What school was unexpectedly your least favorite when you visited?

I thought my D would like Willamette. She loves all things Japanese and they have a huge Japanese contingent and even a Japanese dining venue which we visited, unfortunately not at a time when we could actually eat, but it was impressive…to me anyway.

I don’t know why but D was just not impressed. Was it because the Japanese dining hall is away across a bridge? Was it the homeless people walking through campus? Was it the cigarette smokers outside every every building? Was it the almost overly enthusiastic AO in our very small info session in a conference room? Was it the location smack dab in downtown Salem?

Who knows? I’m sure I asked her at the time but apparently she couldn’t articulate it or at least not in a memorable fashion. She did not apply.

After Willamette we visited Lewis & Clark which she LOVED and it was her first choice for a long time.

@alooknac same reaction from my D18 when we visited Willamette end of last summer. Personally I liked the school and I enjoyed our tour etc. but she said no way after the visit. Our tour guide seemed fine to me but he was a bit robotic, highly scripted, and everything was faaaaaaantastic. D18 couldn’t get past it! And she disliked the location big time. Too bad since it would have been a really nice likely admit school for her. Since she has others in the mix I’m not pushing Willamette even though I personally think it is an excellent school (especially for the price).

Did anyone get the “cutting edge” tour from Rice? You know, where everything - from the plants to the birds to the Texas sun to the science labs - is cutting edge.

I think just about every college does cutting edge research in their state-of-the-art facilities. Their professors are also caring, and their students are passionate about their studies. Every college is also forward thinking, preparing their students for a rapidly changing world. While every college has a global perspective, it also has time to care about the individual, which is natural, because all the people at every college, including alumni, feel like they are one big family. You won’t be just a number at every college–regardless of your race, religion, sexual identity, national origin, immigration status, height, weight, blood type, or astrological sign–you will be able to express yourself, because at every college “diversity” isn’t just a word, it’s a way of life.

@moooop Have you considered a career in admissions? Politics?

@moooop Such a great post!

And every school has a blue light system that nobody has ever used…

@moooop can I design my own major? Are there blue lights all over campus to keep me safe while I’m walking late night from my dancing chemistry combo major lab/studio to my gourmet open all night dining hall?

Sounds like it’s time for a round of “College Tour Bingo.”

I never did get the logic of the blue light thing – they all seem to be few and far between, and inconveniently located. I’ve read that some schools are phasing them out.

Re #883. It isn’t only that colleges are preparing students for a rapidly changing world, they are preparing students to be leaders in the world. There will be only leaders and no followers.

@twoinanddone Yes, if you can’t find a major you like among the 279 majors offered at every college, you can meet with the Associate Vice Dean of Indecision and Interdisciplinary Studies to see if you can work out a major that suits your individual needs. And if the 7438 undergraduate courses offered at every college don’t include what you want, you take graduate classes or you can travel by hot air balloon to any of the other 27 fine institutions in the Every Other College Consortium. And if those colleges don’t have what you are looking for, perhaps every college’s 367 study abroad affiliates might have them.

@gardenstategal. My h’s family are Quaker and all kids are encouraged to apply to Earlham. Several family
Members live in Richmond and most family attended Earlham and went on to Harvard, MIT, UPenn…blah, blah, blah…
I was secretly hoping my son would hate it, but he loved it! Uggghhhhh

@moooop - Aha, you’ve been outed! So you’re the one who wrote all those glossy brochures.

Yes, and I’m the professor in the picture of the class being held on the quad on the one sunny day we had that spring, with the diverse group of students sitting on the grass listening intently to me. With the one attractive building on campus in the background. However, I am NOT the Asian student earnestly eyeing a test tube in the chemistry lab photo.

@moooop , which one are you in your profile picture? I’m guessing the dad, but I wouldn’t want to insult the dog.

And study abroad. With several kids having gone through the process, we’ve visited approximately 22 of the colleges ranked #1 for students studying abroad and one that claimed to be #2, which we immediately crossed off the list as a slacker. At Colgate, the campus tour was half over, and tour guide had ONLY talked about how much students loved study abroad and all the experiences their friends had had and how they were SOOO excited to go next semester. Well, what about this very lovely campus we’ve been walking through for half an hour? Does anything happen here? Does anyone like it here?

Talking about study abroad is great marketing! Students (perhaps less so parents) only imagine the positives when they think of themselves sophisticatedly sipping wine in a park in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. Much more impressive than the grimy reality of even the nicest college campus, with its ugly non-French people.

@twinsmama Yes, in addition to my enthusiastic teaching and innovative research, i do a little modeling. When Norman Rockwell needed a bone-weary dirt farmer, worn down by trying to make a living off the land, to pose for that painting, he looked all over the Midwest. He was just about ready to give up when he was drivin’ down Highway 6 and saw me on my rusty old John Deere tractor a-plowin’ a field for alfalfa. Or soybeans. Or barley. Or somethin’ else. Shucks, it was so hot and so dusty I probably didn’t know what I was doin’. So over a cold glass of lemonade he talked me into posin’ for that there picture, and the rest, as they say, is his’try.

D18 got quite a surprise when we stopped by NYU London on a trip over there. I had done a Google Street view so I sort of knew what to expect. It was one of those, “Google Maps says it’s right here???”, moments.

I am waiting for the day that a college announces they have more majors than they have students. It won’t be long.