This whole discussion is about people being surprised at how much they dislike a school. Perhaps if colleges’ names were more indicative of their character, such surprises would be minimized…Stepford U., the College of Yurts, University of California at Concrete by the Sea, Massachusetts Institute of Ugly Buildings…
This is many years old, as it’s my experience, not my son’s. I’m originally from a small town in the Midwest, and had a pretty sheltered childhood. Half way through high school, I started at an East Coast boarding school. We took a field trip to go see a Shakespeare play being performed at Yale, and I thought it would be a great opportunity to get a look around Yale at the same time. We got off the bus on the edge of Yale’s campus, and almost right into a crime scene. There was a chalk outline on the sidewalk, roped off with yellow tape, and I didn’t know what that was all about. Someone had to explain to me that they outline dead bodies with chalk. That was it for me and Yale. School still gives me the creeps whenever I think about it.
Nope. Even in Spring, it’s still ugly. 
Pity the Yale tourguide who had to lead a group of prospective students and their parents past that spot that day: “Please folks, try to step OVER the chalk line!”
My all-time list of good schools in places I don’t want to live.
Yale
RPI
USC
U of Chicago
I haven’t been to New Haven since 1985 and Troy since the early 80’s but they were both pits then.
Of USC on top of the neighborhood she said that she was creeped out by everyone greeting each other with the USC hand sign and “fight-on” and like ND she called it a cult. Of UofC she wouldn’t apply because Chicago style pizza is disgusting.
BTW had to laugh when someone was frieghtened by the neighborhood around UCSD. The school is horribly homely but the neighborhood is one of the safest in San Diego. Yes you might be accosted by some Chinese Electrical Engineering students but the odds are very low.
Whimsical Gulags. Hmm. Sounds like an emo band, @moooop 
Lehigh was a school that was a good fit and has a solid reputation…but 3 out of 4 in our family left with a sense that they had visited the set of a honor movie. I didn’t “feel” it…but appreciate the comments.
@Old_parent - I would add Hopkins (Baltimore) to your list.
If you want a few yucks (and you/your child isn’t going to Yale) google “New Haven Crime Log.” We did it after my D visited it because she had really loved it. I was not as enthused with the degree to which the university is smack dab in the middle of the city of New Haven and the gates into the residential colleges were a huge tip off to me that there was a lot to worry about.
I just pulled the site back up to look at the stats for one month in September 2014 and there are entries for the numbers of crimes (in parentheses) such as
135 - CONFIDENCE - FLIM FLAM (8)
114 - BREACH OF PEACE (176)
115 - DISORDERLY CONDUCT (32)
116 - HARASSMENT (68)
121 - ROVING GANGS (1)
270 - FOUND INTOXICATED (6)
271 - COMMON DRUNKENESS (3)
294 - EVADING RESPONSIBILITY (139)
10 - SUDDEN DEATH/BODIES FOUND (7)
When we checked it after our visit “MAYHEM” was a category and had an entry. Maybe the “ROVING GANGS” had upped their game?
Lol, I wonder if “EVADING RESPONSIBILITY” is something I should call the police about when my 10th grader doesn’t make his bed??
I wasn’t on this trip, but D17 and her dad went to visit Bryn Mawr last summer, and she aggressively HATED it after th visit. Not just like, eh, not for me, but HATED it. Something about the campus made her angry.
I’m laughing imagining an admissions person somewhere trying to figure out how to make their school the perfect school… don’t have too many trees or not enough, kids can’t be too friendly or too disinterested. Campus can’t be too beautiful or ugly. Too preppy or too eclectic. Shouldn’t be too many farm animals or too many people. No roads running through it but not too far from roads. Buildings shouldn’t be boring or look like they were randomly placed there but on the flip side not too perfect. Tour guide shouldn’t look like they just got out of bed but please, not too chipper and excited…
Not boring, not too exciting.
