<p>kmags93, my S will be applying to most of the schools on your list, so I really appreciate your write-ups! Glad to hear most of the impressions we had from our research confirmed.</p>
<p>So are Georgetown, Harvard, and Penn. However, like Columbia, these are probably not matches for anyone looking at GW.</p>
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Northeastern in Boston. Loved the city feel.</p>
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<p>Pinot noir: sounds like Fordhamâs Rose Hill campus.</p>
<p>When D started the college process. Carnegie Mellon quickly rose to the top of her list. After all, CMUâs School of Computer Science is terrific and it has a brand new building. All was well until I actually saw sketches of the building. De gustibus non est disputandum, but I found the design unappealing, to put it mildly. After the acceptances were in, D pared her list to five and then to three, with CMU still on the list. When it came time for D to enumerate the pros and cons, she quickly indicated that the best thing about CMU was the new CS building. I almost burst out laughing, but I bit my tongue because it was her decision to make. It was a very close call, but she picked another school.</p>
<p>We went on the Iowa Private College Week. Visiting 5 colleges over the course of 3 days we found some short list ones and some that were crossed off immediately. While St. Ambrose in Davenport and Coe College in Cedar Rapids made our short list; Loras College and Clarke University in Dubuque, and Cornell College in Mt. Vernon were cut. Loras was over religous for what we were looking for with a very âtraditionalâ taste to it. With Clarke, we never found anything wrong with it, nothing really stood out as anything special and would make a good fall back school. Cornell was our biggest disappointment but we had built it up in our minds going in. The concept of âblock semestersâ interested us but we found nothing else that caught our eye about the school as rememberable.</p>
<p>Daughter attends Coe. We all have been VERY happy with the choice. She will be a senior.</p>
<p>We ended up visiting Coe because we needed a school to visit that was close to Cornell for the IPCW appointemnts and we were almost 3 hrs from home. Really, we never even considered it originally. Other than the odd parking situation my S really loved it. We loved it too. Unfortunately, it had a slight back lash. Since we all but dismissed it at first and ended up loving it, we start to wonder, what else have we dismissed that was really a gem. We are now going back through prospective schools taking a second look at why we dismissed them. </p>
<p>One question fpfan⊠what does she like about Coe? What is âSpecialâ in her perspective?</p>
<p>Pinot Noir-Check out Tulane</p>
<p>JohnEH, I know from your other posts that you and your son are focusing on LACs in Iowa, Ill, and Wisc, but if you are at all intrigued by the block plan, you might want to look into Colorado College. Set at the base of Pikes Peak, and a bit more selective than the colleges you mentioned, itâs something special indeed.</p>
<p>SunmachineâŠin theory I really like the idea of the block semester. The only thing that is nagging in the back of my head is⊠âif it so great, why havenât more schools gone to it?â I will take a look at Colorado College. We are not against expanding out. At this stage, we are just figuring out the âTypeâ of school we are looking for and then we will be able to zone in from there. I know my son even has his eyes on a Hawaiian school so everything, exept schools already crossed off, are on the table.</p>
<p>We havenât seen many so far but we hated PrincetonâŠand, surprisingly, loved Swartmore. My daughter thought Princeton was too spread out. I thought it was snooty and pretentious.</p>
<p>We crossed off:</p>
<p>Marietta- My son liked this school, but for us it was just too inconvenient. Also, they wanted my son to go back to campus to compete for scholarships. This would mean more time out of school, days taken off from work for us, and another big expense for us.
