I’ve just arrived in Boston with my junior daughter for a Boston -> Buffalo trip. Have never really done a college tour before, so I’ll see how it goes. She’s interested in STEM, probably CS. She got a 1450 on the new PSAT, but her grades are “interesting”. 3.1 freshman year, 3.6 sophomore year, currently 4.1 (weighted) junior year including APUSH, AP CS, honors physics, and honors pre-calc. She has struggled with ADHD, but has started to figure things out, and does better in her harder classes (where she can focus better).
Tomorrow we’re doing Brandeis, Wellesley, and Olin. Over the weekend, we’re staying near Amherst, so we might look at Amherst College and/or Smith. Monday, we’re visiting UMass Amherst (and their CS department). Tuesday is RPI. Wednesday is U of Rochester and RIT. Thursday, if we still have energy, we’ll check out SUNY Buffalo, before flying home.
I will possibly update this thread with details / impressions as we go.
Sounds like a good trip! In Rochester, if you have time you should eat at Sticky Lips (if you like bbq). I think it’s better and has more variety than the more hyped Dinosaur BBQ. And in Buffalo, make sure you stop at Duff’s for some chicken wings!
Thanks for the advice! We were originally going to do WPI, but we’re driving out to Amherst Friday night to stay with my sister-in-law there for the weekend - so it’s not really convenient to see it… Is driving through it at night worth anything? Probably not…
Cornell isn’t an easy detour from that route, or a quick visit. It would be at least two additional hours of driving each way, and the campus is vast. You would need to lose a day somewhere to see it. And it doesn’t sound like a good idea to pass up either RPI or the two Rochester schools.
I viewed college tours as probably the last big roadtrip(s) I’d take with my kids. I learned so much about my kids (their thought processes, what they felt was important) during these trips so despite the driving and dragging around, be sure to appreciate and enjoy this time together. Before long she will be away at college.
I was just on the Babson campus with my son. Olin College of engineering shares campus space there, but has its own separate facility.
I was told by a student there, that most of the students who are enrolled at Olin were invited to apply? Don’t know if that’s true, but it seems like a fairly selective to get into to.
I would suggest a stop at WPI which is only 25 minutes from Olin. It has a nice campus, good programs, and is well respected in NE.
Good luck.
Olin is not by invitation only – but it is pretty selective and does have a unique admission methodology (although the first step is the commonapp). My son fell in love with Olin when he heard about it in 10th grade. Olin became a goal for him and he worked hard to get himself accepted. He starts there in September. He also really liked WPI and I would strongly suggest you take a look at it. It has a very friendly campus and is definitely no slouch in the STEM world.
That’s good to know about Olin. My younger son is interested in that school. I was kind of surprised when the girrl said it was invitation only, but I didn’t want to argue. It seems like a great program, congrats to your son, he must be a very good student.
I think what the Olin girl meant was that the second phase of the admission process, Candidates Weekend, is by invitation only. You submit the Common App as the first phase, and then Olin’s admission office will whittle down the applications to about 300 candidates who then are invited to participate in Candidates Weekend (there are 3 of them in February). Note, if you want to be admitted, you WILL have to attend one of the CW sessions. Candidates will receive partial travel reimbursement for CW. The final admissions decision will be taken from those who attend CW.
If at all possible it is good to sign up for the actual college info sessions and tours. Then some perky sophomore gets to walk backwards and tell you “fun facts” about the school.
Consider swinging by Mt Holyoke if you are in the area this weekend- if she has seen Wellesley and Smith it would be a shame to miss the opportunity to visit MHC as well… Such strong academics and gorgeous campus… Hope you two are having fun!!
For Olin, many kids (my daughter included) get an email saying they will be personally invited to apply. But it’s not like that’s needed to apply.
We thought about Cornell, but cut it out. So many colleges already. We also replaced wpi (inconvenient with our itinerary) with UMass Amherst. But my wife and son might stop by wpi on the way back to Logan.
Brandeis first. The info session was going very well - small classes, friendly collegial attitude, nice campus. But then the admissions officer says “and who else hates math?” Big turnoff. DD wants to go to a school where it’s cool to like math, not where it’s cool to be bad at math. Then the 6 tour guides introduced themselves and said their majors. Only 1 science major - and it was bio. Asked about comp sci on tour, but got blank looks. Also, “social justice” is a pillar at Brandeis, and that’s something my daughter can’t stand. “I don’t want to waste any energy even acknowledging that sexism exits.”
So before we even went to Wellesley, I knew it would be a waste. Tbh, the only reason I scheduled it is because they have a joint dual degree program with MIT. But we asked about it at the end, and they said only 1 person has done it in the last 5 years. And they said it’s just like transferring in, so super hard. And I think she’d be miserable beforehand. And if admissions was accurate, they’d never even accept her at Wellesley.
Finally, we went to Olin to chat with admissions. After 10 minutes, we started walking around, and DD said “well obviously I would go here if I was lucky enough to be accepted.”
We drove by UMass Amherst today (tours on Monday). She was kind of shocked at how big these giant schools are. She has said she’d be fine at a giant school - but we’ll have to see if she really feels that way after the tour…
“But then the admissions officer says “and who else hates math?” Big turnoff. DD wants to go to a school where it’s cool to like math, not where it’s cool to be bad at math.”
Do you really think that this means “at Brandeis, it’s cool to be bad at math and anyone who likes math will be laughed at” or do you think this is just an AO making a clumsy joke to try to relate to an army of hs students? You just can’t overproject like this. I do agree that social justice is a huge pillar at Brandeis.
@Pizzagirl - fair or not, it was a big turnoff. I imagine no one is making jokes like that at RPI, but we’ll see. The non-joke part of his statement was that the core requirements are very flexible, and he thought that this was a big selling point for people bad at math.
Right now, my daughter thinks she wants to hang around as many (stem) nerdy kids as possible. Who knows if that’s good or bad, but it is what it is.
And isn’t the whole point of a college tour to overproject?
@thshadow . I will agree with you and add that this tendency to minimize distribution requirements is somewhat prevalent. I agree that it is a “big turnoff” for a school to do that. Shouldn’t the school be proud of their requirements ? That is part of what defines the school.
Some years ago when I did the tours with S, one of the ivies we visited did just that with their natural science requirement. Not once but 3 times. Once during the admissions talk and twice more during the tour, so it wasnt just a single rogue tour guide or AO. In this case they were talking about the science requirement and said something to the effect of … “Oh … don’t worry about it. You can take something like physics of the film where all you do all semester is watch movies”.
I was surprised that students that could be accepted into that ivie would be intimidated by a freshman physics or biology course to the extent that both the AO and tour guide talked about this point. I will say it did not make a favourable impression that has stuck in my mind all these years.
