Hi folks! Happy New Year!
I hate Tufts. A young man who has consistently bullied my son and sexually harassed my daughter was accepted ED. He was suspended for the harassment which would have to be reported on the CA. Apparently spreading a rumor about a sexually transmitted disease is A-Okay with Tufts’ admissions. I wish them good luck with the little pischer.
Now I understand “holistic” admissions. LOL
@QuantMech Cabs don’t really cruise around Hyde park, because it doesn’t make financial sense. Hyde Park is mostly residential. The same thing would be true for any residential area that is far from the center - there are not enough people who are trying to catch a cab in the evening to justify cruising around.
I really don’t know why the cab driver was so nervous, but I have friends who live or lived in Hyde Park, and they were not any more worried about crime than anybody in any other good neighborhood in Chicago.
“I really don’t know why the cab driver was so nervous”
Racism leads to fear of the South Side in general. This can be true even of black people (particularly African or Caribbean immigrants without a cultural connection to South Side African-Americans) who live on the North Side.
I can see the headlines in the Boston Globe in a year or two. 
@cleoforshort, It’s more likely that your high school dropped the ball and didn’t report the suspension than that Tufts accepted him with the knowledge of it. I’m amazed at the number of schools that don’t report disciplinary actions, leaving students free to lie and check off the “never been suspended” box on applications.
or they didn’t drop the ball and purposefully left this off! I know at our HS we had about 15 students get caught cheating on a test in an AP class and the school only gave them zeros and didn’t put it on the disciplinary report. Another instance was a boy shoved (not playful – but seriously angry) one of DD’s friends so hard that she fell back and hit her head on the locker. They gave him a lunch detention and it did not go on his record. I mean they didn’t want to ruin his future! You’d be surprised at what some schools will cover up when it comes to top students who might bring “glory” to the school with thier acceptances. One of the cheaters ended up at Northwestern.
^ ugh. that is such BS and just teaches these entitled kids that being cheaters has no repercussions. Gross.
@Sue22 The school has been involved in a number of incidents of cover ups. They made this boy the football captain until I spoke up, then took it away.
I think that perceptions of safety are a legitimate consideration in choosing a college, because the safety level will have a significant impact on the student’s experience. I had several glorious years in one of the safest settings where I have ever been (not in the US, not perfectly safe, but definitely safer than the places where I have lived in the US).
Of course, I utterly repudiate acting in a discriminatory way based on racially biased perceptions of hazards or perceptions of people “not belonging.” That is obviously wrong.
On the other hand, it really cannot be argued that all areas are equivalently safe. It is okay with me that different people should set their thresholds of acceptable risk at different levels (in a fashion that is not discriminatory). Often, the more courageous are rewarded. Sometimes the more cowardly are better off.
I do not remember the identity of the specific college where I was put off by the fact that there seemed to be safety phones tied directly to the campus police every ten feet. In the event of an incident, one would want the safety phone to be immediately adjacent. But these were spaced so closely that to me it actually gave an impression of hazard–really, you can’t go that distance on campus safely? It seems to me that cell phones must improve people’s safety, but I don’t regard them as a guarantee.
Recent tour with my Junior son.
U of Scranton- Pleasantly surprised with the campus and facilities. Admissions presentation was on point. I thought the Canada Goose jacket the tour guide wore sent the wrong message. However my son would have no clue about the brand status.
That Canada Goose might be just the warm ticket this week at any northern school. Very popular at Syracuse, Cornell and Wisconsin too.
Canada Goose - well made, warm as toast. That’s a good message 
Except for the part where people are getting held-up at gunpoint for thier Canada Goose jackets in Chicago!https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/style/ct-life-canada-goose-robberies-chicago-20190124-story.html
Now that, does send a wrong message…
Held up for it or not, if you pay $1,000 for a coat you have already been robbed.
@pishicaca Your comment just made my day! Thank you.
Time to move away from Canada Goose comments.
We toured and daughter participated in sports camps at almost all the NESCACs. The surprises… Daughter couldn’t stand Williams. Amherst campus/facilities were disappointing. Colby had an odd feel to it.
On our east coast tour of colleges, my D just wasn’t feeling MIT. It was a beautiful spring day and we had just come from visiting Amherst where it seemed like most of the students were outside very much enjoying themselves and where we had an especially effervescent and impressive tour guide (lesson learned–the quality of tour guides and the weather can have an outsize impact on a college visit). At MIT, the students we passed by during our more standard “check off the boxes” tour all seemed to have their heads down and all seemed in a rush to get somewhere. It might have been bad timing w/most students in class, but there were surprisingly few outside enjoying the unseasonably warm weather. D described MIT as soulless.
Georgetown. Neighborhood is beautiful but the campus itself was underwhelming and very small. Library was shockingly unimpressive and small for such a major university. We walked around the university in about 10 minutes. The tour guide also spent an inordinate amount of time talking about how hard it was to get into clubs. The university has great academics but overall it left us feeling very ambivalent.