We felt that the school was not geared to accommodate students coming from another region of the country. In the admissions office two students commented about how they would love to attend college near where we live!!! This does not sell their college too well!</p>
<p>Otterbein-Also not geared to students that are not from their region, IMO. They apparently are going from trimesters to semesters and our son would need to be in the middle of that change. Also, they could have exams the Wed. before Thanksgiving. When would my kid fly home? Not intersted in that headache. This might change once they move to semesters, but I donât want my kid mixed up in fighting to do well and get home. Too many other choices out there.</p>
<p>PinotNoir;
âWe visited GWU. My son, who loves a big city feel, didnât like it either. I think his ideal campus would be built around a grassy quad with trees, plunked down right in the middle of bustling city streets of some big city - DC, NY, Boston.â</p>
<p>Check out McGill in Montreal, in the middle of downtown Montreal:
[McGill</a> University Campus | Flickr - Photo Sharing!](<a href=âhttp://www.â â â â â â â â â â /photos/siansleep/3532430472/]McGillâ>McGill University Campus | The view from my floor. Not the c⊠| Flickr)
[McGill</a> University, Montreal, Canada | Flickr - Photo Sharing!](<a href=âhttp://www.â â â â â â â â â â /photos/maojenhsu/173825249/]McGillâ>McGill University, Montreal, Canada | McGill University camp⊠| Flickr)
<a href=âhttp://www.â â â â â â â â â â /photos/mathoov/256677022/[/url]â>http://www.â â â â â â â â â â /photos/mathoov/256677022/</a>
[086</a> Campus McGill | Flickr - Photo Sharing!](<a href=âhttp://www.â â â â â â â â â â /photos/eclectical/2313165373/]086â>086 Campus McGill | Rue Sherbrooke, coin McGill College | Eclectic Al | Flickr)
Okay, so the last one isnât green!</p>
<p>Vassar, the surrounding town is disgusting.</p>
<p>âsurprisingly, loved Swartmore.â</p>
<p>Just out of curiosity, why is that a surprise? Itâs a beautiful campus with great academics.</p>
<p>vitrac and tomofboston - thanks for the ideas and those pictures of McGill are beautiful. My son actually graduated last year and will be a freshman at University of Rochester in a couple weeks. We did look at Tulane, and I really canât remember why he didnât apply there. He did end up applying to GWU and American, as well as Boston U and Northeastern, so he did try for that big city feel. In the end though, he loved U of R and they also made it possible financially. (So did GWU, but American, NEU, and BU all accepted him with no where near the financial or merit aid it would take to even consider those schools.) I also have a current junior, so weâre starting the whole process all over again.</p>
<p>But in the interest of not hijacking this great thread, schools he crossed off his list after visiting:</p>
<p>Knox - He said it felt like high school all over again
Goucher - I liked it, but he didnât. He had a bad interview, but Iâm not sure if that colored his opinion, or if it was bad because heâd already gotten turned off during the tour. That was the only school we toured where all of the prospective students were wearing khakis or dresses - we had seen jeans everywhere else. I actually liked the vibe and loved that it had horse barns.
DePaul in Chicago. He loved the way it fit into the surrounding city, but it did feel like a suitcase school, where the evenings and weekends might be all about going home (lots of commuters) or heading into the city with friends - not much hanging out on campus.
Loyola U of Chicago - what a beautiful campus! Right on Lake Michigan, and right in the city. But my son is not religious, and the crucifix in every classroom bugged him. As well as the required religion classes (although they are very broadly defined). We visited it because it was in a cool big city, close to home, and a safety. But they really were exactly what they claimed to be, and just didnât happen to fit my son. Also, they werenât as organized as some - we had scheduled a tour and info session, but it was hard to find the parking garage, and when we left we had to find someone to let us out - they hadnât given us a token or parking pass or anything, even though parking was free for prospects. Also, the admissions building was unmarked and hard to find.</p>
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<p>âSurprisinglyâ because they had just hated Princeton, which also has a beautiful campus and not-too-shabby academics.</p>
<p>Iâve been to so many schools-some with my parents, some not by choice, but still, Iâm grateful that Iâve gotten the opportunity to see a vast array of schools :)</p>
<p>Baylor University-Pretty campus, but the city i which itâs located is horrible. Dumpy, ugly, and boring. People were friendly, but most of them looked oddly identical-girls wore athletc shorts, oversized Greek t-shirts, ponytails, pearl earrings, and Sperryâs. Which is odd, as Iâm pretty sure there are no oceans anywhere close to central Texas ;)</p>
<p>Texas A&M-Tour guide was VERY enthusiastic and friendly, but quite honestly the ugliest city and campus Iâve ever seen in my life. Concrete and dead grass in a tiny podunk town. Ugh!</p>
<p>University of Texas-Austinâs very cool, but the school was just too big for me. Pretty, and great academics, and lots of school spirit, just a tad too big.</p>
<p>Lousiana State University-Our tour guide was drinking milk out of a water bottle and had gotten up five minutes before the tour. Also, she said that her Freshman classes had up to 800 people in them. Definitely a no for me.</p>
<p>Ole Miss-I liked the campus, it just wasnât as strong academically as Alabama or any of the private schools Iâm looking at.</p>
<p>Boston College-I just didnât like the campus-it was deserted, and the few people we saw werenât friendly at all. </p>
<p>Harvard-Not that I was going to apply, but I just didnât like how it was just a huge mashup with MIT.</p>
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<p>For some reason unknown to me, Sperryâs have gotten really popular here. My kids havenât gotten into them, but at church choir, sometimes theyâll be the only ones not in Sperryâs.</p>
<p>Have I mentioned Kansas? Unnecessarily huge campus.</p>
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<p>We are fairly religious, but of the Protestant, public school variety. I also thought the crucifixes were pretty jarring.</p>
<p>But D loves DePaul.</p>