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<p>Funny how real estate sounding ads can be used and also twisted.</p>
<p>To me, “well integrated into city” means there’s no actual traditional campus. ;)</p>
<p>Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA. It was a safety on S’s list and he’d been accepted to other schools with greater name recognition and CC cache, but the school paid his way to Walla Walla for a top scholarship interview and he spent a weekend on campus. He came back completely charged up and enthused. He made the choice to attend, is now a junior and loves it. H and I have been to visit several times and really like the campus and the town. Oh, and the academics are first rate!</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say D LOVED it, but we took a tour of Bethune Cookman last spring when she was a 7th grader because we were in town and she wants to go to an HBCU. As she was “too young” for a “real” tour, we got a personalized tour from the woman who directs the on-campus museum. It was far better than the large group tours we saw, the with guide yelling to be heard and the kids all talking at once. </p>
<p>We got to see the inside of buildings not on the “real” tour, and when D said she’s interested in teaching, we were introduced to the education chair and the vice-chair, who dropped what they were doing to talk to her about her interests. We also met the person who helps the students find student teaching positions and post-college jobs, who pointed out all the names with offers already in-hand. All of them gave her their cards and said not to hesitate to email with questions.</p>
<p>The students all greeted our guide by name (and she knew theirs), and the young men all moved to the side as we passed. The weather, of course, was lovely to us compared to a Seattle winter of winter. </p>
<p>I don’t know where D will end up or if she’ll study teaching (it’s still her goal). But any place we tour will be compared to the warm welcome we got even though we were just passing through.</p>
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<p>Yeah, we thought GWU was a little *too *integrated into the city, and we didn’t like the fact that the campus is split into two parts with a shuttle bus to run between them. And the engineering building was in a sorry state, though that was 3 years ago and they were about to build a new one. But for city-loving kids, it is a great choice, analogous to Boston University, which generates the same love/hate reactions on its location…</p>
<p>GW’s campus–maybe one should say, its environment–is really a matter of taste. I would have loved it, but my daughter found it almost cacophanous. One of the things she liked about AU was that it was in a city, but offered some escape from the urban din.</p>
<p>@college4many–I have lots of good things to say about AU to anybody who wants to ask.</p>
<p>AU!! My daughter was scared to apply because she does not have the high stats in their 75 percentile. But I finally convinced her to apply because her major is not so competitive but is very unique at AU. We’ll see what happens. We have not visited yet.</p>
<p>Cal Lutheran in Southern California - this is the school that my daughter thought was wonderful, and I was floored. Very small school and we visited during Winter Break with no students on campus at all. I kind of forced her to check it out and she was enthusiastic about it.</p>
<p>DS and I were shocked at how beautiful Ole Miss was and it jumped a few notches up after our visit.</p>
<p>“re: Busdriver…We also stopped at Bucknell because we were returning to Michigan through Pennsylvania. S3 loved it. I really liked it also. He has applied RD and we shall see this spring. Beautiful campus. Nice kids. Gracious staff. Lovely little downtown. Beautiful homes.”</p>
<p>Momofthree, if he gets accepted and is strongly considering it, I really recommend that he do the accepted student visit. We did that visit for all the schools that my son was accepted/waitlisted to, that he was actually considering. Went to Fordham, NYU, Lehigh, Carnegie Mellon and Bucknell. After Bucknell, we actually considered just stopping the trip, because he was so enthused, and why consider anywhere else when you found the perfect place? They visit in their actual department, sit on a class and talk to their advisors. Really worth the trip.</p>
<p>I second the love for Whitman. We did a spur of the moment trip and practically had to drag DD out to Walla Walla. She was stunned at the beauty of the campus and impressed by the quality of the programs and the caliber of the students we met. It’s now #1 on her list.</p>
<p>Two that we surprisingly loved, and they are very different:</p>
<p>USC- Did a Southern California college tour, and added USC on even though it seemed too big and too urban. We are also Duck fans and bleed green and yellow (and black and white and gray), so have no love for USC in the sports department. It was difficult for DS even to agree to tour USC, but it ended up being our favorite tour out of all the colleges we visited, and we loved the campus, the Marshall School, the friendliness and obvious school pride of the students, and the amazing opportunities. They were by far the most professional and well-organized school that we visited, and we were treated like VIP’s. We still didn’t really like the area, but it had so much else going for it, that it shot up to DS’s number two.</p>
<p>Wabash College- What an amazing place! Gorgeous campus with state-of the art facilities, fantastic professors, very, very active alumni, friendly and engaged students who have a high rate of success after college. They supposedly teach classes in a way that works best for the male brain. Alas, DS couldn’t get past the all-male student body, and being in small-town Crawfordsville, Indiana, but I would highly recommend this school.</p>
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<p>Two colleges really surprised me - each very different from the other.</p>
