@Pheebers Were you aware Villanova was a Catholic school before arriving?
2 Likes
@Pheebers Bard sounded so good on paper for my artsy child but our impressions were very similar to your experience. Way to angsty, way too many smokers. It was central casting for “angsty hipster”.
1 Like
@Pheebers Your post gave me a chuckle about how fickle our children can be. I know my daughter reminds me of a Seinfeld character sometime. Didn’t like school X because she saw some kid eat his peas one at a time or another kid eat his Snickers bar with a knife and fork.
1 Like
@Middleman68 Absolutely – we were very aware, but didn’t really care as long as it was a good school with good education. It had a bunch of things one of my daughters was interested in, and we’d heard good things. When we got there, though, it was just…off-putting. This is a thread for impressions, after all, and I acknowledge that Villanova’s a great school and a lot of people love it. One of my friends’ daughters is deliriously happy there. It just didn’t give us the right vibe after visiting, and wasn’t what my kids were looking for.
As my grandmother says, “Chacun a son gout.”
Gotcha. Just curious.
Moved up:
Sewanee - visited over a game weekend. He got to go to parties and interact with many students, faculty and admissions folks over multiple days. Came away with the sense the place is one big community. Off the charts beautiful campus. A little too isolated for me, but he likes it. We ended up visiting multiple times over this past year. Greek system is popular but not high pressure - all parties open to everyone on campus.
Furman - its a country club, and Greenville is a great town.
TCU - fantastic campus, his only reservation was that every student looked like they came from his high school. Still more girls than guys and most gorgeous (17 yr old hs boys have different categories to define the perfect college).
Oklahoma - beautiful campus, great tour including an impromptu meeting with the head of the business school who just blew everyone away. great sports, perfect big school size 25k), and good Greek system.
Moved down:
Belmont - he couldn’t see himself clicking with the students - way too many black jeans and use of hair products by the boys and way too many goth girls. Very artsy school which he wanted to be interested in because he loves music and plays guitar. Campus is fantastic by the way and Nashville is one of the up and coming great cities.
Elon - I loved it. Great campus, got to do the college coffee which was cool. He thought it was too remote (funny coming from a kid who just chose Sewanee) and too full of kids from the northeast…I guess we can call it the “Yankee vibe” (opposite of the too “Southern vibe” I’ve seen mentioned on this thread)
Clemson - visited on their spring break so he got no vibe (FYI - don’t do this if you can help it!)
Auburn - same as Clemson
@Dolemite My D’s first roommate ate everything with a knife and fork, even ice cream sandwiches. This kid couldn’t understand why everyone was getting antsy once they were done with their meals and she was so slow eating hers. Needless to say, D moved after her first semester and doesn’t socialize much with the former roommate. As you can imagine, that was only one of many issues.
Where was the roommate from? This is utterly normal for much of Europe, for example—in fact, if you order French fries at a stand-up corner stand in, say, Germany, you’ll be given a small fork to eat them with. And the whole concept of eating something like pizza with one’s hands? Shocking.
@pheebers - Congrats on your D2 making her decision for F&M. Great school (even though my own D crossed it off - lol)
Interesting what you said about the smokers. That would be a turn off for some and also a reminder that is is best to visit when students are there, though that is not always possible.
Get what you say about Villanova. The Catholic thing did not bother us, and we saw many Catholic schools, but you are right, the symbolism is more pronounced there, though I don’t think it is really any more religious than other Catholic schools and probably in fact less so than others. And while we are on the Catholic topic - BC - (I have friends who crossed it off for looking to religious,) My D had it at the top of the list and while it stayed on, definitely moved to middle of the pack. There is nothing not to like about the place, beautiful campus, beautiful people, well done tour, but my D felt it liked the something special factor - felt a bit too impersonal.
Moved up:
Mt Holyoke: was not expecting to like the remoteness, but the tour guides felt like they were being honest rather than saying pre-packaged lines, loved the campus, and really loved the price tag. I’m finishing up my first year here, and it was absolutely the right choice.
Bowdoin: I loved the campus, the variety of architecture, and instantly wanted to take every class I saw when I flipped through the course catalogue. I knew a few people who went there who had great experiences, and I thought it would suit me very well.
Down:
Wellesley: Didn’t like the competitive vibe, and I didn’t like the suburban location (which had some of my least favorite aspects of both rural and urban schools). To put the icing on the cake, after the tour I had a unbelievably bad interview experience, wherein the interviewer (who was not from my state and knew nothing about it) actually insulted my high school - and not even the academics of my high school, my high school classmates! Whom she had never met! Most people at Wellesley are clearly not like this, but the experience soured me on the school nevertheless. The only reason I didn’t withdraw my application was because a family friend is an alumna and really wanted me to apply.
