<p>Claremont McKenna - loved; good location, friendly students, lots of activity on campus, beautiful, seemed academically-oriented
Stanford - loved; same as CMC but too big
Harvard - liked; too big for my taste, seemed impersonal
BC - okay; nothing outstanding about it, but good location, nice enough campus
Brandeis - loved; good location, friendly students, good feel to it
Middlebury - eh; too isolated, seemed elitist
Amherst - eh; same as Midd
Colgate - good; beautiful, too isolated, too much greek life
Connecticut College - good; pretty, too isolated, too small, friendly students
Williams - good; too isolated, good feel about it
Cornell - good; nice campus, too isolated, too big, friendly students, seemed academically-oriented</p>
<p>BU- Crappy/nonexistant campus. Students seemed so-so, polite, but a little bored with life... nice admissions officers though. EXCELLENT FOOD.</p>
<p>BC- Ehhh, okay campus, nothing special...decent food. Nice stadium. </p>
<p>American University- decent dorms, WONDERFUL FOOD, nice campus, nice location, so-so impression of students though(overall they were very nice to campers but a couple were complete morons)...</p>
<p>Wesleyan- nice campus, interesting people, great library, location in Middletown is so, so... football field is sorta a bit pathetic though. The admissions house is a cute little yellow building.</p>
<p>Bowdoin- nice campus, crappy location in the middle of nowhere, prominent alcohol consumption, nice, interesting, good looking people, very preppy I thought.</p>
<p>Harvard- amazing people, amazing location in Boston, well what can you say? It's not like I have any chance there though...</p>
<p>Houston is the 4th largest city in the US. Anyone will fit in. Especially at Rice, which is very diverse. It is just like most large cities. Rice isnt a LAC though, although it is small. But originally (and still now) its goal was to combine the resources of a LAC with a major university.</p>
<p>Amherst- liked the whole nature thing, being surrounded by so much forest, all owned by the school. buildings were nice and clean, dorms were amazing. liked it, but the people seemed too preppy.</p>
<p>Harvard- went in thinking i would hate it, and ended up hating it and thinking, "wow, this place is way overrated, its just another new england college". buildings were way too old, people seemed to act as if they were normal but it was obvious they were mostly snotty, "hey i got in and you probably wont" kind of people. not my kind of place AT ALL.</p>
<p>Boston College- nice campus, energetic tour guide, but came off as if they thought they were a lot more selective than they actually are. facilities were okay, but they didnt show us much.</p>
<p>MIT- big big big buildings. nothing else really...</p>
<p>Caltech- loved loved loved the campus. the people were nice, but it was sooooo nerdy. building were amazing, if it werent so nerdy and full of geniuses and i actually thought i had a chance, it would have been my #1 choice. i just loved all of the buildings, i cant stress how much i loved the campus.</p>
<p>Pomona- nice buildings, nice people, good atmosphere. i wish the campus looked more like caltech's, they have the money, it just makes me mad that they spend it on stupid things like charter buses, and not on making the campus look better. also, too many small buildings that reminded me of old apartments. they def need to ask caltech for some help with their building plans. NEED MORE NICE LOOKING BUILDINGS, I DONT CARE ABOUT THE OTHER CLAREMONT COLLEGES, BUILD OVER THEM AND EXPAND THE POMONA EMPIRE. sorry pitzer, cmc, hmc, scripps, its just, we all know life would be better if your schools were all demolished and replaced with more room to breathe for the pomona students :).</p>
<p>HMC- ugly ugly ugly. refer to above text about destroying it for the sake of the pomona students.</p>
<p>Someone said some that I went to. So here's one.</p>
<p>Tulane - I loved the gothic arch. Its a nice campus except the sidewalks. I hate the sidewalks. Small, cracked. I can imagine it gets crowed. If you want to go to Tulane, go as a start athlete. I think you get the best deal (dorms and etc). Oh, and their fitness gym is excellent!</p>
<p>Swarthmore: though I'll be there in the fall, I didn't initially fall in love on my first visit. It still struck me as a nice place to be though, so I applied and somehow got in. Second time I visited for an Admitted Student Day, I fell in love and definitely saw myself going there. A bit small, but otherwise a very nice, friendly, fun place to be. Students seemed to love it there too.</p>
<p>Chicago: Visited after I got in. Stayed in a dorm that was falling apart, and students all seemed super stressed-out. Very nice-looking campus, but I'd say it's best for students who are purely interested in academics and nothing else, which I'm not. The adcoms and tour guides I spoke to were arrogant as well which turned me off from the place.</p>
<p>Michigan: I loved Ann Arbor and loved the campus. The stadium was amazing too, but the place was just too big. Everyone seemed very nice though, and the academics seemed very good but I didn't see the advantage of being in Honors of than the South Quad housing.</p>