<p>Stonehill College - we made S go look at it. He was a very strong student so for him it was a safety and I thought he needed more of those on his list. His objection was that it is only 1/2 hour from our home. Went on the tour, and found a lovely campus, with academics, dining hall and library were thoughtfully set up in a way to make them most beneficial and easiest to use for students. Afterward S said, “I didn’t want to like it, but the more they talked the more I do like it.” He was offered admission with a very generous merit scholarship, but eventually turned it down to go to a school further away. I know 3 girls from D’s class that attend Stonehill, and they were probably the 3 nicest girls in her class (and not dummies, either). </p>
<p>Northeastern - D insisted on visiting it. H and I like small colleges, which NEU is not, and we’re not fond of urban schools, which NEU definitely IS. We had lived near Boston long enough to remember NEU’s old reputation as a blue-collar commuter school. Well, NEU has changed. The buildings on campus were mostly new and all appeared very up-to-date and renovated. And despite being in the heart of downtown Boston, NEU has an actual campus - several acres that are all NEU buildings, with a few trees and lovely brick walkways between them and landscaping. They said they could house 100% of students on campus, but not all students choose to live on campus. Their co-op program is the original and still the best - NEU has been doing co-ops/internships since well before they became fashionable. They have connections everywhere. And now they’ve adjusted their calendar and academic plans so that you can do a co-op and still graduate in 4 years - though most students do 2 coops and graduate in 5. The students there seemed a bit more serious - more career-oriented and focused, just more mature. It would have been a slight reach for D but she applied, then withdrew her app after being accepted ED elsewhere.</p>
<p>Another vote for Northeastern. I had visited when I was in HS a million years ago, and remembered the old gray concrete buildings and very urban campus. Since we live in the Boston are, we visited BU and Northeastern on the same day to get a feel for the schools in our backyard. We fully expected that BU would be a yes, and Northeastern would be an no. I can safely say, that NU has changed in the past 30 years for the better. She really liked the program and the campus. However, she decided not to apply, since she liked other schools much more.</p>
<p>University of Richmond</p>
<p>I have 2 kids going to Northwestern, which is beautiful, and right on the lake. However, the original post asked abut colleges we “surpsingly” loved after visiting, so NU dowsn’t count, because we expected the campus to be great.</p>
<p>So, our surprise campus love goes out to Iowa State and Mizzou. Iowa State and Mizzou are both large state land-grant schools, and are close to their surrounding cities or Ames and Columbia respectively. Both schools look like a college should, and both have a lot to offer. </p>
<p>And my D would absolutley agree with the Edinburgh post - she did study abroad at Edinburgh, and loved it.</p>
<p>Agree with MyLB about Centre. We had spent the previous day at Vanderbilt, which until our visit was D’s first choice. Vandy’s adcom spent most of the info session telling the kids they were all probably qualified but very few would be admitted. I found that refreshingly honest, but it totally turned D off. We then went to have lunch in the student center and couldn’t figure out the multiple stations, cashiers, etc. and had to wait with our trays for a table to turn over. Tour guide was well-informed, but throughout the day there was absolutely no expression of “we want you to consider becoming part of our community”, no “you look lost, can I help you?” offers of assistance, no eye contact or greeting from passing students. </p>
<p>Contrast that experience with Centre’s very personal approach: a sign welcoming our D and the other kids scheduled to tour that day, a warm and enthusiastic tour guide who escorted D to visit a class after our tour & introduced her to the prof, another student who came to escort us to lunch, and the friendliness and hospitality of EVERYONE we encountered in Danville, KY. </p>
<p>D was accepted at Centre and offered generous merit aid; she wound up at another school where she got a full ride, but we would encourage any student who is interested in a small LAC to strongly consider Centre. If the four-year experience is as good as the prospective student experience, it would be top-notch.</p>
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<p>That is the (sad?) reality of schools like NYU, Ryerson, UQAM (the schools other than GWU that I know that are “well integrated into the city” unless Washington Square is completely surrounded by NYU-owned buildings) but what kind of student would thrive in that sort of campus?</p>
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<p>Young friend at NYU adores the environment, uses the city, walks, reads and writes outside- and couldn’t have been happy at a sweet LAC. She loves the variety of…everything. (All a surprise, because she’s from a conservative, stay home, don’t explore, part of the south.)</p>
<p>Agree about AU- always thought DC is one of the greatest places to go to college- the campus is pretty and just far enough from the city center to feel like another world.</p>
<p>I mentioned the title of this thread to my H, and his immediate response was, “Clemson.” His only prior experience with large state univs was UMass and Rutgers. He was so pleasantly surprised by Clemson’s well-manicured campus, the cute small town that abuts it, and the warm student-centered welcome we received.</p>
<p>University of Portland in Oregon. I came away with the impression that the size of this school was just right and the academic quality was quite good.
About 4,000 undergraduates attend this Catholic college. UP attracts a quality applicant pool. Average GPA of the Freshman class is 3.6+. The campus has a comfortable community feeling. Downtown Portland is easily accessible.
Son is interested in engineering. The engineering majors seem to have a good rapport with the professors. The engineering school is located in a big, new building.</p>
<p>The mention of Centre reminded me of another Kentucky college…Berea College and its namesake town were [surprisingly] as pretty and quaint as just about any LAC we saw in New England.</p>