@pittsburghscribe I graduated from Brown in 1984. (Ever true). So we just missed each other. Also, be prepared. The next entry includes a brief visit to Pittsburgh.
Although we are not on this search, my oldest daughter is a tree hugging, vegetarian, ukulele playing, thrift shop shopping free spirit. This would have been a trip she’d have enjoyed but I avoided it because I knew we didn’t have the money to make any of them happen. I’m enjoying the thread very much.
One of my closest friends is a very, very Conservative, anti-choice, Republican Catholic. She and I are complete polar opposites on politics, etc. but we respect each others’ right to her opinions and have been close for over 20 years. Her older D wanted to go to Bard because her dream was to be a writer. She was all girl Catholic school educated all the way. I told my friend that I thought she should have a back up plan in case Bard didn’t meet her expectations. My friend, to her credit, allowed her D to attend Bard, even though it was totally against her philosophy. She listened to me, though , and paid a deposit for the following spring at a SUNY. As it turned out, my friend’s D hated Bard and happily transferred to the SUNY she’d refused to consider previously, where she had a wonderful experience. She also is accomplishing her dream, anyway, as she is writing and teaching writing as an adjunct professor at another college.
I visited the campus at Bard and found it pretty but not my cup of tea. Vassar, which I visited a couple of times for business, is lovely but we never looked at it as a school.
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I’ve never been to Sarah Lawrence, but I must say I find it ironic that is has such an alternative vibe, given that It is in Bronxville, such a preppy, sporty, i-banking sort of enclave! I bet Sarah Lawrence is not a big draw for kids graduating from Bronxville hs.
Also did not look at Vasaar, but a friend who was on her own hippie/liberal college tour and has kids at Oberlin and Reed, came back from the tour, and said “I thought I was liberal, until I toured Vasaar!”
As both a Hampshire alum whose college boyfriend went to SLC and the parent of a hippie school loving senior, I simply love this thread. My Birkenstock wearing, Lorax adoring D17 and I have visited many of the same schools, at least four of which are on her own college list.
Such a brilliantly funny read-thank you for sharing it with us @hyppymom .
Awaiting the Reed College review. Love this thread.
My hippiest friend’s son is at Sarah Lawrence now. He began at Clarkson and hated it. He really loves SLC so much so that I may allow S17 to look at it. Or maybe not, because I still can’t afford it.
@wisteria100 SLC uses a Bronxville address, but most of it is in Yonkers. Not that SLC is very Yonkers-like either.
Best CC post ever!!
I was a bit surprised that you drove right past Wesleyan without stopping. (Wes '84)
@millie210 Wait! There’s a part 2 to colleges of the Northeast.
I was about to suggest Wesleyan - brilliant minds think alike!
My daughter (who told me to check out this thread - hi hon!!) not-so-incorrectly has surmised that I want to vicariously relive my own hippie days that were thwarted by having an autocratic and domineering father (against whom I spent my entire adolescence and much of my adult life rebelling) that refused to let me apply to Berkeley (it was 1974 and he thought – perhaps not too incorrectly – that I’d go off the deep end with the hippie scene).
After a stint in a (NY) state school and a very long and wonderful junior-year-abroad-followed-by-a-gap-year in Spain where Franco had just died and they were just beginning to catch up with the hippie movement, I took a very wrong turn and ended up with the preppies at Georgetown…talk about square pegs and round holes…not many Birkenstocks there!
While not officially a 7 sister, but perhaps a distant cousin, when I applied to college, Pembroke was still Pembroke. Became Brown that summer, IIRC. In the meantime Vassar went co-ed but was a blend of crunchy granola and preppy reactionaries. Prep school rings and hiking boots (not topsiders) with danskin leotards, jeans and oversized man-tailored shirts were not uncommon outfits.
@LoveTheBard This just in – Generalissmo Francisco Franco is still dead.
See? I was a sentient human in the 70’s too.
Please visit Antioch College in Yellow Springs OH as well.
My daughter and I loved your descriptions. We went on a similar tour. We’d love to read your blog. Where do we find it?
@“Erin’s Dad” Didn’t make it to Antioch. As I’ve said elsewhere, until I can figure out a way to monetize my comments, time is limited.
So glad Antioch has risen from the ashes!!
Re Antioch: We have had 4 psychology major student interns from Antioch in the past 2 years, each spent a semester (or a summer) living and working with us in a nonprofit program. Every one of them has been a little hippie-- and every one has been an absolute gem.
We move to another location. Ohio! We went to Ohio in April, so the question posed below has been answered. She did the summer program at NYU.
Hippie Colleges of Ohio Tour 2016 (Day 1) Following a red eye flight from San Francisco, Boo and I arrived safely in Pittsburgh at an obscene hour PDT. Within 10 minutes, the word “patriarchy” came out of my daughter’s mouth. Just warming up for the main events, I think. BTW: People park like absolute lunatics in Pittsburgh. Between the lack of sleep and the crazy parking, I felt totally discombobulated. After braving the lunatic fringe of Pittsburgh parkers, we hit the Warhol museum where I decided that I really need a Warhol "Superstar " name. The current front runner is “Fluorescent Beige” but it’s not settled yet. Then we hightailed it across one of the many rivers around here to the campus of Carnegie Mellon (not a hippie college and not in Ohio) for a very crowded campus tour led by students who were remarkable in their normalcy but disappointingly ill-informed about the difference between an Oscar, an Emmy, a Tony and a Golden Globe – no small matter at CMU because CMU arguably has one of the top drama programs in the country. Really, engineering, computer science and drama – a natural combination. Boo has been offered a spot in CMU’s summer vocal performance program, so I figured that while we were in the neighborhood, she should have a look. (Her other option is NYU Steinhardt. If anyone has strong opinions about which program she should attend, please weigh in because it’s really a case of the Fluorescent leading the blind-with-perfect-pitch here). After a quick caffeine infusion, we were able to get into our room at the Hampton Superfund Inn of Pittsburgh. It’s literally built on the former site of a bunch a steel mills. The smoke stacks artfully loom over the Starbucks and PF Chang’s. I’m thinking I might actually be fluorescent in the morning.
More to come . . .
The Neurotic Parent blog made it work. I think you’re as good as she is.