<p>Boston College: Really liked it as soon as I stepped onto campus. Visited twice, everyone seemed down-to-earth and seemed like they wanted to make sure you'd have a good experience there. The Honors program sounded like a good thing too, but in the end the place just seemed too much like High School.</p>
<p>Yale: Of the places I visited, this was definitely the best. Beautiful buildings, met very interesting people... I thought I had a chance to get in too, LOL.</p>
<p>Harvard: Arrogant tour guide, and the school in general seemed to have a we're better than you are attitude. I did not feel welcome at all.</p>
<p>Tufts: It's a college campus. Nothing else special about it.</p>
<p>Brown: Visited on the nicest day of the year, people were really enjoying themselves and everyone was outside. The buildings on campus looked very nice.</p>
<p>To be continued...</p>
<p>Penn: It seems like the school has made a very strong effort to clean up the campus and the surrounding area. It's worked. Great place especially if you want to be directly in a city, will probably take a class or two there while @ Swat...</p>
<p>Columbia: The campus was very nice but still I was intimidated by the location and the 11% RD acceptance rate. Very very similar to UChicago just in campus feel and curriculum, not sure how similar the student bodies are.</p>
<p>Amherst: Still not sure why I didn't apply there. I went there for a week for tennis camp one summer and enjoyed being there. Amherst is a pretty far from any big city but the town itself is a fun place to be.</p>
<p>Duke: Beautiful campus, beautiful basketball stadium as well. I went when school was out though, so I wish I had done an official visit there though to get a feel of what campus life was really like.</p>
<p>UNC: Same as Duke, went at a bad time, but I liked what I saw. Dean Dome seemed like a pretty cool stadium too. Chapel Hill is a nice college town too, but alas the place is pretty big, and tough to get into if you're not from NC.</p>
<p>Notre Dame: Stopped there to look around and have lunch. The campus is very pristine but also bland. The football stadium and Touchdown Jesus were pretty cool though.</p>
<p>NYU: Didn't feel like a cohesive campus at all, and not the best place for an undergrad either. I wanted more of a campus feel and I didn't get it there. Not the greatest neighborhood either.</p>
<p>When is a good time to visit Rice? I am from Florida so the heat would not bother me. Is it ok to visit in summer?</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon--I visited a few years ago in the dead of winter (and I'm from Georgia). It was overcast and thirty degrees colder than the coldest day in GA. I wasn't impressed by the architecture, the layout, or Pittsburgh (maybe it's just the area I saw, but it looked very industrial). I must admit that the weather may have affected my opinion. Oh, and the mascot was the scottie dog.</p>
<p>Emory--I visited in summer (that was the only time I could visit). The campus is really attractive, and the people are very enthusiastic about it. The dorms were pretty nice. They're in the middle of a big push not to be thought of as a safety school for those who apply to ivies. It's not as close to Atlanta as I thought, it's more in a suburban area, but you can see the skyline in the distance.</p>
<p>Columbia--My favorite, but I also had to visit in the summer. The campus is more classical than gothic. It's in the middle of the city. You're walking down a skyscraper-lined street, then you walk through the iron gate and onto a college campus. There are green lawns and trees. It's really well laid out, and everyone I met was very enthusiastic. The admissions officers were very pleasant and friendly. I went during the celebration of it's 250th year, so the tour guide talked a lot about the history. Alexander Hamilton left the school to fight in the Revolutionary War, the Manhattan Project got its name because it started in the basement of one of the science buildings, the Pullitzer Prize is awarded at Columbia, and former university president Dwight D. Eisenhower had NYC close down one of the streets (116th, I think) between the walls of the campus to help students traverse the campus. This is one of the few "urban" colleges that is actually located in the city not next to one, and that's one of the things I really wanted in a college as you can probably tell from my list. I left that day knowing that it was by far my first choice, and I'll be there next year as a member of the class of '09.</p>
<p>University of Notre Dame--This was my father's and my grandfather's alma mater, so they were my first tour guides. The campus is really nice and big. It has a number of green quads, the brick buildings are very nice, and the gardens all over campus are meticulously manicured. School spirit is everywhere. I was very impressed, and the only downside was the rural location--maybe somewhere between rural and suburban.</p>
<p>don't go to carnegie mellon, wat an ugly place, everything there is just ugly, my GC beged me to apply there as a safe--match, and i was like not happening.</p>
<p>It's best to visit during the year when students are out and about, but if summer is all you have, then that's fine. And yea, you should be used to the wheather. haha</p>
