<p>Hello parents, since we cannot visit, I was wondering if you care to talk about your experiences and if after visiting with your child there was a change of heart.</p>
<p>Similarly, if you absolutely loved the place also it would be good to know. </p>
<p>Thanks for sharing.</p>
<p>Colgate
NYU</p>
<p>When we were visiting colleges last year for my son. We did a NY / Mass Tour. We started at Cornell - my husband and I loved it, my son didn’t - too big and spread out - lots and lots of walking, possibility of taking shuttles didn’t please him. Then we went to Renssalear (RPI) and we all loved it. Surroundng town is really not that great, byt RPI was a pleasant surprise. We found all the staff and students to be open and honest about what RPI is and isn’t. Most schools just tell you how great they are. Then we went to Mass for Tufts and MIT. We did Tufts in the morning. We did not like Tufts at all, as a matter of fact after the walking tour, we left, we didn’t even stay for the talk. Sometimes you just get a feeling about a school and we all had a negative feel at Tufts. Then we went to MIT and we liked it. We weren’t totally blown away by it, but it was pretty good.</p>
<p>It was a great trip. We didn’t rush through. We were in the Cornell area almost three days, two days at RPI and then three days in Boston, even went to a Red Sox Game.</p>
<p>I think it is so important to visit schools.</p>
<p>Virginia Tech
VCU
Fordham (Lincoln Center)</p>
<p>Brown and Northwestern were immediately crossed off. Terrible tour guides. My daughter felt that if these were the people the schools were choosing to represent them, she didn’t want to be a part of it. </p>
<p>On the other hand, we threw Cornell into a road trip just because we needed a rest stop. My d wasn’t interested in anything rural or “off the beaten path.” She LOVED it. Great tour guide, beautiful school - it went right onto her list.</p>
<p>We crossed a small LAC off our list after visiting. The reason may sound silly, but the real reason was that there was too much focus on “global learning”. There seemed to be a very high number of international students. My son just felt very uncomfortable. Also, dining arrangements were a bit unique. My son left the campus before we were finished with “everything” that they wanted us to experience. He told us that he refuses to apply. </p>
<p>We did a “drive by” of another LAC. It seemed too isolated to him, and he refused to schedule a tour. That day we did NOT have an appt. to tour (we passed the school on our way to visit some relatives).</p>
<p>All of the other schools that we visited he felt okay with.</p>
<p>Cornell “too big”
Berkeley “too hilly”
UC Santa Cruz “too many trees”
U Chicago “too cold” (march)</p>
<p>Go figure. I would add, lest he sound too flaky, that I think the above reactions/excuses were a surrogate marker for his gut feeling.</p>
<p>“small lac” doesn’t exactly narrow it down. </p>
<p>Obviously what the OP needs to remember (nay, we all need to remember when visiting schools) is that one kids hate is another kid’s love - even for the exact same reason. Son took Brown off of his list after visiting. And while I was a little surprised, he really really liked Tufts after our visit. He also really didn’t like Trinity (Ct) as much as some other schools, but for some reason didn’t take it off of his list until after he was admitted.</p>
<p>DS crossed off SMU, Catholic U, Carnegie Mellon, Berklee (we didn’t actually visit, but when we walked past and he saw the students on the stairs, he knew he would not fit in).</p>
<p>DD crossed off U of Richmond, Elon, U of San Diego (post acceptance overnight…she had visited pre application but the overnight was not a big hit), SMU, Wake Forest, Claremont McKenna, Pepperdine.</p>
<p>Also, we had strong feelings about not wasting money and time on applications. And after acceptances especially, we insisted DD spend the night because she was going to be enrolling at a college several THOUSAND miles away. We felt she needed to get a taste of it.</p>
<p>BTW…our preapplication visits to ALL schools took place over a two year period of time beginning spring of 10th grade (and the school she is at was one of those first visits). We combined them ALL with family vacations.</p>
<p>I will tell you…DD had very strong preferences. She is currently a college senior and her visits (post pre and post acceptance) at her school kept it in the number one spot.</p>
