<p>“a pseudo Victorian ensemble complete with corset the next.”</p>
<p>…And people used to call ME weird for going to class wearing nothing but a ski mask, a satin-lined cape, and hip waders.</p>
<p>Schmaltz: You didn’t see my S when you went to Williams. Thin he is. Well groomed? Not.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You’re right. Things have undoubtedly changed in 10 years. We almost NEVER wore dresses, except for the rare formal event. When I was in college, 30 years ago, women from W or MIT or H/R were pretty much indistinguishable. The BU/Simmons students tended to be more dressed up in skirts, etc. But that was a different time.</p>
<p>In addition, a) you were comparing the women you ASSUMED were from W to the women you ASSUMED were from H, and b) you are talking about the subset of W women who chose to go to those H parties. In all likelihood, those who chose to go to other parties looked different. I attended a few H parties, and I was never in anything but jeans. Moreover, I never waited in a line to get into a party.</p>
<p>Generalizations–mine included 
– are dangerous.</p>
<p>This is one of my favorite threads and now that people are starting to do spring break campus tours, I wanted to bump it back up for some more reactions.</p>
<p>Me (25+ years ago) - Vanderbilt: smokestacks, just yuck.</p>
<p>Daughter: GWU, RPI, Yale, Tufts, Dartmouth (??); she loved Cornell,
despite the snow in April!</p>
<p>We live in the shadow of Penn State, which now has the reputation of being a party school, which I don’t think is completely true; however, my D and I are quite familiar with the campus and in spite of me taking her there for various sporting events, ice cream, etc., she never wanted to go there. It is a beautiful campus, easy to navigate around.</p>
<p>We did a VA Tour last summer, going to James Madison (I-81 runs through it), VA Tech (beautiful campus, rural setting, much like PSU, lovely stone buildings, loved it) W&M(beautiful campus, very historic - I would go there in a minute, D didn’t like)</p>
<p>We also made visits to Syracuse (love that it is on the end of the city and sort of apart from it, ) and Cornell (2 visits, love the campus and the town, this is the place that give D the “warm fuzzy feeling”) </p>
<p>The only PA school we went to was Mercyhurst in Erie(very easy to get to, small campus, but pretty, they try very hard)</p>
<p>I think it would be terribly difficult to pick a school without visiting it and feeling the “vibe” . We have narrowed our list down to 3, VA Tech, Syracuse, and Cornell, with Cornell being the only place she hasn’t been accepted. Here’s hoping for some great news on April 1st!</p>
<p>i had originally felt that i probably wouldn’t apply to haverford, but my parents convinced me to visit it on the way to visiting swarthmore. visiting really confirmed my feelings–it just wasn’t right for me. it felt too small and too laid back actually, i wanted something more vibrant and exciting.</p>
<p>Are campus visits really helpful or can you do a visit after being accepted at a school? I see tour guides are influential here, will a virtual tour give you enough info?</p>
<p>I think if you can visit after being accepted it’s even better because you can truly “picture” yourself knowing it is a reality if you desire. We don’t usually do the student tours but do our own thing - poke into different buildings, read the bulletin board, check out the food options and bookstores, etc. I think each person needs a differnt thing to get the right info they are seeking and for some that may be a school led tour or a visit to a class, etc. Find out what you want to know and figure out how to find that out :)</p>
<p>I think the best thing is to visit both before you apply and after you’re accepted, if you can pull it off. But if you have to do just one or the other, I’d say after you’re accepted. Fewer visits that way and I think the student is probably a little more focused on getting something out of the visit in that situation, because going to that school is now a real rather than a hypothetical possibility, and it’s less than six months away.</p>
<p>My favorite story: D wouldn’t get out of the car at Swarthmore because she “didn’t like the stone of the buildings” I was fairly exasperated and told my best friend about it, an architect, who said “well, materials are everything…”
She also crossed Grinnell off her list because she thought the town was too shabby, although loved the school and campus.</p>
<p>We saw a bunch of different kinds of schools before son applied, so after seeing big, little, and big city, rural… son had narrowed down the list. He applied to two or three that he hadn’t seen but fit the criteria. We visited two after acceptances that he had not seen and it is true… it was the process of seeing himself there that he made the choice.</p>
<p>We asked our daughter to narrow down the list of schools that had accepted her to four, and made arrangements for her to visit those four during accepted student days. She had previously visited two, but the return visits allowed her to see those two in a new light. I think it was important for her to talk with professors, meet other potential students and enrolled students, inspect classrooms and lab facilities, and browse student research fairs and activity fairs. Some schools also arranged for meetings with the financial aid offices.</p>
<p>Villanova, go figure. It was a definite long shot anyway, but S said it was “too perfect, like a movie set”.</p>
<p>I still can’t figure out why that’s a bad thing?</p>
<p>Oh and Boston University. He didn’t like that it had no “real” campus.</p>
<p>We were driving right by Connecticut college and S wouldn’t get out of the car. No explanation, just wasn’t interested.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, and American was disappointing too. .Beautiful campus in a great city (S loves DC), but all the kids (I hope I don’t offend anyone) looked bored to tears, kind of like robots.</p>
<p>And our tour guide was awful. Nice enough girl but rambled on in a monotone giving stats. We didn’t see a class, the library, the dining hall, the sports facilities, nothing. We just walked around the campus and stood outside of all these buildings while she droned on.</p>
<p>We couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I got the impression that the students were way too serious for S, and he agreed.</p>
<p>Flip-side – we were at Villanova two Saturdays ago during the monsoon…50 mile an hour winds and 3 inches of rain (and that was just between 9am and 4pm). Son was still impressed and even H approved (and his ideal is the Notre Dame campus).</p>
<p>I hear you Archie, I loved Villanova. Sometimes you just can’t tell what it is that attracts your kids to a certain campus. Too perfect? Give me a break…</p>
<p>I crossed Haverford and Swarthmore off my list after visiting…along with UChicago, UPenn, and Brown. Hmm</p>
<p>ctmom: I am sooooo curious to know when you visited American; I think you might have been on our tour; sounds EXACTLY the same…down to the tour guide…great school on paper, but such a negative visit…my daughter said she never saw people so unhappy on the surface…</p>
<p>We realized my daughter is a bit more of an urban person than we’d all thought…… after she visited Williams with my husband last year. After the drive to Williams, through beautiful mountains and forests, she took a quick look around the campus and said, “I don’t want to go to school in the WOODS!”</p>