<p>For every school that D1 didn’t like after her tour, there are thousands of students who cheerfully choose to attend. Different strokes, and possibly imperfect fleeting impressions, are all at play. Maybe if OP gives an idea about what may be salient to his/her kid, observations that are more pertinent to his/ her particular situation may follow. OP’s kid and my kid may have nothing in common.</p>
<p>Regarding the fleeting impressions thing, as I glance at this thread there is repeated reference to campus size of my alma mater, Cornell, that I might constructively comment on, if anybody here cares. It is, of course, large, that 's not a fleeting impression that’s a fact. But, if one would but actually experience it, it’s not as large, functionally, as a first impression would suggest. Each college there has its own quad, building,or group of buildings,as the case may be, which are geographically distinct. A student in, say, engineering, may seldom have to set foot in much of the huge Ag quad. And vica versa, and same for the other colleges, to greater or lesser extents. Other huge areas are living areas which become relevant only if you live there. Over time, more gets revealed, but the functional part of the campus, for a particular student, is easily mastered by most students within a couple of weeks. After that, the size just provides more vistas to help keep one from the boredom that might more easily creep in at a teeny campus.</p>
<p>If this thread is any indication, this “functional size reduction” is not being made evident to a lot of people during their campus visits. They ought to work on that, seems like. it’s still true though, for many students.</p>
<p>Monydad’s note about “functional size reduction” is a valuable point because it’s an example of something legitimate that’s worthwhile to assess on a college visit - something on which a reasonable decision about a school’s appeal might be based. Are there other worthwhile aspects on which visitors should be advised to focus?</p>
<p>I’ll start a list of college visit factors on which decisions should NOT be based:</p>
<p>“I liked / didn’t like the tour guide / spokesperson” - Irrelevant; you’re not likely to ever meet them again.</p>
<p>“This individual was great / rude” - Are they likely to be the key to your college experience? If they’re a negative and they’re in a crucial role, could you arrange to have someone else on campus fill that role? Is the rude person of such stature at the college that they should get to dictate where you can consider going to school?</p>
<p>“I don’t like the way some students dress.” - OK, don’t dress that way when you get there.</p>
<p>Monydad, I feel the same way since I graduated from U. Texas. Sure, there are 50,000 students there, but it’s not as if you’re seeing them all at one time (except maybe at the football games, which are wonderful). I spent most of my time in the Civil Engineering building, Cockrell. I loved being on a large campus, because there was always lots to do. I never had difficulty talking to professors, either. Most of my upper level classes were pretty small. I just bite my tongue when we tour tiny campuses and they go on and on about the advantages of small schools</p>
<p>I visited Cornell and looooved the engineering department and would be applying in a hearbeat except that I am afraid of the loooong walk (a mile in the snow?)from freshman dorms to the engineering quad. I have already had many many college level math classes, so I would be starting right away with the engineering courses. It is sad that colleges do not spend more time thinking of the quality of life of their students. Also at Cornell when I went to visit the shopping area within walking distance, I did not see a single store where I would buy anthing. No Gaps, Hollisters, J crew etc…just a few “strange” stores and eating places…While I am on the subject when I visited U of Chicago, they were building a new library right in the middle of campus (they have so many libraries, do they need another?) yet they have the majority of freshman students housed in a dorm SEVEN blocks from campus. The students have to take a bus every day. Walking in Chicago winters seven blocks is not an option! I wish these schools would spend more time thinking about such things.</p>
<p>While DD was out on the Colby tour, Mrs Wonderful and I waited in the admissions building. We paged through a few old yearbooks and found a four-year sequence of pictures for that year’s graduating class. My wife observed that for each of the years, at least half of the pictures involved drinking beer. Having attended a Midwestern University in the late 70’s, there is little I can be told about drinking beer. On the other hand, we did not expect this to be as pervasive in the yearbook. Colby did not make the cut.</p>
