelming â especially the library. On the other hand, Amherst was among my favorite college towns, and we enjoyed the nature trail running along the back of the campus.
Clark University in Worcester, MA. Presentation was fine and the academics actually seem great - but the campus! âGrossâ is the comment from my kid about Clarkâs campus. There is only one nice looking building and the rest are not cohesive - especially the library which is a '70s concrete âthingâ shaped like a toddlerâs stack of wooden blocks. The inside was n orange 70s flashback. As we walked through the middle of the campus (not he surrounding area, the actual center of campus) a group of sketchy locals in their 30s with little kids actually taunted us.
They kept priding themselves on how they were an open campus and the surrounding area can walk right through since the school is a part of the local community. What that school needs is a gate around campus - similar to Fordham, Holy Cross and others.
âThere is no way Iâm applying to that schoolâ was the statement I heard once we got back in the car.
College of Charleston-we felt like the people in charge were the snobbiest snobs of snob townâŠ
Love the city of Charleston though!
@STEM2017 my husband says to our daughter âthe college you visit last seems to become your favoriteâ. Completely normal.
Actually Clarkâs central campus was gated until about a decade ago and campus security would check for student IDâs.