If people want to get a sense of what Kenyon is like rent the movie “Liberal Arts” starring Josh Radnor. It was filmed there and he is a graduate of Kenyon.
Dartmouth. Just did not impress us.
@exlibris97 I went to a very large northeast University in a rust belt city with snow drifts higher than the house. The last dutch elms were dying my freshman year. My house built in the 1890s had no insulation and the walls were so thin the wind whistled through them. Classes averaged over 400 students. In spite of this, I had the time of my life, met my wife, learned critical thinking. Now I live in southern California. It’s sunny most of the year. Beach is a few miles away. My daughter got into some of the finest public universities in the state and country but only wants to go to east coast private schools that won’t give us need based aid. I’m now questioning my parenting skills but I’m glad to see that I’m fighting a natural law.
D2 didn’t like Carleton. Beautiful campus but was put off by the role playing groups running around campus in costumes and waving play swords. Not her thing.
I liked Brandeis, but my kid hated it. I liked the modern student center. I was disappointed that the Castle was so ugly inside.
I hate the Stanford campus. I love Spanish Colonial Revival architecture, but Stanford’s version is very heavy. The buildings were too clean it just didn’t look that comfortable. It looked like a modern hotel or office park. We liked the shabbiness of the Caltech dorms much better.
I don’t remember Berkeley being dirty. I do remember a table of campus Republican out in the square where all the political stuff is.
Harvard’s central area always has problems with the grass - too many trees! Too much winter! The tourists are much, much worse than when I was there.
All three of my girls visited BU, all for different majors. The first one had an underwhelming tour guide and made her judgement from there. The second had another school that she had her heart set on and sort of dismissed it , really for a silly reason. The third didn’t get accepted.
In all honesty , I think there are great matches for all students . The fit is based on so many factors that I can’t rally pass judgment
For one daughter it was Villanova. It felt like we were on a back lot tour and entered every building from the back. I realized later that many of the buildings face the main road, but we still found ourselves seeking out the pretty places. For another daughter it was Tufts. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but wanted absolutely nothing to do with it about halfway through the tour. For yet another daughter it was Vanderbilt, which she thought she loved. We visited twice, and on the second visit she found the students to be less friendly and less happy, the information session speakers to be way too high on themselves, and the overall vibe to be blah … which I realize runs completely counter to everything you hear about Vandy. I guess everyone needs to find their own reasons for applying or not applying to any given school.
My kid hated Williams. They flew him in for preview weekend and he didn’t apply after touring the place.
@mathmom Funny that you didn’t like the architecture at Stanford! I remember someone on CC wishing their kid would apply to Stanford, but the kid refused. The reason: “I hate that Taco Bell architecture!”
Emory. And we had flown to Atlanta just to see it.
Laughing at the Carleton turnoff.
For ds2, it was Macalester.
In the morning daughter fell in love with Haverford. That same afternoon she and I both were really turned off by Swarthmore. Funny, because they are in the same consortium… but we found the two had completely different vibes.
She also HATED Northwestern although I thought it was really compelling. She loved University of Chicago though.
I guess, to her, only one school per locale can be a winner.
Swarthmore for us too. Just not the right vibe for my kid. Started out admiring the beautiful campus. By the end we had a weird carsick feeling.
Interesting. I just toured Swat last week and got a weird vibe.
Harvard has grass just before graduation, when the parents and donors will be arriving. Otherwise, the sea of mud comment applied, back when my spouse was there as a post-doc.
We saw a desiccated squirrel at Stanford. Tour guide: “You might want to step over that.” I have posted this before, but the squirrel was not merely dead, it looked as though it had encountered a Star-Trek-variety alien and had been rendered two-dimensional. Also, though Stanford does have grass, I think it is Zoysia grass or something similar that can survive in that climate. This did not deter QMP from applying, though.
ROFL!! The campus squirrels are a good indicator of the campus life quality… I still have nightmares thinking about the giant squirrel that jumped out of the trash can on the UW campus when I tossed something into the can… 
^^ D had a little squirrel thief living nearby that came into their dorm a few times even when they were in the room! Made off with some of their Halloween candy that was sitting out in a bowl one time.
Stony Brook. It is H’s alma mater and he was so proud to show it off, but my 2 middle sons refused to even get out of the car to go on the tour, so H and I went. The kids were right, the school is hideously ugly.
SUNY New Paltz - D09 and I toured. The school was ok, but the tour guides and the admissions people had this attitude that they were akin to the second coming of the Ivy League. “We don’t give merit scholarships - ALL of our students are meritorious.” Oh, vomit - D went where she was offered money.
@techmom99 I grew up not to far from Stony Brook and wholeheartedly agree. To be fair most of the SUNY schools are hideously ugly. Stony Brook had the added distinction of being the school most likely to be abandoned on weekends (laundry for mom in the back of the car).
I also agree with following the money. College is more about what you make of it and field of study than the resources or quality of the school. I’ve experienced school debt and learned first-hand that free education is almost always better. I shudder each time someone poses the question of which school their child should attend, the perfectly good top one hundred school for free or the higher ranked school for 50 to 70k per year. Is this just a backhanded brag, are they rich, or are they just ignorant about school debt?
I’ve also been involved with hiring engineers, and computer scientists and while quality of the school has some sway, experience always trumps school name.
My daughter did not like Rice, LMU (although she gave it points for having the best view) or Yale. She did not like Berkeley either.