I used to enjoy this thread before it became a “my school is better than your school” thread.
I used to enjoy this thread too. FYI - some of us could care less about Ivy League schools.
“I used to enjoy this thread before it became a “my school is better than your school” thread.”
Agree. “Your school sucks” is so much more fun than “my school is better.”
Please pm all complaints to @northwesty @CaBeachMom.
But I hear you and I vow never again to say anything that will further an honest discussion with people with good intentions. After all In this day and age we’re competing with presidents with porn stars for your entertainnent dollar (oh we’re not getting paid!)
Well anyway I will sign a binding agreement not to go off topic for a mere 130k. My attorney will work it out with yours.
And yes I digress again… and in case you were wondering every school still sucks in its own special way and no, none are close to perfect and the ivy is little more than whitewash.
Does it sort of count if I truly wanted to hate a place and just… didn’t? I should get credit for attempted hate, right?
My son was very interested in UMich. While I agreed with him that it’s a great school, fantastic alum network and their math department is a hidden gem (with the department head being especially kind and helpful to DS), I thought the OOS tuition and total costs were outrageous. Since DS isn’t a “big school” kinda guy, I figured we’d go visit, he’d get overwhelmed at the size, how impersonal big schools are and how generally institutional big schools are and a crummy visit would solve this problem of him wanting to go to this (in my opinion) expensive school.
Did not happen. We both really liked it. Beautiful campus, not overwhelming, friendly intelligent people and the personal tour of the math department was a huge highlight. And Ann Arbor appeared to be a great place to live on the whole.
So, um, to get back to the negativity… they do have Giant Killer Squirrels there. It’s probably just a northern thing, but our squirrels here in Florida are small and grey. These things at UMich were the size of Cocker Spaniels (OK, slight exaggeration) and were so tame that one put a gentle foot on my shoulder when it climbed up the back of the bench next to me! So if you’re afraid of Giant, Mutant, Killer, Probably Rabid, Fake Tame Squirrels - avoid UMich at all costs!!!
In the spirit of this thread, I want to second the concerns about UMich, my alma matter. When I went to UM, having never set foot in the state before orientation, I too was terrified of the squirrels, and I am an animal lover. I mean I had pet frogs, toads, salamanders, turtles, hamsters and lizards --but still found the ubiquitous UM squirrels spooky. I swear as they sat around the quad looking at us, incessantly chittering, they were plotting something.
Furthermore the weather is to die for, in the literal sense. Some 30 years later I still have nerve damage in my toes from jogging in the winter there. Any why does no one mention that you need to bike to get to your classes on time since they are invariably across campus? Imagine a gal teetering on her bike in the snow wearing running shoes. On top of the toe damage, I still have scars from the bike accidents. Stay away if you value your life.
^^You missed out then because Hamilton is one of the nicest LACs. It’s campus is a cross between Middlebury with the Science Center on one end of campus and Amherst with its use of Adirondak chairs on the quad.
I really wanted my daughters to like Northwestern. Didn’t happen. They love Chicago but Evanston isn’t quite Chicago, and the campus seemed to lack coherence, just a random jumble of buildings. Plus the tour guide spent most of the tour trying to impress us with all the famous entertainers who had gone to school there. Who cares?
But you should see those Ann Arbor squirrels at Hash Bash! Little varmints can party! :))
I did my graduate work at Ann Arbor in the late 80s and loved it. When I visited with my son two years ago I was a bit taken back by how upscale the place had become and how the student body looked wealthier. My son was looking at academic buildings. I was wondering where all the $3 lunch places and underage bars had gone. And almost gone were the ubiquitous smelly, shaggy haired guys and hairy legged women with long frizzy hair wearing long skirts with Birkenstocks around…which still made up 140% of the graduate school aged population. And why, oh why, was the horrible pizza place at the corner of Packard and State with the great picnic tables that stayed open after the bars closed gone? shedding tears
Enough shade for you all?
In D’s year we saw a surprising number of colleges with those. Albright in PA (as I recall they were all a dark red, schools colors)…Amherst…and the one that’s actually adjacent to the Adirondacks - St Lawrence!
@bclintonk My son felt the same about Northwestern. The auditorium overlooked a beach that had a windsurfing class going on. The campus layout made no sense to us and my son asked (toward the end of the tour) “where is the center of campus where people hang out on nice days?” The guide pointed to this rock in the middle of small cement plaza and said “right here…see how everyone paints the rock”. So my son says “and where do people hang out?” Guide says “we are too busy to hang out. We are writing plays and making scientific break throughs and improving ourselves and the lives of others”…or something equally snotty and lame. My son turned to me and said “should we get your a coffee before we get back on the L or just go straight to the L?”
I really hated RPI campus when I visited long time ago. Has there been some improvements? Most depressing college campus I thought.
Toured NYU with daughter (a California kid) and we both hated, hated, hated it. Daughter said she didn’t want to go to a school with taxis and city buses running right through it. Toured Columbia during a sleet storm, and while she liked it, we were both freezing at the end. I asked her what she thought of Columbia and she said, “it was nice. Can we go somewhere where they serve hot soup?” Went on a tour of Harvard and I think everyone was kind of creeped out by the tour guide who, in talking about the dorms, mentioned that there were “psycho singles,” single rooms for students who were just flipping out because of the stress of going to Harvard. Daughter ended up at UCLA and loved it.
Son got into UC Riverside, but disliked it intensely during a tour…just seemed too much like an asphalt jungle for a nature and outdoor sports-loving kid. Ended up at Colorado School of Mines and couldn’t be happier.
Son #2 is a senior this year and weighing his college options.
@Collgbrwsr my son hated UC Riverside too. It is not a very happy place and has many ugly buildings. We have a tradition of buying something from every school we tour (usually a mini basketball with School logo) but he didn’t want to even look. Oh well. The only draw for UCR was the med school direct admit program.
“While I agreed with him that it’s a great school, fantastic alum network and their math department is a hidden gem (with the department head being especially kind and helpful to DS)…”
Michigan is well known to have one of the top math departments in the US. It is not a “hidden gem” at all.
Michigan has a good math department. Unfortunately the Unabomber got his PhD there…
Unabomber got his bachelor’s in Harvard tho @Hamurtle
@SwimmingDad I was in Ann Arbor in the nineties. I don’t remember much scraggly long hair and Birkenstocks, but I wore a hippy skirt in the summer and went through a hairy leg phase. ;))
And I remember watching the squirrels out my window as I drank coffee. I drank a lot of coffee then. Nice coffee shops were popping up.
I miss the delicious $5 Korean meals.If I went back to Ann Arbor and there were no more places like that I would cry.
“As an undergraduate at Harvard, Kaczynski was a research subject in an ethically questionable experiment conducted by psychology professor Henry Murray, which some analysts have claimed influenced Kaczynski’s later actions.”
The “unibomber” hated His time at Michigan. I guess Midwest friendly did not sit well with him.
There are a few places in the Midwest that aren’t really “Midwest.” Ann Arbor is one of them…too many snarky Coastals. Gold Coast & wealthy suburbs north of Chicago are also not classic Midwest.
I grew up mostly in Michigan, was a big U of Michigan sports fan, & have lots of relatives who went there. The more I dealt with UofM alumni as an adult, the more turned off I got. They tend to think the world revolves around them, and they often assume everybody agrees that their peer schools are Harvard & Stanford. I can understand why MIchigan State grads tend to loathe them.
I used to love going to U if M football games & tailgating on the golf course across from the stadium. But the other tailgaters tended to be so rude & inconsiderate that I have stopped going.