@maplefall You picked a school I know - UBuff. In the spirit of the thread, the negatives on UB are the two campuses that can be hard to travel between, the weather and the ugliness and spread of the UB- Amherst campus. It was built during the brutalist period and they didn’t want buildings close enough for 60’s riots. I found UT Austin much prettier. It seemed very easy to bike and walk the large campus. And the weather is MUCH better. My s didn’t choose to attend so I only have my impressions from a day long tour.
In the discussions of dorms at UChicago, many people have mentioned how ugly Max P is. It was considered so ugly that someone asserted that this was the best reason to choose to live there - if you’re living inside Max P, you don’t have to look at it…
For us it was Elon. Looking at all the information on paper, I really thought my DD would love the school. My DH, DD and I toured it and unanimously voted it off the list. My DD said as soon as she stepped on campus she knew it was not the place. It did not help that the main entrance to the College was blocked by construction and google routed us through an awful rundown neighborhood. We all felt the college was trying to be something they were not. Note to ad coms - celebrate the school you are not the school you want to be! They also made a huge deal about how they were a Division 1 athletic school and that they were building a new basketball arena. It seemed like their focus was trying to compete with other school’s athletic programs and we felt academics were basically ignored.
@sahmkc " It seemed like their focus was trying to compete with other school’s athletic programs and we felt academics were basically ignored."
Even without the construction issue and athletics discussion, my D felt EXACTLY the same way. She couldn’t wait to get out of there.
UT Austin is very nice and pretty compact for a huge school. Most buildings are white limestone aka Austin stone. Red tile roofs and lush landscaping.
We lived in Austin 20 years ago and loved it. My husband was a post-doc in chemistry there. I would have loved for my D to apply, but she doesn’t like huge state schools.
@sahmkc That reminds me of a lifetime ago when I was looking at graduate business schools. Darden (UVA) had a presentation at a hotel in Boston that went like this: Harvard students do 850 case studies each year. Darden students do 851." After the fifth comparison someone raised their hand and said “so I should just go to Harvard?” Everyone lost it.
@MACmiracle @SwimmingDad @psycholing I spent a summer in the early 90s doing a post-grad program at U of Michigan and loved loved loved the cheap Korean food, which I’d never tried before. It was so disappointing to move away from Ann Arbor and find out the high prices for bulgogi and bibimbap everywhere else! BTW there was a good representation of aging longhaired hippes there that summer.
@goodjob, re. Providence, we were impressed by our tour last July and it’s high on DS’s list especially since he likes basketball. It didn’t hurt that they were fairly generous with merit aid as well. We’d heard good things about it from families with older kids. DS goes to a Catholic school which is practically a feeder for Providence, with 1/4 of the graduating class applying and 80% of those applicants accepted. We were prepared for the bad neighborhood and it helps that we also live in an older suburb in the Northeast. I can see people being turned off by it, though, and in fact when we went to eat at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant (with yummy clam cakes) DH noticed that even the police officer who was eating there looked a bit scary, someone you really wouldn’t want to mess with.
OTOH I can well understand families who aren’t Catholic feeling uncomfortable at the strong Catholic presence (nowhere as strong as Notre Dame, though)
Here’s a longer review:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20828250/#Comment_20828250
@websensation, about RPI, it was one of our least favorite schools. Not just because of the surrounding town or the campus–there were quite a few new buildings, one of them very impressive http://empac.rpi.edu/building but somehow they didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the campus. Also DD did a week-long NSF summer program there and the dorm was very depressing–cinderblock, battleship gray paint, ratty linoleum floors.
@crepes RPI / Troy was sketch upon entering…nice empty Starbucks in a semi sketchy brand new plaza. Seemingly nothing until you hit campus. Some kid (younger sibling…probably about 12 or so) coughing like he was going to hurl…which made everyone scatter from his part of the auditorium (and yes the family was from our high school in MA as I later learned). But then they started talking about the majors and how there are “no walls” and I watched my son physically lean forward. He loved it. I still thought Troy was a dump as we got Bruggers on our way out of town. My son said “Starbucks, Bruggers, good school…I’m set.” Shocked I was…shocked!
Well, if they had Brueggers, maybe I don’t mind staying at RPI for a week. I just thought it was a pretty depressing place. RIP RPI!
I know it’s a very good (even great) engineering school but . . . I just have a hard time imagining that RPI would be someone’s first choice.
I am generally not fond of colleges in cold places because when you wake up in the cold morning, you really don’t want to get out of your bed.
Let’s just get this straight, Jonathan the Husky is the king of college mascots. 
If you hate Brutalist architecture stay out of New Haven, we got rid of the NH coliseum but pretty horrific examples remain, and the Perelli building is supposed to be the gateway to New Haven. Nope.
The Yale library in question is called the Beinecke and it houses a large collection of rare books and manuscripts. There is a glass tower in the center of the building that is climate controlled and where the rarest books are stored in stacks. The windows are actually made of thinly cut marble which allows for diffused light so not to harm the books inside. It’s really a very cool place - second to Ingalls Rink, my favorite building. Other than that, Yale, eh.
U of Chicago sent my daughter mail twice a week for months and they are doing the same to my son. Some serious trees are dying for their campaign. My daughter and son are on opposite ends of the academic spectrum, so I am questioning their sincerity, and now I hate them.
^^^Bravo, way to hate @cleoforshort and keep this thing on it tracks!
D just came home from Southern CA for spring break on a red eye. Asked her if she wanted to stop at our local bagel place on the way home from the airport and her response was, “absolutely. The bagels in CA aren’t bagels. They’re like…bread.”
@cleoforshort et al. Quite a while ago, on one of these ‘hater’ threads ;0), I suggested a national mail back day when we send UChicago all their spam mail back. I’m doing it this time with DS2’s UChicago spam. If anyone cares to join me, save it up and send it back on May 1.
@2mrmagoo I’d do the same thing with all the Vanderbilt mailings, but the postage costs would cut too much into S19’s college fund lol
I just looked at Brown’s Science Library on Google maps street view. UGLY!!!
@TomSrOfBoston it’s hideous, I’ve been in it - even inside! It makes Snell look like a classic in mid-century architecture!
@2mrmagoo I’m in! So irritating and such a waste of resources. They could provide a scholarship for the cost of their mailings. On top of that DS has zero chance of an acceptance, he is a selectivity stooge to them. The whole college process is overwhelming and anxiety producing, courting a kid who they know won’t make it is unfair and just mean.
It’s scatter shot, broad advertising, not “courting” a kid. The college junk mail is no more directed at your kid or courting your particular kid than the ad for discounted carpet cleaning you found in the mailbox on the same day. Stop taking it so personally - it’s not mean, it’s just getting the message out to anybody who might possibly be considering going to college.
Or better yet, throw away any junk mail you receive from any college and do your own research.