<p>I’ve also started considering Carleton and Oberlin (recruited athelete maybe), anyone have feedback on those schools?</p>
<p>The Carleton forum has a new 101 reasons thread with links to several Why Carleton threads. wrt the campus - it’s close to town (few blocks walk) and Northfield is a nice college town. There are two LACs (St Olaf and Carleton) for a total of ~5000 college students. The town population is ~17,000 (I think). So lots of the businesses are geared toward students (coffee shops, used and vintage clothing, pizza with late delivery). Northfield is ~35 miles south of Minneapolis/St Paul and there’s pretty good bus service up there. Between N’field and the Cits however, are cornfields and the start right at the edge of town.</p>
<p>For the campus itself, the academic and administrative buildings are fairly close together around the Bald Spot (grassy area for 3 seasons and 2 skating rinks during winter). Dorms are on the periphery. Max walk diagonally across campus is probably 15 minutes. There’s also an ~800-acre arboretum on two sides of campus with great trails for strolling, jogging, xc skiing…
MN is very cold in the winter, but my CA daughter had no problem adjusting. With good layers it’s no problem and can be lots of fun. A sunny day in February can bring out the frisbees even if it’s 30’</p>
<p>NYU’s buildings all have purple banners on them, which my tour guide loved, saying that randomly running into them throughout lower Manhattan made him feel at home.</p>
<p>UChicago is best described as eclectic. South Campus is very futuristic and glassy (some students say it’s too open). Max Palevsky (the main dorm) consists of three big blocks of nasty orange brick, variously adorned by purple, yellow, or pink cancerous-looking plastic growths. Also the third floor of the yellow plastic one smelled like chicken soup the whole time we were there. And they have yards fenced off on three sides by the building and on one side by a prison-fence-type fence. Feels like a prison yard. Regenstein looks like a mad scientist built it out of gray legos. Most of the other buildings are lovely Gothic. The Oriental Institute’s second floor reading room is one of the absolute loveliest rooms I have ever been in. The main quad is Gothic.</p>