<p>I strongly disagree with the way the discipline system is set up at Harvard. There isn’t enough student involvement or a reliable way to ensure that the subject of an investigation can advocate for himself. (That being said, it’s less strict than the student-run systems I’ve encountered elsewhere, but I’m a lawyer, and I think bad process is always bad, even if it leads to the right result.)</p>
<p>I also wish some of the non-transfers appreciated it a little bit more. There’s a small group of kids who take Harvard completely for granted, and they will complain about the most minimal stuff (like that there aren’t enough places on campus to drink illegally after 2 a.m.). We transfers would get together in shock and say, “My roommate is complaining about X, Y, and Z! I wish they could see my old school…”</p>
<p>I see that Brown hasn’t fixed the food & dorm flaws that bugged my sister, class of '95. She lived in French House sophomore year to get away from the regular dorm, spent junior year abroad, and moved off campus as soon as she could.</p>
<p>Such an interesting thread. There are many negatives noted here that I have never thought of, such as difficulty with waiving insurance or paying for college. Both of those are easy at my D’s school, University of Northern Colorado. </p>
<p>The one thing I don’t like is that there isn’t much to do on campus. I attended a huge state university and there were tons of concerts, movies, lectures, plays, restaurants. Very different in Greeley. You have to have a car to get around, too.</p>
<p>My D has big gripes with the administration–feels they are very cold, uncaring, and against the students and faculty. They started charging per page for printing in the campus computer labs this fall, and she had an absolute fit about that. (I didn’t; paper is expensive.)</p>
Yes, I agree - but my point is that I think that even in co-ed situations, the students are more likely to be OUT if there is an “out” to attract them, and I’m thinking that urban schools simply have more off-campus attractions. Of course, size probably has a lot to do with it as well - larger colleges probably offer a wider range of social options in general, simply because there are more people, and a larger campus probably also offers a wider range of on-campus social activities.</p>
<p>“Yes, I agree - but my point is that I think that even in co-ed situations, the students are more likely to be OUT if there is an “out” to attract them, and I’m thinking that urban schools simply have more off-campus attractions.”</p>
<p>Yup. (or at least statistically so.) Put it together: women’s college; single gender dorms; in an urban environment, and it is a powerful anti-drinking prophylaxis.</p>
<p>Am glad my S has not decided to change his very low-key approach to dressing & life, even if you have found USC & UCLA to be more into the yuppy scene.
My S is happiest in t-shirts & cargo shorts & athletic shoes. I forced him to also bring up some long pants & jeans. He’s not at all into designer or yuppie brands. So far, don’t believe he’s been affected by the “yuppie” mindset that undoubtably exist in parts of his campus–maybe engineers are exempt because they’re oblivious? He’s not into partying or the Greek scene either, which saves our pocketbook as well.</p>
<p>Really like so much about WASHU, but this one proved to be problem…my S thinks the separation of the freshmen dorms from the rest of the students make the “weird freshmen stuff” that much more pervasive…ie excessive drinking and not much other social life. He was in upper level Japanese classes with upper classmen and that was a great experience for him. He then found kids who were not trying to prove how much they were enjoying college/how much they DID NOT miss home/how cool they were.</p>
<p>blucroo, I’m hoping that my son and your daughter have met! One of my few gripes with Tufts is mentioned on the front page of today’s Tufts Daily: the lack of places on campus to sit and shmooze. Of course, the article refers to the dearth of places for faculty and students to interact informally and thereby establish a sense of community. From my selfish perspective, I find myself antsy whenever we visit because there’s just nowhere to make oneself at home. (Let’s not even mention the house where my son is living; I’d need a tetanus shot before sitting aspell there.) Otherwise, he’s happy as a clam and has gotten involved on a campus-wide level that he never did in high school.</p>
<p>Haha, some of the off-campus housing is awful. Landlords actually are quite open about saying they hate renting to a house of all-boys, so if your son is living with all male friends, it’s likely he got one of those few landlords who either doesn’t care or has already has his/her house so torn apart, that only guys will want to live there. WHen I was looking for off-campus housing a year ago, every landlord made sure to ask me if there were any boys who were going to be my roommates… haha</p>
<p>my son’s landlord was an elderly woman who, unfortunately, passed away over the summer before he had even moved in. her widower is a “curmudgeon” (sorry, nothing personal to our curmudgeon) who can’t wait to list the house as soon as their lease is up.</p>
<p>Brown’s housing must be EXTREMELY variable, as my daughter’s dorms were all lovely, clean and charming for all three years that she was on campus. SHe did say the food wasn’t great, but I just thought that’s what college food was like.</p>
