Must…not…say… anything…positive…about ND and Stanford. [-O<
@IxnayBob - “I had heard that pot was different now, but really!!!”
Were you thinking, like, fruity flavors? Electronic, perhaps? 
Oh, you can definitely get it in fruity flavors if you want. Edibles.
Walking through the compact but pretty grounds of Scripps College, you would think you’re in a Spanish mission of bygone days. Fruit trees, roses, and fountains abound. Then you cross the street and enter a facility straight out of the Cold War 1950s. You realize you’re in Harvey Mudd. Great school - academically. Its saving grace (architecturally)? Part of it is underground, i.e., invisible from the outside.
There’s an actual strain called Fruity Pebbles produced by some farm that is in extreme demand. The website “allbud” gives it 4.5 stars!
@MotherOfDragons I had a similar reaction. First time I ever encountered marijuana was in my dorm first week fall term freshman year at Carleton. I thought something was burning on the stove. It smelled like roasted nuts or something. Went to the kitchen, realized that wasn’t the source. It was from the other side of the floor. A bunch of people were hanging out there. I dutifully announced that something was burning. They gave me a funny look, looked at each other, giggled. Someone said, “Yeah, you could put it that way.” My roommate eventually explained it to me. Everyone was incredulous that I didn’t know what that smell was, but I had an extremely sheltered childhood.
Sort of getting back on topic. I had a similar reaction to Harvard as BobShaw. I had this image of Harvard as being a cloistered oasis of greenery and calm in the midst of a lively city. Our visit was during a blistering heat wave. In spite of the 98 degree temperatures, I saw people wearing long pants and even men wearing suits. It was crowded, with traffic noise and fumes. Not the kind of place I wanted to go to school.
Whitworth University came off the list almost immediately. It looked like a strong match for S1, happy students and not too far from us.
First, it is in a residential neighborhood of Spokane. The whole thing looks like 4 small high schools with a few dorms off to the side. It does not compare well having come straight from Gonzaga, a pretty campus on the Spokane River with lots to do within walking distance.
@Magnetron The first time I traveled to Spokane in 1998 my hotel was next to a drive-in restaurant with a huge sign that advertised, “Bob’s Burgers by the Bagfull”. Yes the original Bob’s Burgers. I’ve been back since but can’t find Bob’s (or an ethnic minority).
Spokane is 95% of the way between Seattle and Idaho in every respect @Old_parent
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This is not so much a bash on Rice, mostly just the wrong fit for my S18. We have family in Houston and he wanted to like Rice very much. He’s a liberal artsy kind of guy; dislikes math, science and any STEM type field. We were at Rice to check out their excellent music school, which tour was impressive but the school came off as too intense for S18. Then the next day, we tour the general campus. Big tour day, with 13 tour guides lined up to amaze and delight us with the educational buffet (like many have commented you could fashion a fine drinking game out of the number of times you hear "study abroad!’ and “research opportunities!” on these tours). So the system was the guides announce their major, and you follow the one that is most closely aligned with your interests. So they called out in succession, “Biotech!”, “Health Sciences!”, “Mech Engineering!”, “Chem Engineering!”, “Biology!” and on and on. Of the 13, all were STEM except one pre-law/business student. First sign that S18 was not the target audience here. So we went with the guide who was the loneliest, an engineering major with only one other family in tow. Generally uneventful tour until we get near the dorms, or I should say Houses. As we go in, I asked the guide what he generally liked to do for fun on the weekend nights. Perhaps a bit of a loaded question but I like to see how they react. I was hoping for a list of theatre, music, Escape Rooms and other campus goings on that would tell my S18 that this was an active cultural campus with at least some other arts oriented kids around to entertain all these future doctors and engineers. The guide’s eyes lit up as he detailed late night Super Mario Smash Brothers sessions, and then said that was pretty much it. I had the mental image of a poorly outfitted thespian standing outside the campus theatre, entreating her classmates to cast off their evening plans of digital domination or robotics in the basement of the Engineering building in favor of a couple hours with The Producers or On the Town, only to be met by averted eyes and hurried steps. Next we go into the dorm, which the guide announces is actually his own dorm room. I immediately sense that this is a dorm tour scenario that could very quickly go south for Rice, having guides show their own rooms instead of some shiny, plastic wrapped sample room you often get. And while his room was neat, it was just …depressing. Gray cinder block construction that would have been right at home in most prisons, little decoration or personality. It was a single, with one tiny window with a study desk in front of it. The guide mentioned he was lucky to get a single and that he spent most of his study time there. I could not imagine hanging out or studying there and was backing out as soon as I stepped in. We went back down the hall, where his floor mates had definitely not gotten the message that tours were routinely coming by. Showed us yet another engineering building and we were done. I am sure Rice is STEM nirvana, but not for S18.
