<p>We had no bad luck with Stanford, but perhaps not a typical experience. SCEA admits get a special phone number and e-mail address for questions, phone calls from professors or students, an EA web site, various e-mail updates, nice handling of alternative overnight visits, etc.</p>
<p>One the other hand, their regular admissions phone number may be answered by a recording and their regular tours do not include a dorm.</p>
<p>soozievt</p>
<p>Later response, but same thing happened to us at Brown. Seemed strange that they wouldn’t give out the course book to anyone but seniors, but I presume they had their reasons (lack of adequate supply was told to us). Just seemed lame. That did turn D off, although she liked the school and surroundings, except for the one modern building (science lab?).</p>
<p>Turned off at Princeton by bizarre tour host.</p>
<p>Chicago: very good tour and best, by far, session afterwards, for the purpose of giving an idea what the school is actually all about. Best mailings, cleaver and interesting in addition to being informative.</p>
<p>Worst parking.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>College, like youth, is wasted on the young. And, as I have said before,** make sure your kids go to a college where you want to visit.** Off to LA to see our son, and away from snowy Wisconsin, in a couple of weeks.</p>
<p>Lunch: Pomona, very nice free lunch with tour guide in a regular student eatery. Stanford, coupons for lunch in the student union and best suggestions as to what to do on your own after lunch. Can’t remember any other such accomodations.</p>
<p>On an institutional level–admissions & staff</p>
<p>BAD Pitzer. Disorganized, sloppy, awful</p>
<p>GREAT Trinity-CT, Grinnell, Beloit, & Smith-- welcoming, organized, personal. Trinity = best orientation session… done by a dean of the college who was really wonderful. Grinnell & Beloit: fantasic coaches with above & beyond helpfulness.</p>
<p>On a personal Level: Tourguides, hosts-- Vassar & Haverford = best tour guides. Hamilton & Skidmore= nicest host students.</p>
<p>A- Clemson, good communications with admissions, received hand written
note, phone calls. A very well organized staff.</p>
<p>B+ University of South Carolina, good communications, need new tour
guides.</p>
<p>B College of Charleston, University of Tennessee</p>
<p>C+ James Madison University</p>
<p>C- Auburn University</p>
<p>D University of Rhode Island. A complete joke. The acceptance packet
looks like a summer camp brochure.</p>
<p>We also toured Elon. Our tour guide was awful…it was a small group, only 3 students and families. I wished we had joined the larger group! </p>
<p>Someone mentioned the tour guides at U of South Carolina…ours was terrific, and he had a large group. But he was knowledgeable and personable. We learned quite a bit on that tour. </p>
<p>This just shows that our perspectives maybe different…and/or the day we were at a particular college things either went better or worse than on other days.</p>
<p>“I still wish I could have fixed one daughter or another up with the young man who led the tour at W & M.”</p>
<p>My son fell in love with his tour guide at Northwestern. She almost made him forget about the educational opportunities at U. Chicago. But he was only 16 so he got over her.</p>
<p>Best - Carleton, McGill. Carleton was warm and welcoming both at the campus visit and in their communications throughout the year. My D said, “They were the only ones who usually sent cartoons!” Truly - most of their reminders and confirmations of receipt of documents were postcards with a college-application-related cartoon on the front. And, since my D is interested in swimming (though not recruited), the team captain sent e-mails and postcards at least once a month all year. They really impressed my D with the attention and informality - a welcome bright spot in the long slog through college apps.
McGill was also very helpful and warm for a relatively large school - great tour guide, wonderful personnel in the admissions office who helped us find answers to many questions. The tour guide was very honest about the drawbacks of a large school - large classes, bureaucracy - but shared her coping strategies.<br>
Fine but didn’t stand out - Macalester, Middlebury. U of Washington</p>
<p>Here’s a twist on the question, though perhaps a naive one:</p>
<p>Based on your experience, which school would you be willing to apply to and perhaps even attend without a campus visit, given the information available generally, on their web site, from road shows, etc? To paraphrase, which schools would you trust to have presented a relatively full and accurate picture, assuming the applicant has a clue in general as to what a LAC, an urban college, a huge state university, etc. is like?</p>
<p>Daderoo- U of Georgia. S applied there EA (sight unseen) and I was excited about the school and would have been happy to have him attend. I felt I understood what it was all about even without a visit. He got into his ED school, so I might never get to see Georgia (boo).</p>
<p>My quiet California son got such a good impression from Duke that it became his first choice school (unfortunately he is waitlisted and probably won’t attend.) When he sat down by himself with lunch at a dining hall after our tour, he was quickly joined by several girls who conversed with him. We parents sat at a table of boys who seemed happy to tell us the good and bad of the school (the meal plans were their worst complaint.) We received several mailings form the administration office over the months and a most tactful and gentle waitlist letter.
