Holy Cross is very competitive, but I think it would even be more competitive were it not for living in Worcester.
Sorry. I meant is Holy Cross in an area that has been/is being renovated ? As a Catholic I am curious. Thank you in advance !
Holy Cross is in a more residential part of town. Perfectly nice, safe area.
Yes, Holy Cross is on the hill and there is Rte 290 in between HC and downtown. It is a safe area. WPI is on a northern side of the town. That area is relatively safe, too. Assumption College may be in the safest area of Worcester.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/07/realestate/commercial/long-a-college-town-worcester-now-looks-the-part.html
This NYT article from 2 years ago illustrates the nice direction the city is moving. Many new hotels, restaurants and improved public spaces. Nice city and a great college town. Holy Cross is a gorgeous campus and a safe one. College is a gem.
@Publisher re: Lewiston It feels like the town is going through a hard time and isnât in the best shape. It felt almost like a âregional gothicâ thing where everything feels normal but off. I wasnât crazy about it.
@Publisher Holy Cross is in a good area. Itâs a fenced campus and the area around it isnât too bad.
@kimfeth and @MADad Iâll have to agree with you both about Amherst. Our visit there was more than three years ago but itâs almost as if we were touring with you, although we had a pleasant young woman from Maine as our tour guide. Perhaps she was fleeing Lewiston? Students seemed muted/unhappy, and the campus a bit worse for wear despite a beautiful fall day. The admissions presenter mostly was going through the motions, as if he felt most attendees never had a chance of being admitted, anyway, especially if they were not either wealthy or an URM. We never looked back.
Planning a 3 week trip to the US next month to visit collegesâŠsecretly hoping I come away with a story worthy of this thread.
Iâm back from College of Charleston and ready to trash it!
âŠbut I canât, really. The biggest drawback I observed was that it gets super crowded on those narrow historic district sidewalks at class-change time.
First year suite was a little too modern (stainless kitchen appliances for college kids? Come on).
Seemed to be lots of uber wealthy kids there.
Sadly, thatâs all Iâve got. If you are an SC resident the place is probably a bargain. If not, be rich.
@CValle please start a thread for your journey and we will all chime in in real time to tell you what to notice and hate at each school - Iâll get my weather maps and crime statistics sites all set up!
Man, I feel like S1 and I really missed out not getting all these bad experiences/tours. Maybe weâre just insensitive, athletic types.
The U of CHI tour had itâs warts, but it didnât sour S1 on the place, though i think it made him wonder about the types heâd find on the student body a bit?
In a sort of pitiful attempt to pile on Amherst( like all the cool parents), we did have a presentation by a head coach there and found him pretty pompous. KInd of odd, because in that particular sport Amherst is nothing special. We kept looking at each other and shaking our heads...he pretty well killed any idea we might have of following up there.
Good going dissers! The more you are negative and turn others off the better the chances for those who want any given school⊠Of course a chance in a gazillion going to a chance in a bazillion doesnât help much.
Our UChicago tour guide was sort of adorably nerdy. So this is not really a diss. But D and I did enjoy his attempts to convince our tour that Chicago is not where fun goes to die anymore. Like when he told us about campus safety by explaining, âThere are safety escorts. If itâs 2:00 in the morning on Saturday and you need to walk home from somewhere, like the library, you just callâŠnot that youâre expected to be at the library until 2:00 in the morning on the weekends, though.â And when he was telling us about his frat and how they really know how to party. And then went on to describe the Latke-Hamantash Debate as an example of wild times in Hyde Park. He was sweet, though. It was just that every time he opened his mouth to try and make UChicago sound like Party-U, he wound making exactly the oppostie impression.
LOL @OHMomof2 I had a different take on Charleston - the dorms we saw (and we saw at least four) were all awful! In fact, dd said it was like being in jail! All the dorms were very very dark inside, especially the common areas like the study lounges. as well as the suites - except for the bedroom portion which had a window. This might not be a big deal for some, but my dd needs natural light. We did not see any stainless steel appliances and we were there less than a year ago.
Our biggest drawback was that majority move off campus after freshman year (I can see why!), and housing is not cheap in Charleston! At least three of ddâs classmates are freshman there, none what I would consider âuber wealthyâ but perhaps upper middle class but you would never know by how they dress.
@GnocchiB - LOVE IT!
We visited Charleston last year and had the same negative impression of dorms. They looked like jail cells. Itâs too bad because thereâs so much to love about Charleston.
My younger child will probably look at College of Charleston but it belonged on this list after a visit with my now junior in college. CoC had been recommended by the college counselor and weâd heard good things about it but I had to make our reservations before my student had a chance to properly research the school so they sat down to mine the website in the hotel the night before the tour. The college website had a link to a âTop 10 reasons to choose CoCâ list. This is the list in its stripped down form (I just found it again on line):
- Charleston
- Campus is beautiful
- The weather is always perfect
- The beach
- Shopping
- Movies and TV shows
- Celebrity Sightings
- Cougar Pride
- Fun activities on campus
- Make connections for your career
- Did we mention the beautiful campus?
The fact that the original list was from a rather fluffy college guide site made us hopeful someone just wasnât paying attention to how vapid it made the college sound when they posted the link. Unfortunately the next morning the information session started with a presenter telling us about how great Charleston was-the shopping, the weather, the beachâŠ
The talk then turned to more serious things like academics, study abroad, internships and research possibilities, but by then recovery was impossible. The school had totally lost any chance of my student taking it seriously.
We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the weather while we shopped in lovely Charleston. 
@57special My daughterâs friend was being recruited by U Chicago, when her mother picked her up at the airport she got in the car and said âUniversity of Chicago is not where fun goes to die.â LOL
She went to another school because of the coaching but also because she wanted a team that stayed dry during season.
Columbia. The AO lectured for 55 minutes and then asked for questions. There werenât any we were sleeping.