<p>DD and I visited Smith in a separate trip. DD is interested in math and physical sciences, so when the tourguide answered a question on distribution requirements with “and you never have to take math again”, her antennae went up. At the information session later that day, a Film Studies major said the same thing. Later in the same session, an ADMISSIONS OFFICER said the same thing. I looked around the table and saw many of the candidates smiling and nodding. Smith did not make the cut.</p>
<p>One last thing…at the U of Chicago tour the tour guide made some reference to one of the greek houses being similar to a brothel. My nine year old brother turned to my mother and asked “what is a brothel”…he got the “I’ll tell you later” answer. LOL!!!</p>
University of South Carolina: Ugly team colors(teal & black), ugly dorms (9 story cinderblock), ugly nickname (gamecocks) - Applied (forced), accepted, scholarship - still NO</p>
<ol>
<li>University of Central FL: New dorms, internships, close to Disney. Applied, accepted, scholarship, - winner, winner chicken dinner! But never goes to Disney!?</li>
</ol>
<p>S-
Georgetown - too religious, no cute girls on the tour or on campus at the exact moment he was there. Did not apply.</p>
<p>seattle_mom: Yes, it was funny that she liked such different schools, because Clark and Emerson are totally different. Clark just fit her preconceived notion in terms of campus, friendliness, cute hippie-ish guys playing frisbee on the quad, etc. But she’s pretty much lost interest in it now that she’s so totally in love with Emerson.</p>
<p>Crazy reasons? I’m not so sure. You’re about to spend 4 years and as much as $225,000 for an education, why shouldn’t you want/expect it to be close to your ideal? If you had the cash to buy a $250,000 car would you do it if they told you it only came in a color you hated? Would you buy it if you knew right down the road there were three other car dealers that sold very similar cars but had them in your favorite color and with all the accessories you wanted?</p>
<p>Students, and to a much lesser extent parents, are the consumers in this process. Except in the most extreme cases, (the service academies?), you have a huge number of options to choose from. Given a certain GPA/ACT/SAT profile you have literally 100s of choices; you’re spending the money anyway so why not look for the handful that fit best? Conversely if you’re only interested in basic transportation, then pretty much any place will do. In that frame of mind, there is no point in even bothering to visit; pick what looks good on paper and send in your apps.</p>
<p>We cut short the visit to Vassar as soon as my S spied a lego model of a lobster in a display case in the biology building. I asked, “What’s wrong with that? You have scads of lego cluttering up the basement?” …he gave me a look of amazement…he was surprised that it needed to be explained…he just repeated slowly…“a …lego…model of a lobster”…and then he gestured broadly to the sylvan, idyllic campus and said…“it belongs here and I don’t!”</p>
<p>floridahopeful’s impressions of the University of Chicago deserve some brief fact-checking:</p>
<p>It was never the case (or even close) that 50% of first years lived in off-campus dorms. Maybe 30% lived more than a block or two from significant campus buildings, most of them in one large dorm that has since closed and been replaced by a new, on-campus dorm. And the vast majority of students in that dorm had affirmatively chosen it over the on-campus dorms (large rooms, lax enforcement of party rules, beautiful views, closer to shops and restaurants and to the bus downtown).</p>
<p>It’s also hard to imagine that any tour guide comparing a frat house to a brothel. First, they’re not that interesting. Second, as a general matter no one is paying any of the residents to have sex.</p>
<p>Monydad–I agree completely about the problem with Cornell’s tours not “shrinking” the college. S knew he was going to apply to CAS, if he applied there. Spending 6/7’s of the tour trooping through schools he would never have anything to do with seemed a huge waste of time. Never actually got into any, never saw the dorms, etc. Gave us no flavor for the college at all.</p>
<p>Speaking of flavor, it was about 100 degrees the day we went, and someone after the tour told us the homegrown ice cream place was “just up this road”. So we forewent going for the car–my idea-- and decided to walk over. Well, by the time the forced march was over, S was barely speaking to us, despite the ice cream, and C was off the list.</p>
