You do realize that this will now become A Thing… parents who want to increase the odds of their children being admitted to their favorite colleges by driving away the competition will pay Annoying People to attend and sabotage tours. Heck, this could even be a fun second career for parents whose children have launched - Professional Tour Jerk. I can see the ads for this service now, “for the low price of only $XXXX I will ensure a 20% decrease in the number of applicants to your child’s favorite school by ensuring all tours are completely insufferable!”
Except you want a diploma, a diploma that says “This student is a XX Grad and has earned a XX education” and that has to mean something to the world. If students who attend Brown can recite poetry but can’t add and subtract, employers are going to being to think “That’s great, but I need people who are poets AND can add and subtract.” The diploma has to mean something.
I’m a traditionalist and my biggest turn off in College Tour Bingo was ‘and you can design your own major!’ If English majors are required to take a science class and a math class and even a PE class, I like that and I like that the diploma ‘says’ that to the world. I know that Brown and Amherst don’t just let students take 32 history classes and give them a diploma (if there are even 32 history courses offered in 4 years), but I’d have to dig a little to know if the student took a science class, or if the student took anything he didn’t want to take.
In the real world, there are things you have to do because they are good for you. Eat your vegetables, take a bath occasionally, take a science class. It builds character.
@cafe9999 Sometimes people just get a vibe they don’t like & there is no rhyme or reason to it. It’s all perfectly valid & true for you. My DD didn’t like UVA at all & we had heard such great things. I didn’t love it. it was ok, but DD really was turned off. Much of it was the awful guide but mainly it was just a vibe she got. I was turned off by the foot tall buggy grass that wasn’t mowed & no pots of flowers against the endless brick & columns, seemed boring & unkept for such an $ school. But then again, I’m the only 1 I have known who couldn’t stand San Francisco lol.
Unexpectedly we both LOVED LOVED Chapel Hill! Hated Christopher Newport.
@cloudysmom “Sometimes people just get a vibe they don’t like & there is no rhyme or reason to it.” Yes, this is so true. DD, DH & I just didn’t like Elon at all - it was a vibe thing. However, a friend of ours just took her DD there and she fell in love. So it’s ok to not like a school! Bring on the snark!
“Except you want a diploma, a diploma that says “This student is a XX Grad and has earned a XX education” and that has to mean something to the world. If students who attend Brown can recite poetry but can’t add and subtract, employers are going to being to think “That’s great, but I need people who are poets AND can add and subtract.” The diploma has to mean something.”
Are you using hyperbole as a rhetorical tool or do you really think most Brown students don’t have enough math skills to handle most jobs without additional college coursework? I’m sure those seeking jobs where specific college coursework is needed (say engineering) are getting it during their 4 years. It’s hard for me to imagine employers discounting Brown’s diploma due to the open curriculum.
BTW, I never took a college science class (not Brown) and didn’t even take Chem and Physics in high school (my kids did). Never hurt my career and I have enough scientific knowledge to function just fine in life in non-science jobs. At points in time where I needed to learn some knowledge, I just taught myself, which a good education (though not broad) taught me to do. My education taught me to think and solve problems - critical reasoning, inquiry, research, oral and written communication - which have served me well.
What about the smaller school someone might not know much about? Does a St. Olaf’s grad have to take anything but music? Does the Julliard student?
My daughter just suffered through a required math class. She didn’t want to take it, and did everything she could to avoid it, but it is a requirement for graduation. She would NEVER teach it to herself after graduation even though she has the skills to research and reason. She also had to take two science courses and same thing, she’d never take them if not required. Since she attends a flagship, ‘everyone’ knows that a grad from that school has a broad general education and a higher level in a major or minor.
My other daughter was required to take two writing courses and yes, it made her a better engineer. If not required, she wouldn’t have gone anywhere near a humanities course, writing course, or language course.
“Does a St. Olaf’s grad have to take anything but music?”
Most definitely. St. Olaf is very much a liberal arts school and actually has many breadth requirements.
My math challenged kid took two required quant courses to fulfill breadth requirements. They made for miserable courses requiring much hard work and grades that brought down the overall GPA. Said child will do just fine in life without having taken them but the college was chosen for other reasons. It is what it is but I’m not convinced it was necessary at all to be a happy, self-supporting, and contributing member to society.
“Except you want a diploma, a diploma that says “This student is a XX Grad and has earned a XX education” and that has to mean something to the world. If students who attend Brown can recite poetry but can’t add and subtract, employers are going to being to think “That’s great, but I need people who are poets AND can add and subtract.” The diploma has to mean something”.
Twoinanddone-
Brown students are very good at adding and subtracting. Particularly those who concentrate in applied math. It is consistently ranked top 5 nationally and most recently #1. Brown’s business, entrepreneurship and organizations concentration has also produced Brian Moynihan the CEO of Bank Of America and Dara Khosrowshahi the CEO of Uber. Both of them I hear are great at both math and poetry.
Having flexibility of course of study is not synonymous with lack of study. I would get to know a few Brown students before discounting their real world abilities. To stereotype them is done at one’s own loss or peril.