Other particularly friendly schools were Claremont McKenna (he received monthly letters from a coach, had other encouraging contacts) and Davidson (mostly e-mail contacts about e-chats and visit days, but they were frequent.) We had heard about the speaking tradition at Washington and Lee, but did not experience it during our visit; however, the history professors were wonderfully welcoming and invited us to view a senior present his honors thesis. Pepperdine was the only smallish school that made no contact with us after our visit.</p>
<p>I posted earlier that Georgetown was friendly. Well, UCLA was NOT so friendly.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s just the sheer size of the school. In my daughter’s breakout group, they were only interested in if you were from a) northern California or b) southern California. My daughter (from Colorado) and another girl from Arizona were summarily dismissed and ignored for the most part. I have to say that the campus was beautiful, though.</p>
<p>I also concur about Pomona. The staff office is rude on the phone. They are also disorganized, since they actually lost my application and required it to be dropped off in person. Guess they feel like they can do what they like since they are ultra selective.</p>
<p>From 2005: Leading up to acceptance: all five of S’s schools were very friendly and very responsive (Cornell, Northwestern, Georgetown, U VA and Stanford)</p>
<p>Post-decision–</p>
<p>Stanford: cold & almost cruel rejection from SCEA app…including nastiness when GC called; </p>
<p>Georgetown student called S, as did his interviewer, to encourage him to attend, but they were positively heartless when I called the day after S’s surgery (badly broken ankle–2 weeks prior to decision deadline…I was asking for extensions due to the medical problem)…</p>
<p>Northwestern was WONDERFUL…immediately said “take all the time you need; we really want him…and if goes elsewhere, and it doesn’t work out, call us about a guaranteed transfer”–mail and emails made it clear they really wanted him (they also offered him honors)</p>
<p>Cornell–basically wonderful…the Dean of his honor’s program called S personally to see if she could help w/any questions or concerns S might have … but in an interesting twist, it took Cornell 3 days to say “yes” to the request for more time to make the decision–they called S’s GC to verify that he had in fact broken his ankle (we got a bit of a kick out of that)…move-in at Cornell was AWESOME…cannot believe how efficient, helpful and friendly the Cornell folks were w/that…in the almost one year S has been there, the admin folks have been uniformly terrific about all 3 issues I as a parent had (all having to do w/money, of course)…</p>
<p>U VA–middlin’…good mail, quick ok on the request for an extension…but nothing as personal and wonderful as Northwestern & Cornell…</p>
<p>(And by the way: S chose Cornell prior to the deadline after all…because of CC! I posted on CC on 4/28 (or thereabouts) that I predicted he’d pick Cornell…he’d “agonized” over whether to apply ED to Cornell or SCEA to Stanford…Cornell had been at the top of his list for months…he read the post and called me over (he was bed-ridden post surgery at the time) and handed me the filled-in acceptance card and said my post had made it clear to him…go figure!)</p>
<p>Most of the schools I dealt with were very friendly, but there were two exceptions. </p>
<p>Tufts - While we had a good tour guide, the receptionist was rude and the info session was sleezy. Also, the admissions representative seemed to be talking down to me and the other prospectives as he was conducting the session. </p>
<p>Connecticut College - The admissions office was fine in terms of organizing a visit for me and providing information, but the tour guide was terrible. I saw no classrooms or academic buildings. I saw a lobby, the music center, and a dorm. The tour guide was annoying and seemed to be more interested in talking about campus amenities than the schools academic offerings. </p>
<p>The best schools were Lewis & Clark, Whitman, and Kenyon.</p>
<p>I have found all state schools in pennsylvania very accomodating and helpful with information for my son and daughter. I have found johnson and wales in charlotte and providence to not give one hoot about students or problems, (as many of you know from previous posts).<br>
Also had a bit of a run in from university of central florida, who courted my daughter with calls and letters, but then when I asked if she was admitted or not, they came back with “you know we get thousands of applications and you should really attend a community college first”. that’s when I told them to stop sending letters then and be a little more ethical in their practices. now I know why florida and california colleges are cheap, they don’t take anybody.</p>
<p>I, too, have to concur about the bad taste left after dealing with Pomona. We were given the impression that we should be honored that we were allowed to tour the campus and that Pomona was really the only college of any importance in Claremont, indeed, maybe even in CA!</p>
<p>Pitzer was friendly but the girl hosting my D for her overnight admitted to her that she was depressed, seeing a counselor, and in general overwhelmed. she took her to dinner, and then left her alone for the rest of the night. the entire night–she never returned to her room to sleep. </p>
<p>Cal Tech is a beautiful place and very structured–almost militaristic. emphasis was placed on how great the profs were. my D was interested, but said she wanted to see how the women on campus liked it. she quizzed 5 different young women–2 grad students, 3 undergrads. all 5 said if they had it to do over, they wouldn’t go there. D never applied.</p>
<p>UC’s–San Diego, Berkeley, UCLA–large, impersonal, beauracratic. no overnights allowed. helps you to decide if you are a large campus or small lac person in a hurry!</p>
<p>Lewis & Clark was friendly and certainly has some of the most fantastic views.</p>
<p>Reed was the most open and friendliest. kids in the classes included D in discussions and invited her to go with them to other classes and to dinner. everyone on campus seemed to enjoy his/her job. easy to talk to on the phone as well. my D has some special needs, and they made it very clear that they would help in any way they could. (Pomona & other Claremont Colleges made it clear they could not care less.)</p>
<p>It may come as a surprise, but Harvard was outstanding. Highly personal, great mailings, a lot of encouragement, enthusiastic faculty willing to make appointments, well-trained student and alumni staff and even a personal e-mail from an Admissions officer when something hadn’t arrived from the high school. On the other hand, Yale’s mailing was a postcard and faculty wouldn’t make informational appointments.</p>