<p>I was extremely impressed by Clemson. They were by far the most efficient and organized school we visited, the admissions presentation was informative and engaging without any time-wasting boiler-plate. In addition, the young woman who guided our tour group was hands-down the most impressive guide (and student) we had seen at any of the schools visited (many of them MUCH higher ranking).</p>
<p>DD did not ultimately enroll there (I was a bit crushed that she didn’t) but I heartily endorse it to all my friends who have students who are beginning the application process.</p>
<p>We toured 19 schools and no one ever mentioned a meal! (We were never expecting a meal either, but often took the time to eat on campus if touring during the school year.) A couple of the schools had baskets of snacks and while those were definitely appreciated, they were not expected. As petty as it sounds, I began to expect the bottle of water and was less than thrilled on 90+ degree summer days if water was not offered. </p>
<p>Johns Hopkins, Franklin & Marshall, and Lehigh were schools that struck the right chord, for one reason or another. Hopkins: excellent presentation, mostly led by bright, personable student summer intern as Ad Com had lost her voice; F&M–impressively interesting students and kind staff; Lehigh–highly entertaining & informative tour guide who brought the campus to life.</p>
<p>I really truly wish the contents of the info sessions and tours did not overlap. I also wish applicants would be allowed to choose their own tour guide. We would sneak away to the appropriate match of majors when possible, but it wasn’t always possible to change assignments.</p>
<p>Seems to have been mentioned multiple times, but I have to agree on Georgetown. The minute I walked on campus I loved it. Great accepted students weekend equipped with a free shirt.</p>
<p>Too bad I was rejected from the tour guide group :(</p>
<p>Free meals were a LAC thing in my experience. Every midwest LAC we went to offered us both meal tickets, none of the big Us did. I like to say S and I ate our way around the region D hasn’t been interested in the one meal offered so far…we’ll work on that.</p>
<p>We’ve visited probably 15 to 20 schools over the years with our two sons.</p>
<p>The oldest son graduated from the U. of Alabama. It is a beautiful school. The Honor College takes a personal interest in students, offering tours, setting up classroom visits and explaining the many opportunities that the school offers. My son later served as one of its ambassadors for three years. The science and engineering complex is new, so that’s a selling point to those students interested in those fields. The suite-style dorms are lovely – my son had his own bedroom for four years. And the football isn’t too bad either.</p>
<p>He also liked Duke and Washington U. in St Louis. </p>
<p>The younger son loved Alabama, but he is one of those kids who could be happy almost anywhere. His brother suggested that he visit Mississippi State, just so he could see another SEC school. The younger son loved the dorms, the dining hall (the food was very good), the library and the openness of the campus (he’s a distance runner so there are lots of places to run). When we toured the business school last spring, we each received a welcome bag. Inside was a cowbell. Tradition at Mississippi State is that when you go there, you receive a cowbell as a gift. They ring them at football games. We’ve hung onto that cowbell, because the school is one of his top choices.</p>
<p>He also liked Coastal Carolina (pretty campus and got a free water bottle), East Carolina (nice campus), Georgia Southern (lots of new construction for new dorms and classrooms) and Shippensburg (beautiful, new dorms).</p>
<p>snugapug: Ohio U. is lovely, according to one of my friends. Her son is a graduate assistant with the football team.</p>
<p>D1 started by looking at small, Midwest LACs and then switched to small tech schools once she decided on engineering. She really liked Hope College (campus feel, walkable to small town, great presentations by professors, very good tour, friendly kids, everybody knew everybody) and likely would have applied there if didn’t focus in on engineering. For that, we were pleasantly surprised by RPI (loved everything but the town, good facilities, really enjoyed interactions with ChE students and faculty) but D1 absolutely fell in love with Rose Hulman (excellent tours, stressed the collaborative learning culture, friendly students, great facilities, many newer dorms, very accessible profs). She ended up at Rose and loves it. </p>
<p>D2 really loved Johns Hopkins (beautiful campus, good facilities, had a great one-on-one chat with a dean, good info sessions and tour, good student interview). She also was surprised by how much she liked CMU (liked the campus and all the faculty she met, good tour as well). She’s a HS senior, so don’t know where she’ll end up yet!</p>
<p>I don’t mind paying for a meal, just as long as they give some kind of access to the regular dining hall. We tried the food at most of the colleges we were at - though some was more the cafe food than the regular meal plan food. Harvard is the only place my kids applied that definitely only lets already accepted students eat the food. I understand why, they get tourists and prospies on an order of magnitude more than colleges that are less well-known.</p>
<p>mathmom—SO true about the tourists on Harvard’s campus. We were in Cambridge several years ago, long before the time we would be touring colleges, and stumbled across a ‘tour’ of Harvard being led by some random person. No affiliation with the university, just offering an entertaining tour and hoping for tips at the end.</p>