I don’t want to derail this thread so I’ll go with William and Mary first. I drove through before our tour date accidentally as the campus is very embedded within Williamsburg. It was the athletic area and I wasn’t super impressed. Fast forward two days later to the official info session and tour. The info session was very well done and the tour guide was excellent. The main quad is nice with a sunken garden (but not really a garden just a sunken lawn). The buildings are all very similar and hard to remember after the fact. The campus was just ok as there are many regular streets running through it and I find it hard to feel the college vibe separate from the tourist vibe and it would not be my ideal college location. DD20 was concerned that about 67% of the student are from Virginia, and I get that it’s their mission to educate Virginians. I work in public higher education and in my state we are not doing a good job in that area. DD20, a swimmer, was very disappointed in the pool.
Don't read below this line if you want negative...
Richmond was today and I really loved this campus. The layout is amazing and seems well planned. The maintenance of the facilities (remember I work at a college) is pretty spectacular. There is definitely a “veneer” to the place but I’m not necessarily opposed to that if there’s also substance. They seem to be working their relatively large endowment pretty well based on the upkeep here. The waiting room was primarily filled with a pretty preppy looking group of kids and my rolled-out-of-bed-after-a-long-weekend-of-swimming daughter with athletic attire (don’t they call it athleisure wear now…). Ironically, DD would “normally” fit in well with this set as she does attend a NE boarding school with a dress code. I think the academic fit would be ok there for her, although not exactly sure her preferred focus area is a strength. The visit did not include the athletic facility so all was good until…we went to the pool, which is NOT the crown jewel at Richmond. It was a let down for her unfortunately.
Off to DC on Thursday to see the urban group – Georgetown (meet coach, visit on Saturday), George Washington, and American.
I thought there was a prohibition of responding back to protect the honor of your child’s school or personal likes. It makes people perhaps less honest than they might be. I know these opinions aren’t gospel. And so should everyone else. M2cents
@sunnyschool - I so agree with you on parking! That was our biggest stress of college tours. At one school DH could not figure out where we wee supposed to park - ended up in a lot where he got a ticket! Another school charged and it was very pricey.
And the day we toured Holy Cross, the only parking space required me to parallel park an SUV because parking was not in a lot but lining a path near admissions. I swear I used to know how to parallel park but years of suburban driving have eroded that skill. LOL. All I could think about was how would they manage move-in day?
I used to answer the phone at Harvard admissions. On summer afternoons, there was no parking anywhere – even the commercial garages would be full. Every day, parents would call for driving directions. I’d say, “There is no parking at all. If you’re not staying in Boston, park at the Alewife station and take the subway three stops to our door.” “What?? No. Just tell me how to drive there. We’re already in the car, we’re driving.” Ok…
Two hours later, I’d be leading a tour and a parent would join 45 minutes late, panting and sweating. “There’s no parking anywhere!”
@milee30 I’m about to turn 55 and I think I know what my next career will be. And I can do my obnoxious dad voice (from Willy Wonka): “All right Veruca, you can go to school here!”
Hell, my kids tell me I’m annoying every day so I know I can easily annoy many, many teens and their parents…
Had a run in with a Brown student this week, Let’s call him Jack. He is an intern working for my boss and had one project to do this summer, which I ended up doing. I had to meet him to pick something up (that was supposed to be delivered 3 weeks ago) and he was incredibly rude - instructed me to meet him at the local coffee shop, after answering my phone call with “WHERE ARE YOU?” Yes, yelling. I am 56 years old you little pisher, I have shoes older than you, and I will snap you like a twig.
Anyhoo, got this text from my boss: “Jack has been driving around with your check for 3 weeks. He’s sort of incompetent, and a Brown student.”
LOL.
Now I KNOW all Brown students are not like Jack, but I will always associate Brown with that entitled little creep, of course at my own peril.
Wright State in Dayton was our least favorite! We wanted to like it because it was the cheapest but It was kind of scary. The dorms didn’t look like they had been renovated since I had friends go there 20 years ago. I was worried about UC being scary but on campus it’s not scary at all…now you step off campus a few feet and it can be scary. My daughter doesn’t get “sketched out” (her words, not mine) but she was kind of sketched out at Wright State (and it’s in the “good” part of Dayton.
Wright State is an OK suburban university that is very much a commuter school. It’s not so much in a “nice” area as it is between an affluent suburb and Wright Patterson AF base with a major outerbelt in between. Much of the campus is parking lot. There is not much in the way of residential housing around it to make it unsafe like there is at UC. Most of the people who live in the area are students. They have built a pedestrian bridge over the interstate to the mall area in Beavercreek. What surrounds Wright State are businesses and access to the base. It’s definitely not a quaint college type feel to the area.
It offers a good public university option to Dayton area students and has some programs that are strong such as their Musical Theater program. It’s engineering options aren’t bad and there are opportunities with WPAFB. As such it is not much of a residential campus although there are a fair percentage of students both local and otherwise who live on campus. I don’t think there have been any new dorms built in awhile. We have spent time at shows at the theater and the Nutter Center. Both of my children would not consider it. They found it not so much sketchy as boring and far too local. Many of their friends attended and they received a good education.
