<p>If the UT you are referring to is U of Texas you actually have to apply for housing before you submit your regular application…like this coming May or June. It’s a mad scramble to get it in early since on campus housing is at a premium.</p>
<p><a href=“on%20a%20nice,%20sunny%20Saturday%20afternoon,%20after%20being%20in%20noisy,%20busy%20Boston”>quote</a> the entire place was literally dead.
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<p>Actually you 'd probably experience much the same thing visiting most any school on a Saturday, with the exception being a football school on a home game weekend. Most campuses are pretty quiet on Saturday and Sunday.</p>
<p>It’s a good way to schedule a visit if you want someone to NOT like a school especially if you have been to other very active campuses during the school week. ;)</p>
<p>Dordt College in Sioux Center, IA. The people were great,but the physical plant, not so much.</p>
<p>^^^^I don’t totally agree. I have been to both my kids’ schools on the weekend, and neither is ever empty or deserted; there are always lots of kids walking around.</p>
<p>Northwestern: DS2 loved it! He was ready to apply ED, but we insisted he visit the campus first. When he saw ivy on those buildings (ahhh, it was a gorgeous day!), that won him over! Northwestern is a beautiful campus: right on the Lake, terrific walkways, interesting buildings, small hills. At nights, you’ll see the lights of Chicago as you stroll along the lake’s edge. I’m not so sure my son, now attending, went on that walk, but I know he dove into the lake just before he left for the December break. It was 11 degrees!</p>
<p>What he doesn’t love: his dorm is on the edge of campus.</p>
<p>D took an instant dislike to U C Davis. Too far out in the country for her. The tour guide was inarticulate and not a good representative to impress prospective applicants at all. </p>
<p>UCLA - great. Lots of activity. Beautiful Spanish-Moorish brick architecture. </p>
<p>UCB - They need to pick up the litter and keep the homeless off campus. But the tour guide was a really great salesman for how wonderful the Chem department was and he had a great job waiting for him at a great company. D liked the hills and the really friendly students lounging on the lawns on a sunny Sunday.</p>
<p>A couple of schools that did not make the application list after D visited (memories from a few years ago): </p>
<p>Northwestern: she was considering it for both general humanities and/or music performance, and the school had much to recommend it. In the final analysis, it didn’t make the cut because – Evanston was just too clean, groomed, affluent and pristine. 
<em>scratches head</em> (What can I say? My kid likes a somewhat “grittier” environment; loved and was toally unfazed by the settings of UChicago, Penn and Temple. for example). If it had been my H applying, NU would have shot to the top of the list for two reasons: Lake Michigan, and the dog beach a block away from campus :)</p>
<p>U of Rochester/Eastman School of Music: Loved Eastman, felt strongly negative about UR, and for no reason that I could figure out. Ultimately decided not to pursue performance, so UR did not make the cut for applications.</p>
<p>Williams: My kid was absolutely certain she did not want a LAC, only university settings. But I really wanted her to broaden her exposure to different possibilities, and thought Williams would make a good exemplary visit for her (she had the stats, it was a day-trip from home, IMO it’s the poster child for the perfect LAC). Verdict: she was totally impressed with the school, and liked everything about it – except the things she didn’t – and remained unshaken in her feeling that it wasn’t right for her. Memorable quote: “If I wanted an LAC, and wanted to be in the middle of nowhere in a tiny village clinging to the side of a moutain, Williams would be at the very top of my list.” (said with sincerity by the way, not just irony - the school is that good and impressed her that much!!!)</p>
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<p>My daughter had the opposite reaction. Northwestern came off the list after she visited because, at the time (I understand it has improved) the music school was pretty deteriorated.</p>
<p>orchestramom- Williams was MY choice for “if I could go back to college”. I even bought a sweatshirt. I got to go with WildChild on a recruiting visit. It was too small for him, although he later had some regrets…</p>
<p>My S fell absolutely in love with Williams. He liked Williams, Vassar and U Chicago and was totally uninterested in everything else, though he applied to a full array of schools.</p>
<p>Totally uninterested in Brown, Wesleyan, Amherst. I couldn’t understand it.</p>
<p>Luckily, he was accepted to Williams. Junior now.</p>
<p>S was very unhappy when he visited Rochester & found out what the snow poles alongside the road were. He couldn’t imagine how cold it would be when the snow was that high. He also wasn’t crazy about how rural the area was & decided at that point, he was a warm weather, urban kind of kid! 
Now, he’s accepted a job after spring college graduation–the live in VA (which is the coldest he’s heading for).</p>
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<p>I too was suspicious of campuses that were too empty on any day of the week. GW was dead on a Thursday night - oh, there were plenty of parties, but NOTHING else! That was a turn off. WashU, on the other hand, was really pumping even at 9 or 10 on Saturday.</p>
<p>At our flagship U & CC, it’s very dead in the evenings and many weekends as well. At my kids’ U, I believe it’s pretty busy most of the time or my kids would have complained about it loudly to us. The kids from nearby smaller schools all descend upon the school my kids attend on weekends because there’s a lot more going on and more kids there.</p>
<p>Does this count? My kid refused to even GO to Ithaca (which has a fine music conservatory). He very seriously said “Why would I drive 5 hours throught the boondocks to get to the boondocks?”</p>
<p>He wanted to be in a large CITY.</p>
<p>Reasonable reason!</p>
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<p>I don’t get the pawnshop bit, but there’s wireless across the campus. It’s just not in every single dorm room with a strong connection (but it is in the study/common rooms), so they also tell you to bring an ethernet cord. </p>
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<p>O_o [Connecticut</a> College : Wireless](<a href=“http://www.conncoll.edu/computing/3827.htm]Connecticut”>http://www.conncoll.edu/computing/3827.htm) That’s almost all the campus, even still. I mean, it’s just not true. xD</p>
<p>Interesting to here the comments about Uchi being cold…it was another top pick of mine. I wonder if I would have found it cold too. I never got to visit, but it sounded nice, if not academic.</p>
<p>^^^That’s the first time I’ve ever heard of the area around U of Rochester described as rural. It’s not exactly a LAC on the side of a mountain…</p>
<p>Knox (left 1 hour into scheduled 5 hour visit–didn’t like anything about it–campus seemed empty, tour guide was not good, did not like town); Cornell College (really rural, really small town); Beloit (no idea why he didn’t like it–I loved it); Ursinus (not sure–I think too preppy). Son also liked/loved certain campuses/schools the minute he set foot on them. Not sure how rational any of this is, but I guess it is what it is.</p>
<p>Well, that have to narrow the list some way. I’d like to think they are having some kind of psychic insight.</p>
<p>I’m an optimist. And both of mine did choose the perfect college for her/him.</p>
<p>dudedad, I thought the same thing. Maybe the “Rochester” is actually RIT, Rochester Institute of Technology?</p>
<p>Sorry, no offense intended, S was just surprised that the universities in and around Rochester–there were several we drove around–were so far from the things he has always taken for granted in the urban environment he lives in. The kicker was the snow poles & snow fences, but he also realized that he likes to visit places further from the big city but probably didn’t want to live or attend school there.</p>
<p>We were the ones who wanted him to view these schools. He didn’t like other campuses that were not near big cities as well. The school he chose IS very near the big city, so I guess he really does prefer that setting (tho he likes camping away from it).</p>