@OHMomof2 @mom2twogirls Or a wealthy family thing vs a middle class thing. All of the kids I knew from the NE and California were wealthy. No joke. I cannot think of one that was not.
@EllieMom - UCBā¦ āAnd the coffee was bad, too, which was a definite point against them.ā. Interesting because Berkeley has some great coffee houses in and around campus. 
Yes, wealthy too makes sense. Especially back then, the wealthier families would have been more likely to send their kids off to college that far.
Growing up in NYC Iād say I agree with you homerdog, about city kids being exposed to more, earlier. Exposure to lots of different people, ever present awareness of possible crime (OK for me it was a high crime city, not anymore), dealing with people in close quarters all the time (street, subway, bus). We were poor, like food stamps poor, but I still made my way to the major discos and punk rock clubs throughout high school with free passes that were given out to young women. We went to bars by 14 (drinking age was 18 tho, so a little easier). Access to subways and buses (and taxis, for those with $) made independent exploration easy from a pretty young age.
My dad lived in NJ for awhile, about 30 minutes from the city, and I thought it was odd how many kids I knew there who never went to the city at all, maybe once every year or so to a show or something. Visiting my g-parents in a rural area of the south, I knew many kids who had never left their county. They werenāt poor, really, it was just a choice their parents made. No public transportation means no way to get around on your own.
Apparently, they didnāt stop by Caffe Strada, just one of many great cafes surrounding the campusā¦
Itās interesting about the suburbs. Here on Long Island, there are towns in which very few people are connected to the city and other towns where they are very connected. In my town (45 to 50 minutes away from the city by LIRR, about the same by car), a lot of people do the daily commute to NYC for work. Many of them grew up in NYC or lived there for a 10 year period upon graduation if they grew up In the suburbs. Parents go into the city socially. Lots of the kids take classes in the city and most have learned to navigate the LIRR and subways by senior year of HS. Almost all of the kids get apartments in the city post college graduation and many are stayingāmoving to Brooklyn for more space. Yet, some closer in suburbs donāt have this mentality.
@sahmkc my kid decided that WashU was the place for him. Go figure why somebody from California decided to go to school in Missouri, but so far it has been a positive experience for him.
This thread has really gotten off track.
We better throw some shade on schools. Any comments on our favorite to rip on (Stevens, Tufts).
āAgree re Vandy being a bit disappointing. Nashville is nice & lively, & there are decent bars & restaurants adjacent to campus. And the Peabody part of campus is great. But, amazingly, the main part of campus looks somewhat like a 2nd rate liberal arts collegeā¦ smallish uninspiring & mismatched buildings scattered around haphazardly. And continual ambulance sirens due to the GIGANTIC MEDICAL CENTER right in the middle of everything. Nice planning. Darn Midwesterners!ā
The plush bucolic southern school vibe youād expect from Vandy definitely gets thrown off by the big medical center smack dab in the middle of the two undergrad campuses. In addition to the ambulances, thereās the noise and sight of the almost constant medical choppers hovering overhead. More urban than you would think. Like Penn or JHU rather than UVA or Duke.
āBut, amazingly, the main part of campus looks somewhat like a 2nd rate liberal arts collegeā¦ smallish uninspiring & mismatched buildings scattered around haphazardly.ā
Vandy is in the middle of pouring about one billion dollars (!!) into its campus to build out a series of brand new residential colleges. Mostly too late for my kid. But ten years from now, the main campus is going to look a lot different/better than it does now.
Donāt you all know that northeast should be spelled and pronounced norāeast? Similarly, why put effort into writing and pronouncing āthā in southeast and just make it souāeast? (A dig at the idiocy of media weather reports.)
Cultural differences. Read comments too. https://jwa.org/blog/coastie
" I believe the t-shirt was Harvard - The Michigan of the East."
Actually JFK was the one who called, āHarvard, the Michigan of the east.ā
Today I announce my candidacy to bring this thread back to greatness. Too long have we put up with potential murderers and rapists that have come to this thread illegally to do harm to this thread and take us off topic. So today I promise that we will build a wall, a huuuge wall, the greastest wall that the world has ever seen, and weāre going to make the other threads pay for itā¦
No really, I canāt go on with this. Either the thread getās back to petty assessments of Americaās great colleges or weāre going to have to have an intervention. (And while the previous paragraph was intended to get your attention, it is also a thinly veiled attempt to cajol you my fellow citizens into not getting fooled again). Please all I ask is that we just Make America Snarky Again
@Old_parent I will see you one and raise you oneā¦
S disliked everything about WashU in St. Louis, except for the buildings, he liked their look. Felt there was no diversity in majors or students, said school spirit was actually a negative number. Dull dull dull were his words, didnāt think he would get the full college experience there not having the perks and pizzazz of other schools. Just a big prep high school he called it. The worst he got though was from the students there, on first visit current students talked about the area around campus not being safe, that engineering was super weak, and how the school had no personality or recognition outside of Stl. (Apparently people think it is in DC or Seattle.) One could overlook this as a grumpy group if that same conversation hadnāt turned into a theme with everyone he talked to. The chance for big money pulled him back for another look. When there the second time for a merit interview students told him the BME program was really weak and they wished they had gone somewhere else. Received the Langsdorf fellowship, but just couldnāt learn to love it no matter how much money they gave him.
Bam there ya go, back on track.
The only things I remember from the UC Berkeley tour:
- It was foggy and cold, the color of the campus was grey, grey, and more grey.
- No smiles on anyone anywhere (except for perky tour guide who was told they had to smile)
- Being shown some door where protesters chained themselves to in the 60s
- Very run down dorms
- Scary wooded areas on edges and near engineering dorms that reminded me of āThe Shining.ā
- Using the bathrooms under the old football or track stadium (a giant slab of old concrete with crab grass in the middle) and having this eerie feeling that we were in an episode of Criminal Minds. Topped off by the younger sibling asking, āThink they find bodies here some mornings?ā
- Only to be topped off by the youngest sibling stepping in vomit on the way back to the car. Which was terrible (for the stepee), but hilarious (to the rest of us) because it, well, it just fit the day.
Got accepted, but no matter what a ranking says, didnāt consider it after multiple tours there (tried and tried again, but uh, no).
Ok, Iāll bite on the comment above so that I can refrain from commenting that norāeast is only used with an -er tacked on to talk about the weatherā¦
āFelt there was no diversity in majors or studentsā
Iām curious as to what majors your son would you want that WUSTL doesnāt have? It seemed to me that they have so many.
Second-hand bashing of WashU - met a professor from WashU at a dinner party and he dislikes the students there. Telling us not to apply, saying too many rich/dull kids, no spirits. We might scratch it from the to-visit list.
Piling on with some more WashU shade.
That school has about the worst names/brands going. WashU? WUSTL? WashU of St. Louis? All lousy. Those names make UChicago and UPenn sound great.
āsaying too many rich/dull kidsā
Yup. The median family income at WUSTL is $272k. Only school that is higher is Colorado College at $278k. 22% of students are 1%-ers, and 84% come from the top 20%.