D25 did some early visits last week. We had a bit of a road trip, and included several visits along our journey.
Amherst - same. Not an official visit, but an unofficial one by a current student. D really liked most things about it, but thinks the academics will be too intense for her (based on the student she knows who we were visiting). She may be right, but she may also change her feelings a bit over the next few years. If she gets over that fear, Amherst may end up on her list. Really she liked most things about it.
MHC - way up. This was her first ever official college visit. She has gone from “hell no” on women’s colleges to “fine, I’ll look at them since we are going to be right there anyway” in the last 6 months or so. I thought if I could just get her to consider them, they may end up being exactly what she wants. I could tell halfway through the tour that she was really liking it. Liked the size, says she still doesn’t like the “all women” aspect, but honestly she likes everything that comes along with that atmosphere. It is more the theory of all women that she has a problem with, she likes the reality. Being there, and with us traipsing between MHC, Amherst and Northampton several times over a couple of days, she realized that while it is predominantly women on campus, it is a 20 minute bus ride to 7,000 guys at UMass, so maybe it’s not a big deal to have them available when you want to see them, but not necessarily having them around all of the time.
Smith - way up. After MHC, we saw Smith and she liked it even more. I think the biggest reasons were being able to walk into Northampton, the physical look and feel of campus, and most importantly the house system. We had 2 tour guides, and they did a good job selling that. I can see it being a big factor when she is deciding where to apply to and maybe even ED to. Smith has a reputation for being more “type A strivers” and SJWs. We talked to 4 students, maybe a bit of SJW from one, no off putting competitiveness from any of them. I wasn’t feeling the stereotypes at all. Just smart, confident young women.
Vassar - up .TLDR=MHC with guys. Of course there are some differences, but I felt the same vibe, take away the beard our tour guide was sporting and he would fit right in at either MHC or Smith. They had a different house system than Smith, but another one that D really liked. I asked about the “all theater kids” reputation. They said a lot of students either were in the past or were currently into theater, but by no means everyone. They did say if you don’t have any appreciation for art broadly, it may not be a great fit. But there is no pressure to be creating it or performing.
Cornell - same. A bit too big, a bit of a reputation as a grinder school, and a gray sky all were turn offs. It didn’t help that the student we talked to (not on a tour) said that the grinder reputation was deserved and that he misses the sun (we didn’t catch him on the best day, and he was a bit burned out and being brutally honest with her about the things he didn’t like). Probably not on her list anyway, but nothing about this visit moved it up. For the record, I’m a Cornell fan, and he is too. And he did tell her that the size isn’t really as bad as you think, most of his classes are in buildings within 5 minutes of each other, and it’s like that for most students after first year. She didn’t love the size, but thought if that was the case she could probably deal with it. But he knows her well and knows that some of the minor annoyances for him will be big issues for her, so he didn’t sugar coat things at all.
Haverford - same. This was the last one we saw, and honestly both of our brains were full at this point. She liked it, but probably puts it after Smith, MHC and Vassar. No great reason other than she was really liking the historical women’s college vibe, and obviously Haverford doesn’t have that. I think BMC may have been a better fit for her, but they didn’t have tours open that worked with our schedule, plus I thought I was already pushing my luck getting her to look at both MHC and Smith when she wasn’t really wanting a women’s college. At some point the next 3 years we will probably need to see Bryn Mawr.
Fordham - way down. We did get some useful info here. Fordham is out. The size wasn’t a problem, physically it’s more like a LAC than a midsized University (1/2 the geographical area of Haverford). It doesn’t really feel crowded, and there was plenty of green space. But the buildings are all a bit bigger and closer together than the LAC’s we saw. The city location is a plus, really it feels like a LAC that could be anywhere, but once you get outside the gates you are 20 minutes to manhattan.
The big issue with Fordham is that it felt VERY Catholic. I haven’t been to Notre Dame or Villanova, but I think they are much more so and I thought Fordham would be fine. But it seemed like it was always in the background, both visually and in the conversations. Fordham will pay for your transportation to a different worship service if you aren’t Catholic, and the guide asked twice if everyone was ok with going into the chapel. So I don’t want to give the impression that they were forcing it on anyone. But for my agnostic D, she thought it was going to be too much for her. So it’s off the list. I liked it, and think it would have been good for either of my boys. But not for her.