Saw South Carolina, Davidson and Wake in the last three days.
Wake Forest was one of the worst info sessions I’ve ever been to, rivaled Duke. The admission rep who spoke had on such a short dress that her voice just droned on in the background as I got tunnel vision waiting for the inevitable wardrobe malfunction. We learned more about her friends than the school. The campus is beautiful but feels a little new and cold. Winston Salem is kind of a pit, totally thought it would be nicer.
Just finished reading the entire thread start to finish. So fun!!!
@cleoforshort we’re heading out soon for a similar road trip for 2 kiddos - Clemson, Furman, Vtech, Emory, URichmond, Elon, College of Charleston. I reeeeaaaallllyyy want to visit Wake Forest but S19 doesnt want to anymore because his friend got rejected and felt the only reason is because he did not do ED, so S19 doesnt want to go. So bummed.
My unexpected dislike was Penn State for D16 (sorry to anyone who loves Penn State!) - parked in the wrong area, so went to a building which looked like an information center to ask where to go. We were literally the only people there. Person stayed on the phone well over 5 minutes completely ignoring me. The three kids I brought started walking around because they were bored. Sounded like she was chatting with a friend…she couldnt put them on hold for a second to do her job?
Finally gets off the phone and her whole face lit up with a smile so I thought she was going to help me, but then realized she looked right past me and started talking to a colleague that walked in!!! I guess she really didnt want to help me…but I’m from Jersey, so of course I didnt leave and just stared at her until she so uncomfortable, she had to help. 
Eventually talks to me after the colleague left.
Walked a good amount to get to info session area. As we were walking down the street, an entire girls’ sports team was staring at us from across the street…even after they passed us, turning around to stare at us. This after we stopped at a McDonald’s before arriving to use the restroom. When we purchased drinks as a courtesy, the person in front of us turned around and literally stared at us like “why are you here?” I was trying to figure out if I had melted chocolate slimed on me or a hole in my clothing in the wrong place. My hair was a regular color, so that wasn’t it…I think?
Reached the info session, and sign in person was so snobby. Whatever at this point. Then the info session just talked about “how” to apply, and I was waiting for the “why should my D and her friends apply??”
We left after the info session, never went on the tour. When we got into the car, the kids started talking about it, and I listened…one kid in the car was convinced that everyone was staring at us/not helping us because she was of a certain ethnicity. When we got home I treated everyone to big ice cream sundaes with lots of chocolate and fahhggooottt about it!
LSU . Too big, snotty tour leaders, too much talk about athletics and we spent more time at the athletic complex then anything else. Received a parking ticket and when I tried to get it taken care of was told that I had to mail in an appeal. Took over a year to get the fine waived, though I wasn’t paying it anyway.
Uh, that is what I said in my post.
Boston University (my alma mater) fell off the list for my D. She didn’t like the fact that it doesn’t have a defined campus. I loved my experience there, but it just wasn’t for her. She loved Tufts and Brandeis.
BU might not have a defined campus feel, but it’s the only university in Boston with its own Beach…
Funny, @Dancingmom518 – D19 saw Brandeis with an open heart and happy expectations, and hoo boy, she did not like it at all. Different strokes!
@cleoforshort Did you ever report on Elon?
@sunnyschool We didn’t end up visiting. I am morally opposed to Elon, LOL, so it wasn’t a big deal. DS opted to blow it off so he could spend the weekend with some old teammates. Came home all smug about dropping it from the list and DS’s college counselor mentions High Point as a safety. Lesson learned. I’m keeping my freaking mouth shut next time.
I didn’t mention that U of South Carolina moved way up his list. I really can’t blame him, it’s beautiful.
While we took hours of tours and I listened carefully to talk of academics, athletics and tradition, DS was able to quickly and efficiently deduce whether he was interested in a school by checking out the local Tinder. Surprisingly we came to similar conclusions. Oy. It’s safe to say that college visits with him are a whole new experience from tours with his older sisters.
I don’t know anything about Elon or High Point, @cleoforshort ; what’s the “moral objection?” I know you meant it lightheartedly.
@JenJenJenJen It’s mostly the kids I know who are students there. Also, I have higher hopes for him - however based on his GPA, his missing school for athletics, and his “devil may care” attitude it may be a perfect fit. (He also got the highest SAT score in his class and the highest score in the state Physics test. He’s frustrating.)
He had an interview at a prestigious LAC and the interviewer asked him what made him really mad. His reply was “when you toast a bagel and part of it burns and part of it doesn’t toast at all.”
See what I’m working with here?
LOL, I love that answer! Thanks, @cleoforshort .
@JenJenJenJen Pray for me.
I’m so glad this thread got going again. I needed something positive (I mean negative) to focus on.
@cleoforshort - I’m working with a lot of the same with my S. At least they keep us laughing!
@cleoforshort I shall pray to the Holey Bagel.
@cleoforshort So did you hit Davidson?
@cleoforshort – I think Tinder and partially toasted bagel has the makings of an awesome college essay.
Your kid sounds pretty typical, which shows how bogus the whole essay thing is. For any typical male teenager, the adcoms really do not want to hear about their one true “passion.” Because it for sure isn’t community service, biomedical engineering or poetry…
We expected to like Loyola-Maryland, in Baltimore, but we had a wacky visit. Our tour guide gave us very little balanced info about the campus and academics. Instead, almost all of her stories revolved around accidents and mishaps that had taken place while students were partying and having fun (eg “this is where I broke my arm at a big party sledding on cafeteria trays” “This is where a guy got arrested cuz he was driving a college van off-campus when he wasn’t supposed to” Every anecdote was followed by “It was SOO funny!” It was amusing at first, but as she got into the sixth or seventh story of that type, it was clear the college had picked the wrong person to be a tour guide!
In fairness, the information session was well done, but we’d already formed a negative impression of the school.
@homerdog We drove around Davidson but didn’t stop, kids had information session overload. I thought DS’s Head would pop off if he heard the words “holistic admissions” one more time. Or maybe it was my head. DD21 was even starting to roll her eyes, and the church pew bickering was starting to rear it’s ugly head.
We liked what we saw, the campus was leafy and looked like a New England town green. There were lots of dogs being walked. Things were kept up. There were small businesses open around the campus - shops and restaurants. I am not sure if it’s still on the list, very much a New England prep school feel and DS has been there done that, and walked away.
My friends who went to MIT always joked there is more campus under ground than above. For me and my kid, we unexpectedly did not like Harvard. Cold windy whether, slushy snow and yet too many tourists on campus so that we couldn’t even touch that famous statue with many people milling around it. We decided then weather was pretty important to us. Not an official tour though. Was visiting a family friend in a town nearby and visited on our own. I tried to get my kid a Harvard sweat shirt as a memento of our visit but our kid didn’t want one. Concord area was beautiful though like a post card. I think my adverse reaction to cold weather is a result of my four years at Cornell, and my kid’s adverse reaction to cold weather is because he doesn’t have too much fat on him.
I could see why many don’t like RPI campus as well as American and GW. When I visited GW, I didn’t know I was on campus until someone told me.
Lousy surrounding area was the reason I didn’t like Cal and John Hopkins. Stanford buildings look like glorified Taco Bell but at least it’s got good weather. With Stanford though, at least the homeless were away from the campus ground inside local public libraries.
I will post more when I think of more negative things to say about other campuses I visited.
Oh yes, UNLV campus near the Vegas strip is not a place I would spend four years unless I wanted to gamble. UCSD campus, they could have done so much on that location.