So funny…my daughter really disliked U Richmond as well. She just said she felt “uncomfortable”. On paper…great fit. I thought the campus was lovely. But obviously it matters more what she thinks!
Others that my Ds didn’t like:
TCNJ (Again I thought the campus was beautiful, they both greatly disliked it. Too rural…too federalist style I guess?)
WPI: Fantastic school but the campus and town of Worcester were just depressing when we visited.
@vistajay - Rice does take Super Smash Brothers seriously.
COLL 196 001 (CRN: 24235)
COMPETITIVE SMASH
Long Title: COMPETITIVE SUPER SMASH BRTOHERS MELEE (MARTEL/BROWN)
Department: College Courses
Instructors:
Yan, John P.
Beck, Conor W.
Meeting: 7:00PM - 7:59PM R RZR 305 (12-JAN-2015 - 24-APR-2015)
Session: Full Term
Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory
Course Type: Lecture
Method of Instruction: Face to Face
Credit Hours: 1
Course Syllabus:Unavailable
Section Max Enrollment: 19
Section Enrolled: 16
Waitlisted: 0 (Max 99)
Current members of the waitlist have priority for available seats.
Enrollment data as of: 22-DEC-2016 10:06PM
Fees: None
Final Exam: No Final Exam
Description: This class involves analysis of gameplay, the theory behind different options, and the improvement of one’s skill in the video game Super Smash Brothers Melee.
When passing through Spokane, we stopped to eat at a restaurant that got good reviews in our guide book. Soups were especially raved about, and the portions were said to be so large that one could “bathe small pets in them”. I was very hungry, so I ordered a soup and salad. A couple of minutes later the waiter put a cup of soup in front of me. It was a decent size, to be sure, but it was a cup! It also was pretty bad tasting. Sourish, lukewarm. I put in some crackers to kill the taste, and hoped the salad would be better.
A couple of minutes later the waiter was back. She gave me a funny look ( I was dipping my spoon in the cup), then deposited two HUGE bowls on my side of the table, one filled with salad, the other with ....soup.
I had been slurping up cracker infused salad dressing.
I don’t know what’s more disgusting, eating cracker infused salad dressing or the scrounge table at Reed.
=))
@Pivia1 I nearly spit out my water reading your post. As a parent of a current classical music student looking at post-grad music programs…the “20th Century Atonal Serialism” hit close to home. The horror!!! And your description of the Rutgers tour had me laughing out loud!
re post #851. There’s a reason many Illinois students want to go north to UW-Madison despite no tuition reciprocity. The campus, not the comparable academics. And, unlike with U Minn Twin Cities, that may be the reason there is no tuition reciprocity.
Has anyone visited Earlham? Thoughts? Trash talk?
@Kayakingmama , DH wanted to hate Earlham. He was composing an exhaustive list of reasons before he arrived. At the top of it was that his wife and kid had put it on the list. IndiAna was just below that. Unfortunately, the tour guide was one of the most likeable of the entire search. Everyone they met was genuinely warm and helpful. While such behavior is always suspicious to a new englander, it disarmed DH sufficiently that the list was discarded.
DS didn’t choose this one in the end, but it’s one we’ve recommended to others after seeing it and learning more…
@gardenstategal that was perilously close to being too warm and fuzzy. But your execution of praise was offset by referencing your DH’s preconceived bias and fortifying it with New Englander distrust. Well played!