I’ve had debates with people on whether food can really be culturally appropriated but that’s a topic for another thread.
@doschicos I wish someone would appropriate my culturally relevant hypercholesterolemia and prediabetes.
@GnocchiB The campus feels dark and there are exterior areas that are very austere. I can only describe it as the Stepford Wives, it looks perfect but feels a bit creepy. I can’t really give you a description more than that, but both my D17 and I just couldn’t shake it. We also didn’t meet anyone who was warm and friendly (who worked for the school), our tour guide had a chip on her shoulder and the people in admissions were curt and unwelcoming. D17 really wanted to love it but she just couldn’t get there. Obviously there are plenty of people who disagree with me, but we are there a few times a year for rowing (not at Princeton but in the area) so we’ve seen it a lot, and toured 3 times.
I just read some of the back and forth on this thread about Princeton. The town is quaint, we love the restaurants in the area and walking around. I am sure the school is a perfect for some kids. It just wasn’t for mine. My comment in no way should be a reflection of the student body, some of the kids we met on tour were lovely. D17 got to meet some of the National Team rowers when we were there and they were very welcoming, the boathouse is awesome!
Just reading about the school visits. D14 and I visited about 10 schools, D17 and I visited 10 schools. Both daughters are currently attending schools they did not visit. LOL, D17 didn’t see her school until orientation.
Man plans, God laughs.
This doesn’t really count because I just drove past the school on my way to somewhere, but Olivet University in Wingdal, NY. It’s campus used to be a psychiatric hospital for decades and prior to that I think it was a prison.
@melvin123 I have got to visit that college. The probably could make a fortune renting out their facilities to movie companies making horror movies. Your description also reminds me of our local high school.
I recall visiting my brother’s dorm at Notre Dame back in the 1970s. It was awful and they actually referred to some rooms as “coffin singles” because they were the size of a coffin. They also occasionally had food riots, the food was so bad. Things have improved massively since then. In my case, I recall the dining hall serving ‘fish pizza’ (day old breaded fish with tomato sauce on top) and something we called ‘mystery meat’. The hamburger also looked like it had pieces of Q-Tips in it.
@alizarin It really is amazing what different impressions kids form of colleges. My D. absolutely loved Columbia and Barnard. She said the energy in Barnard’s main building was amazing (I can’t recall the name of the building) and felt that the students at Columbia were incredibly bright but fun. She also formed a very different impression of the students, saying they didn’t feel or act nearly as privileged as the ones she had met at Princeton, some LACs (i.e., Scripps and Pomona) or even UCLA.
I also recall her reacting poorly to small colleges. We had barely set foot on Bowdoin’s campus when she said “let’s go”, and she had a similar reaction to Middlebury (saying it reminded her of being on a farm). I conversely found them charming, but then I love quaint colleges.
Fish pizza…gagging over here.
Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken New Jersey is for Hobos. It was a dump.
Many of Notre Dame’s dorms are still very…basic. D’s room freshman year was a teeny-tiny double on the 4th floor with slanty ceilings, no elevator and no air conditioning. She has fond memories of that room. 
Somewhat related to college visits and fish pizza…
@melvin123 When I got back from a three day college visit trip the other night, H had fish pizza waiting for us, but different from the description above.
I was tired and burned out from driving and the text sent to D about the fish pizza when I was five minutes from home-sweet-home put me in an awful mood. And then I got even grumpier after I arrived and found out about some important stuff that was forgotten about in our absence. H didn’t appreciate me coming home grumpy when delicious fish pizza was waiting and we did not have a happy reunion.
The good news is that after a good sleep, I ate the fish pizza for lunch yesterday and it was very tasty, and H and I made up.
To get back on topic … the visit to Grove City College was a disappointment. The campus and buildings were beautiful, and the staff and students were exceptionally kind and accommodating. D has applied only to less selective colleges–in other words, all very much safeties-- but the average stats of students admitted Grove City College makes it lean in the direction of a match. And it has everything she is interested in. In concrete terms, the labs for independent research were disappointing and that is something very important to her. But the main thing was that she just felt she did not fit in. 
The use of smiley faces is highly discouraged on this thread. If you must smile, please do so in the privacy of your home. Reserve smiling in public, for when your child gets rejected from a school you can’t afford. 
I promise to do my best to not smile on this thread anymore.
@cleoforshort I thought I was one of the only ones, with so much talk on CC about finding the right fit. My D 17 and I visited around 15 colleges and she didn’t see hers until move in day! Not the way I wanted it to happen, but that’s life!
We visited 12 schools w/ my DD starting the summer before her junior year. Most became “no-gos” (Middlebury too rural, BU too urban, I forget what was wrong w/ BC, but she couldn’t even finish the tour). She ended up applying to 5 she’s never been to, so we may be visiting them in April, depending on acceptances!
We visited 7 schools in 7 days last June by car in the midwest in 3 states we have never been to… it was interesting to hear my D give feedback which in some cases not all positive… the good thing was the reality of senior year and college apps hit early and we had a productive summer!
@MomOutWest My D17 is at BC. It’s the school we never visited until orientation!
@slimmy - Could it be that you do not have the high school GPA, SAT/ACT/AP scores, and/or ECs to be considered for admission to Stevens? You seem to uniquely denigrate Stevens as opposed to most of the other schools you mentioned in your previous posts. If you don’t like Stevens, that’s fine, Stevens has its pick of the best from the many times greater applicant pool of those clamoring to gain admission than it has seats in the freshman class. Nobody cares that you do not care for it. Those of us who sweated out the intense 145 credits over four years for one of the most academically rigorous engineering degrees of any school in the United States and who derived success in our chosen professional endeavors as a result just laugh at you.
@Engineer80 The title of this thread is What school was unexpectedly your least favorite when you visited?
I answered with my opinion of what I saw with my own two eyes on Stevens’ campus, it is a dump.
Since the thread asked for opinions and I answered with my mine you are therefore wrong.