<p>As a native of southern Virginia, I would say that the South begins at about Culpeper, Virginia. North of that is “Northern Virginia,” which was viewed pretty much as Yankeeland when I was growing up.</p>
<p>oh Schmaltz…that quote should be saved…literally lol…</p>
<p>lol, Hunt. In Texas, “north” was anything north of the Texas border, including Oklahoma!</p>
<p>My husband was shocked when he came down for school in Austin, having grown up in Wisconsin. He couldn’t believe that Texans still held a grudge against the “damn Yankees.” I still have to hold my tongue when Mainers talk about the Civil War!</p>
<p>MaineLH, when the Mainers talk about it you could refer to it as the “War of Northern Aggression.”</p>
<p>ML, when we lived in South Louisiana, I was told that anything north of I-10 was considered Yankee…I’m not sure he was kidding!</p>
<p>While driving back from vacation on Lake Michigan, we drove by Hope College. It is a CTCL, small LAC. S looked at the buildings and proclaimed that it would never go on the list. To him, it looked like a prison. I just don’t see it.
[Hope</a> College | Virtual Campus Tour](<a href=“Tour Builder”>Tour Builder)</p>
<p>However, his Honors program was held at Indiana State University in Terre Haute, a town that actually SMELLS BAD. He said he like the look and feel of that campus, though he doesn’t believe it fits his academic needs.</p>
<p>Actually, NY was the capital was DC was decided on. It was a gift to the South to allow the 3/4 compromise in the Constitution. So it was considered a southern location. In addition, a lot of it was built by enslaved people, so it operated in a “southern” way, sad to say.</p>
<p>Monydad’s “Huh?” tells me that my perception is not universally shared. It was just my perception.</p>
<p>MizzBee, I love the look of all the “cottage” residences at Hope College!</p>
<p>I think of it for myself based on who did what in the civil war. I just assumed people here think of DC as being the bottom of the North, but it hasn’t really come up in my discussions so I wouldn’t really know what, or how many, others here think.</p>
<p>Mizzbee, maybe you should take your son through Jackson, MI, so he can see what a real prison looks like.</p>
<p>Trinity University in San Antonio. We’d heard very good things about it. It looked like a good match for one of my kids, “on paper.” It’s thought of as a kind of smart, math-y and science-y, liberal arts college. Kind of a “college that changes lives” type of place. </p>
<p>Upon visiting, we were completely non-plussed. Our student tour guide left us with a really bad impression. He was a senior communications major who was slated to graduate in about 3 months. And he, unfortunately, sounded very dumb when he communicated. He used the phrase “and so on and so forth” just about once per sentence – sometimes twice in the same sentence. Unfortunately, I’m not exaggerating. My family was not the only family making eyes at each other over the annoyance of it all. Oh my gosh that got annoying. And so on and so forth.</p>
<p>He didn’t know much about his school – for instance, he told us the total number of undergrads (can’t remember the figure … say, 6000, for the sake of argument), and then he told us how many were accepted each year (say, 300, for the same argument). Well, you could see that a lot of people on the tour were doing the math and wondering, “HUH?” It just didn’t add up. Several people raised their hands, and one mom asked the question. Tour-guide-guy didn’t back down! He just shrugged his shoulders and said it was really odd that it didn’t add up, because he knows he got the figures right!</p>
<p>To make matters worse, he was sort of smug and bragadocious about making time for us visitors that morning, because (doncha know) most students are still sleeping at 10 in the morning. We had to hear about that several times. (He looked, by the way, like he had really tied one on the night before.)</p>
<p>And so on and so forth.</p>
<p>That school came off our list.</p>
<p>That’s sad, simplelife, because Trinity SA is really a better school than that. It’s a shame that the actions of this one person can affect so many. Maybe the school should be made aware so they can pull him off of that job…</p>
<p>At an info session at one of the local schools for parents and students (general info, brief talks from several students about their own college experiences). Couldn’t help but notice that the 3 kids who had just graduated from private colleges were much more well spoken than the one who had just graduated from Giant Public Flagship U. She said “like” about, like, a zillion times. The others not so much.</p>
<p>^^ I agree, givings. We were aware that this one guy may not have been representative of his school, in general. But once you get that impression, particularly once a 16-17 year old gets that impression, the damage is already done. Besides, the school clearly picked him to do this work. We kept thinking, why did they pick such a dud? Was he the best they could do?</p>
<p>Another thought we had … maybe Trinity’s target audience is not really the smart, studious crowd, but rather the laid back, average to slightly-above-average academic crowd? Maybe they LIKE/WANT kids like this.</p>
<p>At any rate, we were confused. The Trinity we saw did not at all match the Trinity we heard about and read about.</p>
<p>I did think about sharing our opinions with the administration. I wouldn’t want a kid like that showing off MY school. But I ultimately kept my opinions to myself.</p>
<p>I think many schools have this difficulty, even Ivies. Some tour guides really get it, others not.</p>
<p>“I did think about sharing our opinions with the administration. I wouldn’t want a kid like that showing off MY school. But I ultimately kept my opinions to myself.”</p>
<p>I think you’re doing everyone involved a favor if you just send the admissions office an email and let them know. Who knows how many people who’d be perfect for Trinity will be turned off – bad for Trinity AND the students. If they really want to send the message he’s sending, then sending the email won’t hurt anything.</p>