<p>Agnes Scott College: small but gorgeous. Lots of trees. The friendliest students and adminstration I've met on any campus.</p>
<p>The Claremont Colleges: as a whole, really nice. More simple architecture/far smaller campuses/less trees than other colleges I've visited. That is not a bad thing. I even liked Harvey Mudd. I think Pomona was the prettiest-- followed very closely by Scripps.</p>
<p>UCLA: I love this campus. It's very attractive-- maybe slightly too large, though. It was just massive. </p>
<p>USC: Like UCLA, a very attractive, tree-covered campus right in Los Angeles (which struck me as really unusual). USC was fun to walk around.</p>
<p>Occidental: Nice, but the campus was basically set up on different levels on this large hill, the levels connected by series of steps. The whole physical set-up of the campus was unusual and I didn't like it in particular. The people there were friendly.</p>
<p>Berkeley: Huge. That's mostly what I got out of it.</p>
<p>University of Georgia: very pretty, but I personally didn't feel really attracted to it.</p>
<p>Georgia Tech: Actually not as ugly as some people have complained it is. I thought it was pretty decent looking, and very large for a campus right in downtown Atlanta. I have to say the kids were slightly sully. I'm not kidding, I saw practically no smiles/laughter the entire tour-- this included general campus tour, plus classroom visits/cafeteria visits. </p>
<p>Emory University: Very nice-looking campus! But like UGA, didn't personallly feel a draw to it. </p>
<p>Colleges I was interested in but was unable to visit, for whatever reasons: Kenyon, Dickinson, Georgetown. Oh well.</p>
<p>-SMU-Beautiful campus. I've lived here in Dallas my whole life, so I've seen the campus a lot. Nice facilities, and very well kept.
-Centenary(LA)-Given the size of the student body, its a huge campus. Of the colleges I've toured, it had the biggest dorms. Beautiful campus, with lots of charm.
-Loyola New Orleans-Very small campus. I like the architecture, and they use the space well. Its nice, but not my favorite.
-Tulane-Didn't take a tour, just kinda walked through. Beautiful buildings, great location. Small sidewalks(as mentioned above.), but thats not a huge deal.</p>
<p>Has anyone visited Otterbein or U of Hartfort? I'm visiting those this winter/fall, and am just curious as to what others think.</p>
<p>harvard---AWESOME cafeteria!!!! like the one in Harry Potter
MIT----UGLY
Yale-Gothic, pretty nice
UPenn-tight, packed, but nice nonetheless
UVA--best campus ever??? + hot girls</p>
<p>Clemson University-My number one pick, I had pretty much begged my parents to let me fly down to South Carolina from up here in Pennsylvania, just so I could see it in person. The thing that I love about the school was that it was in a place so unlike where I live. Up here near Philadelphia, it's all so crowded everywhere in my opinion, and Clemson with it's spread out campus just drew me in. Also, the fact that my boyfriend is in South Carolina doesn't hurt.</p>
<p>UPenn-Before I picked out Clemson, I visited UPenn in my sophomore year. It was okay, but as I said, it's too cramped to my liking. Plus, I used to live in Philly, so it was more of a bore to me.</p>
<p>Princeton-Visited as a freshman, I just remember that even though the campus was pretty open, the architecture was what I disliked.</p>
<p>Let's see, been to:</p>
<p>U of Washington- very nice campus (Seattle) great town
U of Oregon- very nice. hey they filmed Animal House there
U of San Francisco- campus is nice-San Franciso is awesome
Stanford- physically the largest campus in country. Lots of open space. I believe they have their own golf course. Great facilities. kinda boring location. Nice campus architecture although a bit of a "hodge podge" as far as newer buildings
Cal- huge campus. Nothing special and surrounding area a little "sketchy"
Cal Poly SLO- fairly non-descript campus, but nice rural area and local town
UCSB- nothing special about the campus except for an amazing location right on the Pacific
Loyola Marymount- on a hill overlooking Marina del Rey-great view. campus facilities are so-so
Pepperdine-very modern- looks like a condo project. great view of the Pacific. located on hill overlooking Malibu
UCLA-huge campus. It's Cal with a better surrounding neighborhood
USC-beautiful campus. Been used in many movies and commercials (Most of the college scenes in The Graduate are at USC). Surrounding area is horrible. Not much on campus housing
Claremont Colleges- Pomona is beautiful- sort of New England feel. Designed by same architect who designed Stanford and Occidental. Scripps is also gorgeous. Claremont and Pitzer sorta bad '60's apartment complexes and Harvey-Mudd, whoa. Looks like a giant brown lego kit fell out of its box
Occidental- very, very nice campus. kinda of in an isolated nothing neighborhood in northern part of LA
U of Redlands- pretty campus out in no man's land about half way between LA and Palm Springs
UCI-bland as can be
UCSD-facilities are sort of bland with some exception but campus is in a beautiful eucalyptus grove and near the ocean
U of San Diego- beautiful campus on hill overlooking san Diego
UNLV-better like cactus
Georgetown-a classic and with D.C. there, plenty to like.
