<p>Have you asked this question and found the answer less than satisfying? If so what school have you asked about. In my case it was Marist College. My D has convinced herself there is nothing beyond this college but vast unpopulated woodlands. I kept reminding her Poughkeepsie was a fairly large city.. she just looked at me the way our dog looks at the television. I mean if they had a valid reason.. very frustrating....</p>
<p>Nightingale it is frustrating. That school offered my son the best financial package, taking into account the gpa to keep his merit award. Now we are looking with our younger son. He wants to have a Walmart (and don't substitute that for another chain store) near the school, LOL (walking distance if possible, but he does realize that is really pushing it. I think that that he will compromise on this out of necessity). How silly is that! We drove past a school while on vacation. He did not see enough stores, and restaurants within walking distance so he refused to look at it. This I can understand if there isn't public or school transit, but he never investigated this. We went to another school that does not mix men and women in the same dorm freshman year. It was not enough to cross the school off his list, but he finds this "weird".</p>
<p>I learned quickly to stop trying to read D's mind when we went on college visits. The schools she fell in love with I could fully understand, but there were more than a few that she formed a strong negative opinion about before the tour/info sessions were even over! And in one case, she got out out of the car, began walking to the admissions office, turned around, got back in the car and wouldn't budge after that. When asked what the turn-off was, she couldn't articulate it.</p>
<p>In the end, the schools she has chosen to apply to are all good fits for her, so her gut probably gave her the right input - though I suspect she would be fine at almost all the others as well.</p>
<p>My kid gets turned off because some other kid at her school is applying who she believes she has nothing in common with, "Jane is applying and she's weird so the school must be weird."</p>
<p>Muffy, you reminded me of anther thing that I heard senior year. If one student, or a small group of students decided that school X was not on par with some other schools, that school was out of consideration. There was no way to convince my son of anything else. </p>
<p>We know someone who did not like a school because of the outfit that the student tour guide! At least my son did not comment on that.</p>
<p>Our biggest problem with our D was that she adores her older brothers and would not consider any school they had rejected (which included all in-state schools!) We tried to convince her that she was NOT her brothers, and should concentrate on finding a school that SHE liked, not one that they would like. We were successful only in convincing her that although they both like big cities, we did not see her as a big city girl. She finally listened to us on that account, but mainly after visiting some less-urban schools and seeing what they had to offer.</p>
<p>Ironically, she was happy with her ultimate choice only after both of her brothers independently offered that they thought that would be the best school for her. I'm glad they're close, but really!</p>
<p>another version: "If they took so-and-so, no WAY am I going there!"</p>
<p>but my favorite is still the girl we know who rejected schools because she thought that their school colors were not flattering on her. Or, w/regard to Notre Dame: "Plaid? I don't wear plaid!"</p>
<p>One of my d's friends will not consider ANY schools whose building are made of brick. They must be stone....go figure.</p>
<p>^ANY schools whose buildings are made of brick.</p>
<p>DS did not want to apply to a nearby school to study architecture, despite the fact that we were very impressed at his appointment with the architecture department. His comment--"it is so boring, the buildings all look the same". Yes, the campus architecture is all red brick buildings!</p>
<p>my parents were kind of like that. i applied ED to Syracuse becuase that's where I KNEW i wanted to go. My parents were like "why don't you consider NYU, Michigan, etc" and i had my reasons which were perfectly clear to me but they still needed to ask me a million times to make sure that i was sure that Syracuse was the right place for me. Some kids just know where they want to go for reasons that only make since to them.
P.S. i must say im pretty happy with my choice</p>
<p>cincy gal - I know what school you mean. :) (Which is where my D is.) I remember thinking I would get lost there, because it all looked alike to me. It was actually one of the "signs" for me that D was a match. She went there the first time by herself (I mean without me. She went with an aunt). The second time I went with her, and she was able to give me a knowledgable tour, and knew her way around. It's not a small campus, and with so much red brick, that's not an easy thing to do.</p>
<p>S1 said of one school (that had offered him very nice scholarship $$)..."the weather here is too hot" . This is from a boy who has lived his entire life in the hot humid southeast and the school is less than 2 hours from home. We must have crossed some major climate divide on the way down the interstate and I just missed it,lol. He ended up choosing a school a little more than 2 hours from home in the other direction but no real weather difference...go figure.</p>
<p>S2 applied and was accepted to a school but then refused to vist at all because "it's out in the middle of nowhere".</p>
<p>I'm laughing as I read all your posts!! I know some kids (including my own) that consider what the school mascot is before they consider the school. University of Richmond? "I don't want to be a spider!" Tufts University? "I don't want to be a Jumbo!!" My S and D did not want to attend a school with the same school colors as their H.S. Their comments, "We have way too much Black and Gold." Go figure, you gotta love them! :)</p>
<p>My D still loved Furman, even though she said they had "Barney colors." :)</p>
<p>yep, my S2 has settled on a sch. with purple as one of it's colors but cannot quite bring himself to wear the purple sweatshirt yet. I got him a gray hoody for Christmas with purple lettering on it. That was OK. He has worn it a lot.
I told him once he got to the sch., everyone would be wearing purple and it woudn't seem so odd to him!</p>
<p>Packmom,
One of the schools I was accepted to is purple & white. I always wondered if the guys were weird about wearing purple uniforms!</p>
<p>My college colors were orange and maroon. Had I known that when I was applying, I probably would have reconsidered. </p>
<p>But Nightengale, you will hear all kinds of excuses, most of them not at all sane. There's usually something else behind them. The first school we visited was University of Virginia. DD told me that it was too "small" for her . . . ??? Truth is we had a really long drive down there and I think that was what threw her for a loop. By the time the admissions process was drawing to a close, UVa was choice #2. </p>
<p>Just encourage your child to look around, don't shut any doors and keep his options open.</p>
<p>Iggles- UVA was "too brick" for my DD....the hunger of no food on long flights may have contributed to the overall negative feelings!</p>
<p>I was at ND this summer, and was more impressed than I thought I'd be until...</p>
<p>a group of about 20 guys ALL in light-colored polos, brown belts, and khaki shorts walked by. Of all races and size, sure, but they all had the same haircut! I don't care how "diverse" a school is if they're that homogenous!!!</p>
<p>of course my mom was befuddled ;)</p>
<p>It is funny how certain schools appeal to or turn someone off with little reason. S1 wouldn't look at Notre Dame because whenever anyone mentioned Notre Dame he only envisioned football. He couldn't go to William & Mary because of all the tourists in Williamsburg. Any school in Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma or Nebraska were marked off the list with a red circle with and X through it. I guess everyone has their own way of evaluating schools.</p>
<p>Even with some unusual methods for pruning down the list of possible schools, most do end up with many to apply to that they would be happy at.</p>