@rosered55, yes, Amherst too. My twin DD’s toured it twice and didn’t have any feeling - that said we all agreed that the little Mexican restaurant is town is great!
Columbia. This was our first college tour and I was very excited about touring this school. Our tour guide looked as though he just rolled out of bed and barely made eye contact with us. Five minutes into the tour my son said, “Lets go, I’ll never come here”. That was it. I was impressed, he wasn’t.
Kenyon. We didn’t notice anyone saying hi to anyone else as we walked around campus, and no one even looked at the tour group … not that this is a big deal in the scheme of things, but it was a very different feel from the other small campuses we visited. It just felt a bit “cold.”
@kelsmom, our twin DD’s were accepted, but we haven’t had a chance to visit yet. Did you tour Bates as the feel there is very different?
Amherst - tour guide was incredibly snooty. The dorms were beautiful, though.
Harvard - felt more like a tourist attraction than a university for my D.
Amherst tour guide told us, “Do you know the types of boys who play the ukulele badly and sing. That’s all of the boys here.” My daughter already had given Amherst two strikes for their past cover-up of sexual assaults. That statement was the third strike. Agree on Harvard. More of an aquarium then a college. (Harvard I hope you’re not listening, because my daughter did apply)
I thought Harvard was horribly maintained for a $50,000+/yr school (this was in 2006). The outer windowsills on buildings had peeling, flaking paint, the grass was in horrible shape, and litter/flyers were strewn everywhere. I know…it’s Harvard, but I just kept thinking, “I can scrape, paint, and maintain my windows, and Harvard can’t…”
“Do you know the types of boys who play the ukulele badly and sing. That’s all of the boys here.”
Thanks for the laugh.
Similar thread you might like.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1883008-colleges-your-child-crossed-off-the-list-after-visiting-schools-that-moved-up-on-the-list-why-p1.html
Williams - Visited last summer, middle of no where, and blah campus.
Pomona - Just toured 4 of the 5C’s (skipped Harvey Mudd). We had a horrible tour guide and a person who talked in a monotone for the info session. Going in, Pomona was her favorite of the 5C’s, leaving it was at bottom of list.
Chapman! My mom and I could not get out of there fast enough.
I had high hopes for it (I know a couple of a current students there who rave about it), but the student tour guides were incredibly snooty. They mostly talked about what TV shows are filmed in Orange, the “swanky country club vibe” of their campus (their words, not mine!) and how they LOVE the the huge mall nearby. There was barely any discussion of academics. Hard pass.
Oh, and the info session consisted of the entire tour group awkwardly sitting in the lobby, with a FA rep answering individual questions - no useful info, unless you were the individual asking about your very specific situation.
We were probably the most disappointed with Duke. We liked all the NESCAC schools as well as the Claremont Colleges (Pomona, Claremont McKenna, and Scripps, esp.). Also liked Swarthmore, Chicago, WUSTL, Berkeley, Brown, Yale, and Dartmouth. So it was really just Duke. It’s hard to put a finger on why. We just didn’t feel it.
CalTech–had very high hopes but it just seemed very run down and D found some sexist and offensive graffiti.
We went to UC Berkeley three times and didn’t notice any trash, although that was in 2015 IIRC. What did stand out for me was the down/grim/glum vibe to the place. Everyone just seemed very quiet and serious, and not particularly happy. We did have a great tour though. The campus also felt really lightly populated, almost deserted. The tour guide claimed it was because classes were in session when I brought it up, but it was something we had noticed on a previous visit as well.
By contrast UCLA really had that stereotypical California college vibe you might imagine. People were laying out on the grass, tossing frisbee, playing soccer, chatting, etc. A totally different vibe than Cal. I think we visited UCLA 2-3 times as well, and it always had a busy, happy vibe going on. It was an easy decision for D which one to attend.
Our kids liked the USC busy, happy vibe, which was the reason that was the only U she applied to transfer to. She didn’t get that vibe from the many other campuses we visited.
For S1, it was Caltech. For S2, it was NYU, Brandeis and Boston University.
TCU. Worst tour guide ever. I think I wrote a cc visit report at the time.
My daughter was rejected today from the half of the Ivy league she applied to. I officially hate them all. Also got into Berkeley today and so naturally I love it.
@Old_parent The rule usually is that you really, desperately want to go to the college that rejects you. No matter which college that is…
@kelsmom I was reading some old threads and someone wrote that when they visited Kenyon, they kept expecting a cow to walk across the grass. Never visited but it sounded…rural.