Haverford-another classic in style. Small and cozy. In "upscale" neighborhood. Right outside Philly.
Penn-sorta just blends into (a crummy part of ) the City
Tufts-ok. Didn't strike me as anything too special
Harvard-another classic. Great location (except weather). It's Harvard, what can you say
Yale- still another classic, except surrounding area of New Haven-ouch
Amherst-beautiful campus, beautiful area. Classic college setting</p>
<p>Yale- Too big, and New Haven isn't exactly the best city around. Seemed a bit elitist (I expected that), and some of the people were TOO friendly. Still, nice areas on campus and some very good opportunities.</p>
<p>Amherst- Beautiful campus, somewhat preppy like someone else mentioned, but it's also pretty diverse. Good course things, and the 5 college system is good. However, it's near a small town and it might get a bit boring.</p>
<p>Brown- Very very nice campus, not spread out. Genuinely friendly atmosphere, some great academic programs and such. Providence is personally not my favorite city, but it is a city, and has the biggest mall in the country I think. Plus, there's tons of food and restaurants everywhere. I like that. And of course, the school, courses, people, are great. I thoroughly enjoyed Brown.</p>
<p>University of Delaware - nice, spread out, easy access to town, clean</p>
<p>Princeton - I know every says it's beautiful, but to me it was a bit gloomy. I guess I just have a problem with schools that older than my current HS (est. 1789).</p>
<p>Drexel - sucks, I don't know why my parents even bothered</p>
<p>UMD - what can I say? It's a nice place.</p>
<p>Stanford - loved it, maybe I just have bias toward palm trees</p>
<p>Santa Clara - also a great place, small, but very nice</p>
<p>UC Santa Cruz - nice, but a little too nature-ish for me.</p>
<p>Villanova - a nice place, but it rained that day so I didn't see everything</p>
<p>Georgetown-What everyone else said plus a few things- Great internship opportunities, admissions officer seemed cocky, tour guide very friendly and good at walking backwards, as well as helpful, good restaurant-forgot the name, plenty to do, good security, too much construction but the stadium was for a good cause, no cars allowed but good public transportation, school spirit high, tons of rich people
Duke-very informative but nice admissions officer, though they hadn't quite figured out everything about next year's process, cafeteria food could be better, very green everywhere, gothic and beautiful but monochromatic at some points, dorms had short ceilings, not too much construction and most of it would be finished by fall, very nice and informative tour guide who saw several friends along the way, no one snobby, not elitist, innovative, hot, diverse, plenty of surrounding restaurants, big campus, good neighbor relations despite rivalry, said expressed interest not a factor in admissions
american- everything seemed new, nice gym, fantastic dorms, didn't like cafeteria food at all, diverse, small classrooms (good?), packed tightly</p>
<p>Georgetown - been to the alumni meetings since I was months old, I guess. Beautiful campus, nicely laid out in a nice location in Northwest D.C. My dad still hasn't forgiven me for not applying there.</p>
<p>George Washington - walked through it many times, very nice location, especially within D.C.</p>
<p>George Mason - What can I say? I live a few miles away from it!</p>
<p>MIT and Harvard - I liked MIT and its location right near the Charles River, but I wasn't at all impressed with Harvard.</p>
<p>University of MD, College Park - Nice campus, quite beautiful, but the surrounding areas make me kind of nervous.</p>
<p>Virginia Tech - Very beautiful campus and very nice stone buildings, but sadly almost in the middle of nowhere.</p>
<p>UVa - Another beautiful campus, and I can never forget all the kind people I met not only on campus, but in the surrounding area too.</p>
<p>Purdue - Didn't like it at all. Felt it was another "almost middle of nowhere" school like VT, except there was nothing beautiful about its campus. The second I saw it for the first time (and this was after I was accepted there), I knew I was not going there.</p>
<p>Rose-Hulman - Not as rural as Purdue, Terre Haute seems like a better city. Very small, yet well-kept campus. Buildings are all up-to-date, the athletic fields are kept nicely too.</p>
<p>University of Chicago - I went at a bad time, I admit. It was the day after Christmas, the campus was literally deserted, and my blood was close to freezing itself. But it didn't stop my impression of the magnificent gothic-style buildings and the uniqueness that contributes to possibly one of the finest schools in the U.S.</p>
<p>And finally, last, but not least....
USC! - The areas surrounding the campus are certainly to be avoided at all costs. Otherwise, the campus itself is great! Very nicely laid out, very easy to walk between classes, buildings are styled quite nicely, etc, etc.</p>