<p>As for Harvard, my complaint echoes one of Calmom’s: the kids end up spending way too much on food because there is only one meal plan option and if you miss a meal, you can’t use those “points” at another on-campus place (like you can at Brown). I actually spoke to the head of dining services about this, and he explained that they set the price of the meal plan as an “average” of how many meals student’s in general consume in a week. He also said that the Harvard “house” system, each with its own dining hall, makes dining services more expensive. Another problem is that on-campus eateries (which are cheaper than what’s in Cambridge) are just not open late enough, and tend to have variable hours.</p>
<p>I also think that the Harvard calendar should be changed…it starts too late and ends too late. I now have mixed feelings about the winter break and exam schedule…while the Xmas break is not stress free, the extra study week afterwards makes the latter part of 1st semester much less crazy.</p>
<p>At UC Berkeley, you can use your points at a variety of food places on campus and even the coffee shops. Too many points for most girls and not enough for most guys, my DD bought pounds & pounds of coffee beans for us and lots of gift meals for guy dormmates. Maybe ya’ll can suggest alternate options to the big H??</p>
<p>As for freshman housing vs. mixed years housing:</p>
<p>Son at Vassar - couldn’t imagine living with only freshmen and not upperclassmen too</p>
<p>Daughter at Harvard - couldn’t imagine living in a dorm that wasn’t just freshmen</p>
<p>Down side of living with mixed years - son says that his good friend down the hall who is a sophomore will never live on campus with him again … next year she’ll be abroad when she’s a junior, and the year after he’ll likely be abroad when he’s a junior and she’s a senior. Strangely enough, I remember TheDad addressing the same problem when his daughter was a freshman at Smith.</p>
<p>DoneMom - Agree with you about Harvard’s calendar starting and ending too late.</p>
<p>I like the all inclusive meal system at Harvard better than the point system at Vassar, though Vassar did give freshmen until their fall break in October to make changes to the meal plan if needed.</p>
<p>Oh, and while Harvard rarely has breaks, I’ve heard that Vassar has the least amount of school days that a school needs to be accredited. They sure are off a lot (including a full week in October.)</p>
<p>Colgate - son reports food isn’t so great. Last year in October I posted on CC wondering how my son was spending so much $$ in rural upstate NY. Some suggested that it was alcohol, but it turned out to be FOOD, anywhere and everywhere outside the dining halls. When I told him to slow down on the spending, he did, and he came home at Thanksgiving 15 lbs thinner. This is a kid who spent multiple summers at a sleepaway camp that hardly served gourmet food, so I don’t think it was a matter of being picky. Second semester he seemed to settle into a more reasonable pattern of outside food purchases/dining hall meals. This year he’s eating at a fraternity which he reports is better than the dining hall.</p>
<p>OK…Boston University where DS is a senior. It has been a fabulous educational experience for him and Boston is a terrific college town. My one beef is the very poor freshman (and for many sophomore) housing. The rooms are extremely small, with poor storage, awful carpet (if there is carpet), pitiful closets (some with curtains…no room to OPEN a door), desks that probably couldn’t hold a typewriter when the dorms were built in the 70’s, outlets poorly placed…and completely excessive costs. Room and board is about $10,000 for the year. Upperclass housing is actually quite good…if you can deal with the “big” dorms that long.</p>
<p>thumper- your post made me laugh remembering our earlier discussion of the facilities at NEC! At least the BU freshman dorms have to be better than NEC, the standard by which all dorms are measured…:)</p>
<p>Princeton: My d is truly deliriously happy there. What do we not like? Well, the fact that the admin has not done a very good job implementing its relatively new grade-deflation policy has led to a huge amount of controversy on campus and a resentment on the part of many students . Professors are making announcements like “If you’d taken this course two years ago a lot more of you would have gotten an A” and “I’m going beyond grade deflation and in my class only 20 percent of you will get an A-range grade, if that many” and “Too many of you got A’s on the test so we’re curving it down.” My d has always been eager to learn and having the grades turned into a major focus, not to mention a three-card monte game, is quite unappealing. Of course I do feel the need here to say that she is doing extremely well! But the system really needs fixing, and the admin doesn’t like to admit that they definitely have not been Ivy leaders in implementing this policy; nobody has followed in their footsteps.</p>
<p>I would say that the freshman dorms are not, for the most part, as nice as those at H and Y; however, that would not be a dealbreaker in my book. Overall the place is terrific. They should let the kids stay longer. Mine never wants to leave.</p>
As an engineer of over 30 years - this is likely true (at least it is for me). If one of my Ds wants $200 jeans, they’d better start ear-marking their savings.</p>
<p>Regarding the insurance waiver - it’s not that waiving itself is so difficult, it’s the timing. One must waive each of the 3 quarter (4 if attending summer), UCLA doesn’t allow waiving out of the entire year at once (UCSD does allow it) and the waiver must happen between a couple of dates and be done before paying the bill for that quarter. We’ve marked the calendar to ensure we don’t miss the next ones. The USHIP buys us nothing since our insurance is fine.</p>
But the system really needs fixing, and the admin doesn’t like to admit that they definitely have not been Ivy leaders in implementing this policy; nobody has followed in their footsteps.</p>