<p>D is a HS Senior. We have toured about 18 schools, mostly smaller NE LAC’s. D fell in love instantly with Roger Williams University. She also really liked George Mason which was surpising only because it is such a large school and all the others she has liked have been much smaller. I fell in love with Catholic University in DC sadly D did not.</p>
<p>Dartmouth. Loved the school, town and tour guide. Visited the engineering school for a tour and ds is the only one. Full professor is there to meet and talk about the program. Talked about how Dartmouth values teaching and undergraduate education, and proved it by having a professor always there for the information session.</p>
<p>Then we were shown around by a student and met the dean of engineering in the hallway who greeted the student guide by name. He then asked if we had any questions, and said to email him if any questions cam up later. Just remind him that he met us in the hallway and he would remember.</p>
<p>Contrast that to Princeton. Engineering tour meets in the hallway, student is 35 mninutes late for tour. There was no information out for the students, no one was interested in the students waiting. Attitude was very obvious that they did not need to extend themselves to attract students applying - plenty more where we came from. Really bad attitude.</p>
<p>I visited a lot of ivy leagues and other universities in the northeast this past summer. No doubt, my favorite was Yale. Before my visit, I had my heart set on Princeton. Right before the information session began at Yale, my dad leaned over and whispered, “watch out - Yale may turn out to be a dark horse!” After going on the tour and researching the school endlessly, I completely fell in love with the campus and everything that I had heard about campus life. I now have my sights set on Yale, and hopefully I’ll be attending not too long from now! While the surrounding city of New Haven does not seem very impressive, it was crawling with Yale students and had an overall friendly tone.
I must say that I was also highly impressed with my tour of University of Virginia. The campus was nice, and campus life seemed fun and upbeat.</p>
<p>UVA was pretty awesome. The lady who gave the admissions talk was very knowledgeable and while some parts were admittedly boring, she was pretty funny and did her best to make the boring parts interesting.</p>
<p>The tour was my favorite of all the colleges I’ve visited so far. All of the tour guides seemed really nice, but the two who were leading my tour were especially nice. They pointed out all the points of interest and showed us the main points of the whole campus, not just sticking to one area.</p>
<p>Pomona’s info session was really inspiring, conveyed the liberal arts values of the school very well. My D had a very hard time deciding between Pomona and Dartmouth for ED, even went back to Pomona for a weekend first. Beautiful campus, fun students, nice location not far from mountains and ocean–if her friends and family hadn’t been on the other coast, I think she’d have applied there. (Hard to think of a greater contrast, in terms of climate, with Dartmouth, but the essential spirit was very similar.)</p>
<p>Thinking about the schools S3 visited (a current hs Sr):</p>
<p>UVa: This is kind of a gimmie and not really fair as S3 had a bias going in. His older brother is a student (S2) so he’d spent a lot of time there already for football games, etc. S2s roommate of two years (who stays with us often) is a tour guide and showed S3 around privately. It doesn’t get much nicer then that. :)</p>
<p>UDel: This was the true hidden gem of his search. His GC never mentioned it. We were both really impressed. He had a great visit, interview, and liked it better then several of his instate options.</p>
<p>W&M was hands down the gold standard by which all other schools were compared after he visited. He loved everything about it even in the terrible rain/snow of late March. For a school that doesn’t have to try too hard to get interest the information session was engaging, fun, and captured his attention. He was leaning forward, completely immersed the entire time. He was hooked. He spent the rest of his search looking for schools ‘like W&M’. Luckily they felt the same way about S3 and he was accepted ED. </p>
<p>Others he visited and liked were Lehigh, URichmond, and UPitt. Oddly there was no love for Wake Forest. Go figure?</p>
<p>I am surprised and feel sorry for people who didn’t have a good experience at Princeton. </p>
<p>We visited Princeton last summer. My D. fell head to toe in love with it. The information meeting was very helpful and the tour guide (a college frosh) was absolutely amazing. I was actually surprised by how much attention they gave to the visitors, given their prestigious status. The town is so lovely too. We visited it again (just the campus and city, because the university was closed) during Christmas break, because we felt we needed another dose of Princeton’s loveliness.</p>
<p>Why would you feel sorry for someone who didn’t have the same experience at P’ton your daughter did? There are thousands of schools across the USA that students fall in love with each year. I’m always happy to hear about the school a young person has chosen, what appeals to them. It’s their experience, and their happiness and excitement is fun. The ‘where’ doesn’t matter to me in the least.</p>
<p>Never visited P-town.
The closest I got was when the new Parents at my daughters lac were getting a tour of the biology lab.
An elderly fellow next to me who was a prof at Princeton was struggling with his bottle of Snapple.
I opened it for him, but he was miffed apparently because I wasn’t sufficiently deferential.
They did send lots of marketing materials to my youngest however.</p>
D hasn’t been interested in the one meal offered so far…we’ll work on that.</p>