<p>At Oberlin, my son was blown away by :
- Steinway grand pianos in every dorm
- ability of students to borrow 2 pieces of art per semester from the art museum.</p>
<p>irrational … the less my Mom liked a school the more I liked it</p>
<p>And I thought it was just me…here’s the third vote for the food at Pomona; and, I got a kick out of the “evening snack” although my S there swears he never has it.</p>
<p>For an irrational “negative” I was ready to scream if I heard one more person at Stanford tell the analogy that the students are like ducks on the water, very calm on the surface and paddling like crazy below…</p>
<p>There was a typo in the Barron’s 1975 (or 1974?) Guide to Colleges in which the Boston College entry said it was “Highly Competitive” (and therfore on par with Cornell, Chicago, and Penn) while at the front of the book it was grouped among the “Very Competitive” schools (and therefore grouped with the likes of Bates and Tulane"). Against all evidence, I chose to presume the typographical error was the latter one, and that it was really on par with the former group. Then along came Flutie while I was stationed overseas in the Navy and it zoomed up to the “Most Competitive” group. It was like having your awkward-hand-holding girlfriend from 8th grade turn out to be Miss Massachusetts. The most intense sporting event of my life was listening to the BC-Miami game on Armed Forces Radio while I sat in my Spartan hovel.</p>
<p>Lafayette: the brass handrail on the marble staircase in Kirby Hall of Civil Rights. It didn’t have a single fingerprint on it. My mother and I decided any school this clean had to be well run.</p>
<p>25 years later, my son’s two top choices (Lafayette & Union) had this in common: they both featured links to the TREES on their campuses on their website. With photos and background info on each tree. Lafayette’s trees disappeared in the redesign of their website, but Union still has a link to “The Trees of Union.” We decided we could judge whether a college was any good or not by whether they had their trees on their website.</p>
<p>Vassar’s beautiful campus … the first day we were there it snowed huge flakes as we walked around campus. It felt like we were inside a snow globe.</p>
<p>The day my son moved in it poured. Vassar is beautiful even in the rain.</p>
<p>And yes, the library and the window are breathtaking.</p>
<p><a href=“http://library.vassar.edu/about/window.html[/url]”>http://library.vassar.edu/about/window.html</a></p>
<p>That being said, walking across Cornell’s gorges is pretty incredible.</p>
<p>
agreed … earlier I shared my irrational response … my rational response was falling in love with Cornell’s campus within 5 minutes of being on campus</p>
<p>Lafayette - there is something about the statue of the Marquis on campus, from the day I toured to the day before I graduated, I spent many a time sitting with him, studying, sobbing, or just meditating…</p>
<p>We decided we could judge whether a college was any good or not by whether they had their trees on their website.</p>
<p>[What</a> did parents do before teh web?](<a href=“Trees of Reed”>Trees of Reed)
;)</p>
<p>The big cross at Sewanee- a Memorial to soldiers. Incredible view from the cross.</p>
<p>Rachacha, I assume you mean the statue by Colton Chapel (the one that is sword-free, thanks to Lehigh)? It’s a great statue, with those Japanese maples nearby. </p>
<p>I always thought the one by Gates & McKeen was a little wierd-looking, not nearly as dignified and rather chubby.</p>
<p>I went to visit Rice. I’d seen pictures, I knew it was really pretty… I really loved it the second I stepped on campus, but I wasn’t sold. The students were ridiculously friendly, and they seemed like they had a great time, which I was looking for… But I also wanted to go there to have a great time <em>learning</em> things. </p>
<p>I went with a friend to her differential equations class and had no idea what was going on, but the very animated professor was doing something with MATLAB. He typed a bunch of things out, talking all the while, explaining what he was doing, and then said, “And when we run this code…” He hit the enter button. A really cool looking, three-dimensional graph was projected on the wall.</p>
<p>The entire class of forty freshman breathlessly goes, “Ooooooooooooh!”</p>
<p>And that’s why I went to Rice.</p>
<p>At Colby, there were framed prints on the walls in the hallway in the dorm. FRAMED PRINTS. I have never seen a dorm hallway with anything other than bulletin boards, notices, and fire extinguishers. The dorm was SPOTLESS, first thing on Monday morning, as another mom and I were chuckling that “they always show you the girls’ dorms, never the guys’ dorms,” the tour guide said, “This dorm, like all dorms at Colby, is co-ed by alternating room.” My jaw dropped. I didn’t see a single candy wrapper, cigarette butt, or even a dead blade of grass on that campus. </p>
<p>But DS got waitlisted there… just as well.</p>
<p>I loved the dorm hallways at Caltech. They are covered with student painted murals. A sampling:<a href=“Dave Zobel”>http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~dzobel/walls/AlleyWallArt.htm</a> How can you not love it?</p>
<p>Walking into the main library at Harvard and seeing the Gutenberg Bible on display.</p>
<p>I felt like I was seeing the beating heart that birthed every stick and stone of the university around me and my entire way of life. It was a religious experience. I wanted to kiss it, or curtsey, or bow my head.</p>
<p>Much later, I got a kick out of noting that it was in the online library database, with the same notations as every other book: Vulgate, vellum, 1454.</p>
<p>Hanna: Inspiring post!</p>
<p>Bookstores. In our family, bookstores have always been one of the ranking factors of any trip, vacation, or recently, college visit. Cool used books and comfy chairs always tip the scales.</p>
<p>Olympia WA had a wonderful used bookstore. But my son didn’t apply to Evergreen.</p>
<p>Furman: Drop-dead gorgeous campus with amazingly nice people. Spent a beautiful spring day on the campus, speaking with administrators who clearly enjoy the students, students who clearly like their school, & alums who clearly love their alma mater. I knew right then that I would be happy if D chose the school (she did). And I will tell you my little secret … I really like the fact that so many Furman students end up marrying other Furman students. It’s not that I want D to go to school to find a mate … I don’t <em>expect</em> her to … it’s just that, after hearing so many stories about kids “hooking up” rather than “dating” at schools, I like the idea of actual relationships being the norm!</p>
<p>Lafalum - lol. Definitely the one by Colton…the other one looks like he is looking down his nose at you (not good for a student only there because of a hefty scholarship). They always have to box up the statues now (especially the leopard, which had certain parts painted the year I lived in Blair) during Lafayette-Lehigh week…</p>