I’d like to make this thread mandatory reading for those kids who come on CC lamenting they didn’t get into their “dream school” and now life is over. Your dream school is someone else’s nightmare!
Viva la difference!!!
Cornell…it was even a gorgeous day but there was no energy to the place.
@oldparent Don’t write off Troy, yet. It’s starting to have a resurgence. You can find other articles online.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/travel/another-hudson-river-town-reinvents-itself.html
Purdue, the student tour guide needed a class in public speaking. The content was good, but I was distracted by the number of “like” and “so, yeah!” injected into their speech.
Some kids have the knack, but yes, in general, a public speaking or even theater class would be a great pre-requisite to becoming a tour guide. One of the best tours we had (Dickinson) was given by a theater major. When he showed up he looked like he’d partied hard the night before and was hungover, but once we got going, he really turned it on like a professional. He knew how to project his voice, he understood pacing (even the jokes were perfectly paced) and he also put forth an entertainment value to our tour that most guides do not know how to do. In a perfect world…
@doschicos. A few weeks ago I was mapping routes to RPI that didn’t pass directly through the city. I knew if my daughter saw the Troy I remembered, it would be over. They didn’t give her enough aid and so they are off the list. I’m glad to hear they are having a resurgence.
It’s funny, I thought the same thing. I heard for YEARS how great UF is, and maybe my expectations were too high. It felt like 1975.
That being said, my son goes to UF now and loves it. It doesn’t show well necessarily, but there is something special going on there.
@GnocchiB list got me curious, so I pulled the stats for the Gator88NE household for last month (March 2017).
135 - CONFIDENCE - FLIM FLAM (8) (DS17 keeps coming up with reasons why I NEED to give him $)
114 - BREACH OF PEACE (176) (Me after finding out I’ve been duped again by DS17…or I’m out of beer)
115 - DISORDERLY CONDUCT (32) (DS’s bedroom, or any room he’s in for more than 2 minutes)
116 - HARASSMENT (68) (What I face every day from DS and the spouse…and the neighbors…my boss.)
121 - ROVING GANGS (1)(DS track team cleaned out our pantry…again…)
270 - FOUND INTOXICATED (6) (the wife after her “1” glass of wine…)
271 - COMMON DRUNKENESS (3) (me, it was March Madness!!)
294 - EVADING RESPONSIBILITY (139) (DS still hasn’t clean-up his room…)
10 - SUDDEN DEATH/BODIES FOUND (7) (Me, the day after “Common Drunkeness”)
@doschicos, I’d be a bit concerned about Troy, NY, like @oldparent. After all, the Forbes 2016 Financial Grades listing gives RPI a financial grade of C+, and the Sage Colleges (also in Troy) get a D rating (tenuous financially). See the link here:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/schifrin/2016/07/06/forbes-2016-financial-grades-is-your-college-financially-fit/#55f58a006e50
Closure of Russell Sage and affiliated schools would hurt real estate values, jobs and require repurposing those facilities.
RPI’s rating isn’t so hot, despite paying president Shirley Ann Jackson the highest salary of all U.S. private universities in 2014 (her compensation was $7.1 million in 2012), and with her still having time to serve on multiple corporate boards that pay her another $1 million+ each year. That seems a financial travesty-- under those circumstances, I’d never pay tuition to send a child there.
@soxmom We are in CT, D played AAU basketball a few years, most games were in New Haven. The week before games, I would hear about this shooting or that shooting on streets we’d be driving on or near - freaked me out. But the worst was the day we went to get lunch, driving down the road there is a person fully decked out in a complete Zoro costume with cape, mask, hat. No sword though, he had a jimmy and was walking down the street trying to break into cars. My daughter was like “Hey, look at that guy” and when I saw him I started yelling at her not to stare - was afraid he’d come at our car.
Ah, New Haven…
Hate to interrupt the hate, but…
My son is so moved by the beauty he notices at UCSD he is always texting photos–walking through the eucalyptus grove, the fog at night, view from bedroom window of sunset over the ocean, etc.
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