<p>Heresy, I know–but this past summer, D and I both felt Duke and Yale were too big. More importantly, our stronger feeling was that their surroundings seemed a little ominous. </p>
<p>We live in NYC surrounded by some seriously tough nabes and neighbors, so these reactions surprised us both.</p>
<p>Alabama- too big & spread out, tour guide wasn’t very personable.</p>
<p>son had to cross university of the south (sewanee) off his list, campus is beautiful, academics very strong,but very rural. it is situated in an area where if you are an outdoor person, into hiking, biking, caving, canoeing etc, you would absolutely love it…and they supply the equipment needed to students, however son is very allergic to trees, grass,molds, has asthma and has never been an outdoor person. as there is really no other activity (town is about 2k people) he felt he would not have any activities.</p>
<p>S1–pre-visit, Tufts was #1 on his list. For some reason, he hated the vibe on campus and did not apply. He also disliked Colgate… we left after only 30 minutes in the dining hall. He ended up applying to Emory, Brandeis, and GW and graduated from Emory.</p>
<p>S2–For the most part, liked the big campuses (Indiana, Michigan State,Colorado, and , surprisingly, James Madison) that had smaller programs available within them. However, we threw in a visit to the University of Denver while visiting the University of Colorado, and he never looked back. He’s a junior at Denver on a semester abroad at the University of Maastricht and loves it.</p>
<p>S3–absolutely no interest in large, spread out campuses. He really likes “cozy” and was all about LACs where he was recruited for soccer. He really liked Dickinson, Wittenberg, Denison, Lake Forest, and the University of Richmond. He absolutely hated Bucknell–the day we were there it smelled of manure from the surrounding rural area, and Washington and Jefferson, for no real reason.</p>
<p>We visited American University at the end of a college trip during a quick visit to S1 who now lives and works in DC–and it was love at first sight, S3 fallling in love with the cozy campus/urban vibe–he applied ED and that was that. He had no interest in pursuing D1 soccer and is happily playing on the club team to satsfy his soccer jones.</p>
<p>Pitzer- it was hard to get a sense of the campus from the website so we were glad that we made the visit. Son realized quickly that it was not for him.</p>
<p>Each kid knew “his” “her” school the minute we set a toe on campus: S – Williams, D – Barnard.</p>
<p>D was ten and kept stamping her little feet and saying, “My school.” She graduated in May.</p>
<p>Cross off? Hm. Let’s see. Not really. Oh yes, there was one: Hampshire. It was to be a safety. She felt the young woman interviewing her was clueless, uneducated and completely uninterested in her job. Apparently she kept checking her watch. Hampshire went right off the list.</p>
<p>Abilene Christian University - mandatory DAILY chapel and 15 hours of required religion classes (they fit that in by not requiring math or foreign language). What sealed the deal was when the tour guide, a 1st year grad student who went to undergrad there, said she wasn’t raised in that church but felt led to be re-baptized her senior year (yeah, because people told you for 4 years that you were going to hell if you didn’t…)</p>
<p>I have an idea; why doesn’t the OP give us a possible list so that we can focus our responses on her particulars…?</p>
<p>Fwiw, D1 crossed off Colgate immediately during visit; too small and too remote without a measurable college town surrounding…</p>
<p>From my S point of view:</p>
<p>JHU - too perfect and sterile. The campus was neat and beautiful but all buildings look the same, to him, not a lot of characters.
Swarthmore - too quiet and spread out. Again beautiful campus but he does not take to it.</p>
<p>I think at times, college visits are crap shoots, it is a grind if you are doing a long trip to many different colleges. Some days you are not particularly in a great mood, and the schools get bum rap.</p>
<p>RPI, Bard, Vassar (we drove through Poughkeepsie -yuk!), Georgia Tech.</p>
<p>Loved, loved, loved Barnard!!!</p>
<p>edit: Oh wait. I forgot American!</p>
<p>D2 was not thrilled about the quadruples at Quinnipiac and crossed off his list.</p>