<p>At an info session at one of the local schools for parents and students (general info, brief talks from several students about their own college experiences). Couldn’t help but notice that the 3 kids who had just graduated from private colleges were much more well spoken than the one who had just graduated from Giant Public Flagship U. She said “like” about, like, a zillion times. The others not so much. </p>
<p>More likely a result of what went on before college–at home or even in high school.</p>
<p>^^I know what you’re saying, Hanna. At this point, he has already graduated and moved on – assuming that he did graduate as planned (a few months ago).</p>
<p>Maybe I will say something anyway … They really should be more careful about who they pick for that job. Then again, you’d think all schools would already know that!</p>
1 Like
<p>I’m a prospective student, I’ll throw in my two cents</p>
<p>Dickinson: small, quiet campus in a quiet town. Seemed like a very good safety, a very “globalized” academic community. After visiting Middlebury, I decided that they are incredibly similar, but Dickinson falls slightly short in most areas.</p>
<p>Bucknell: LOVED the tour, was my number one choice and is still very high on my list. Kind of in the middle of nowhere, but the campus is stunning and I happen to like the greek culture. The athletic facilities are the best I’ve seen, the dorms we saw were better than most, and the tour guide was genuinely enthusaistic about the school. The town, although small, is incredibly cute.</p>
<p>Lafayette: Hated it. Nothing essentially wrong with it, but the tour guide seemed quite bored and just talked about her boyfriend the whole time. The buildings are an ugly mishmosh of different styles that make a very incohesive campus. Will not apply.</p>
<p>Lehigh: The campus is beautiful, and the greek houses are stunning large mansions on the top of the hill. The campus is pretty much built on the side of a cliff, and beacause of this there was not a fat person to be seen. The library is also stunning. The surrounding area is very sketchy, but a 3-minute drive to the other side of town takes you to the beautiful “Historic Bethlehem”, which is several blocks of restored buildings with lots of restaurants and bars. I loved it at first, but the academics for liberal arts aren’t quite there, so it’s toward the bottom now. </p>
<p>Villanova: Didn’t like it. Nothing that was wrong with it, but I couldn’t imagine myself there. It may sound stupid, but all the religious statues are really off-putting to someone who isn’t catholic, although they assure you that non-catholics fit in great. I just couldn’t get past all the statues of dying jesus around campus. The buildings, inside and out, are subpar. </p>
<p>Colgate: I really liked it. It is literally in the middle of nowhere, and the “town” is the intersection of two streets. However, the campus is beautiful and the academics are great. The single thing that put this to the top of my list is the enthusiastic student body. It was a sunny spring day (which they don’t get a lot of up there) and everyone was, as one student noted to me, “high off the sun”. When I got a sandwich at the town deli, an employee who went to colgate spent at least 15 minutes talking to me about the college process, and how much he loved colgate. The student working at the bookstore did the same, even though they were closing and he surely wanted to get out in the sun. Neither worked for admissions, they were just truly thrilled with their school. </p>
<p>UVA: great school, but the tour didn’t give me much of a feel for the campus or student body. Charlottesville is a great little city to be in - probably the best college town I saw. It’s beautiful and a great school, so I will still apply and visit later on the off-chance I get in.</p>
<p>William and Mary: Probably the most beautiful campus I saw. The quad is, in my opinion, the quad to end all quads - it’s a “sunken garden” with cherry blossom trees lining it, surrounded by beautiful brick buildings. The campus seemed a bit quiet, and the students seemed very focused on school. Colonial Williamsburg is not the ideal college town, but it provides plenty of restaurants, and Busch gardens is nearby. </p>
<p>Middlebury: Like I said, it’s like Dickinson but better. For whatever reason, i was off-putted by their obsession with all thing international. Pretty campus and middlebury is the quintessential New England town. it’s okay, and I will probably apply. </p>
<p>Vanderbilt: top-choice at the moment. Although I had mono and strep throat while I visited, and there was a tornado warning, I loved it. The campus is beautiful, the staff is really friendly, and the freshman commons experience seems like it can’t be beat. The brand-new dorms were hands-down the best I’ve seen. My only concern is that, coming from the Northeast, I might feel a little out of place in the home of country music. However, the student body is very diverse - at least geographically - and I believe a third or something like that is from the Northeast. It’s the perfect balance of everything: it has a beautiful college campus (an arboretum!) but is a stone’s throw from the city, it’s big enough not to get boring but small enough to feel like a community, it’s great academically and you will still have plenty of partying. </p>
<p>Skidmore: Safety, wasn’t expecting to like it. My aunt a very involved alumni who lives in the area, and I’ve been up to Saratoga a few times a year my whole life. So although Saratoga isn’t exciting for me any more, I can honestly say that it is a fantastic college town. I actually ended up liking skidmore, although it is a bit artsy for me. The dorms were second only to Vandy, and the dining hall was spectacular. I will probably only end up here if every other school rejects me, but I still like it.</p>
<p>I don’t think a student from the northeast will have any trouble at Vandy at all from a cultural standpoint.</p>