<p>Which is too bad. My dad went there for grad school and was rapturous about how much he loved it. So we were predisposed to.</p>
<p>floridahopeful: for those who don’t live in Florida, and have walked a few blocks in the snow in their lives, the prospect of same is possibly less likely to take on the persona of insurmountable obstacle. You have to walk up a hill in the snow, you put on your winter coat and you walk. I wouldn’t care to do it now, though it might do me some good,but when I was 18-20 I didn’t think twice about it. It is actually a quality of life enhancer, not detriment, in that it helps ward off the “freshman 15”. Buy your clothing before you get to campus, what you want near campus is a Starbucks, not the Gap. But if you planned otherwise, you’ll be happy to know they have buses that run to the malls and the shops downtown, you don’t have to walk in the snow to get to them.</p>
<p>When I lived in Florida I never walked anyplace, I just drove from place to place in my air conditioned car. Personally I think my quality of life was far better walking in the snow, up the hill in Ithaca. The change might do you good.</p>
<p>garland, I’ve not toured there in 30+ years, was just speculating based on what I was reading here, seems I was right. But your story is funny, you’re talking about the Dairy Bar, way up on the ag quad, which I didn’t even visit at all till I was a junior! Yet your S probably was left with thinking this would be some sort of necessary routine trek. An example of what can happen on a tour to mislead.</p>
<p>Funny. My wife, daughter, and I toured Cornell together, on a hot day in mid-summer, and we all loved it. I had only been once, for a day, and never on the main part of campus, so I had no expectations at all. My daughter thought that in terms of sheer physical beauty, it was the nicest campus she had seen. </p>
<p>We also walked to get the ice cream. Through the really neat arboretum.</p>
<p>My daughter didn’t apply, but for reasons that had nothing to do with the tour, which we all thought did a great job of selling the college. She had already been accepted at a place she liked more before the application was finished, and the isolation of Ithaca – which also, by the way, showed really well on that visit – was a hard thing to overcome.</p>
<p>I COMPLETELY disagree. Clothes say a lot about that person’s style, and it can say a lot about the personality of the school. I prefer people in sweats to dolled up Southern Belles any day! If you are told that the professors are terrible, you don’t just “not go to those classes when you get there.”</p>
<p>Amherst…
I actually liked the tour quite a bit, loved the buildings and dorms - though the campus felt so small in a weird way - I was trying to figure out if that was all there was, or it there was another party hidden somewhere.</p>
<p>What I didn’t like about Amherst was the information session. It was so…pessimistic.
Which I guess could be realistic, given how hard it is to get in, but they made it sound like such a political, unfriendly process that I couldn’t help but walking away feeling utterly rejected. I just left with a really negative feeling.</p>
<p>I’ll probably still apply, though, even though I’m not the oboe playing physicist they’re looking for</p>
<p>Ah, floridahopeful is referring to the late, great Shoreland. Most of the folks who lived there loved it. Huge rooms, feel of off-campus but still connected to the Univesrsity, etc. South Dorm now has replaced Shoreland. It’s on the southern end of campus.</p>
<p>Amherst…
<em>I</em> liked the tour and info session, but S said the campus was “too new.” I think that one thing that affects people’s view of it is that most of the buildings are clustered on the hill top, and the tour–understandably–doesn’t visit most of the campus, which is very large, and has un-built-up areas. Unlike many colleges of its type, Amherst seems to have a penchant for tearing down old buildings and replacing them.</p>
<p>A friend of mine told me before we went that none of the local kids she knew had had a good visit at Amherst. And we could not get our S to apply. Strange.</p>
<p>One of the things I noted about the U of C tour was that the guide–a theater guy-- actually talked about how the math in the core was <em>interesting</em>. The guide at Williams gave one of those classic statements about how you could manage to take some kind of pseudo-math to satisfy your requirement and not really be bothered by it again. What a contrast. To me, pointed up what makes the U of C great.</p>