Off:
Smith: It was perfect on paper, but I really disliked Northampton and what felt to me like an intense and uncompromising character in the student body. I didn’t feel like I would be comfortable openly disagreeing with the majority.
@Pheebers I hope your daughter has a great first MHC year!
@dfbdfb She’s from a very large midwestern city on the shores of Lake Michigan! I went to the same high school as her dad at around the same time, so it’s not like she or her family is a newcomer to this country. I know all about the European manner of eating french fries with a fork: we spent a year in a European country when my father was on sabbatical.
Maybe this kid was emulating those manners but she prided herself on being slow and deliberate so that others had to wait for her. They were annoyed and started making up excuses for why they had to leave. As they were all first semester freshmen, I think they were all giving each other a lot of latitude in the “getting-to-know-you” phase, but it got old fast.
@Pheebers My D1 has Celiac, so no gluten for her either. Which colleges did she tour that seem to be accommodating?
Crossed off D’s list:
Villanova - too suburban, lackluster info session.
Swarthmore - D thought the amphitheater among the trees was “creepy and too much like a summer camp.”
GW - no campus (although she liked NYU?)
Columbia - thought it was too intense and was not a fan of the core curriculum.
Barnard - After 12 years at a girls’ school, D said no more.
Moved up the list:
Haverford - D had thought it would be too small, but loved the honor code and Tri-Co opportunities.
Tufts - excellent info session, great tour guide (did not mind the hills).
BC - student panel was great, lovely campus, and good school spirit.
NYU - loved Greenwich Village setting and the flexibility of Gallatin program.
Johns Hopkins - beautiful campus, great research opportunities, urban setting (a plus for D)
As expected (in a good way):
Brown
Georgetown
Ultimately she chose Hopkins and is very happy there!
1 Like
I just came across this post again and realized that everyone was giving their reasons and wanted to elaborate:
“Crossed off: Brown, Trinity (Hartford), Hampshire, Providence College, Gettysburg, Union, Susqueanna
Moved up: Amherst, Bates, Mt. Holyoke, Skidmore, UScranton” (Bear with me, I don’t know how to copy).
Brown: Disliked the tour guide immensely, pouring rain didn’t help, too urban
Trinity: Loved everything except the crime rate
Hampshire: Drove through, D thought it looked like her high school campus, too liberal
PC: I liked it, D had an issue with the split campus/road that goes through campus and the Friars that toured us
Gettysburg: D thought it was run-down
Amherst: I hated it, D liked it (but I think it was all about the eliticism honestly)
Bates: I didn’t visit with her but she really, really liked it here, unfortunately waitlisted
Mt. Holyoke: What a beautiful campus and great school, stayed on the list to the very end
Skidmore: D really liked it, gorgeous campus, skiing available, ended up there 
UScranton: Great school (safety), great tour, great majors.
1 Like
@JenJenJenJen Smith, Mount Holyoke, Franklin & Marshall, and Hobart & Wiliam Smith were the best (for gluten free) of the ones we visited. UConn is supposed to be amazing for it as well, but we visited over vacation week so the dining areas were closed.
I cannot stress it enough – make sure you visit to check out the gluten free options. For example, Wells said on their website that they had gluten free food, but when we got there she was able to have lettuce and a hard boiled egg for dinner, and that would likely have been it for dinner the next night, too. (they called some things GF but there were shared spoons with pasta…) I also don’t have to tell you that there’s a difference between “there’s something gluten free in the room” and an entire separate GF station with entree choices and desserts. It makes a huge difference!
So interesting, I have visited at least 20 schools and the only times we were given real access to the dining room, as opposed to being walked through it as part of the tour, was when I visited with an accepted student (and sometimes not even then!)
To the extent we tried out the food it was when we were hungry while visiting MIT, Northeastern, Cornell or some other school and paid to eat in their food court. Sometimes we would wait to go off campus and hit the nearest coffee shop or Panera.
I hate asking for things, if you do not have a reason for trying out the food such as gluten free do you have to ask for passes? Will they even give them to you?
Fortunately my Ks so far have no major food issues but it would be nice to try out the food.
@SeekingPam We primarily did accepted student days/overnights, so they roll out the red carpet trying to convince you to enroll. Some places were obvious – F&M has an entire station with a big, permanent sign that says gluten free – you can’t miss it – and at some schools you had to ask a lot of questions. Smith we didn’t actually eat in the dining hall, but the lunch was catered and my daughter pronounced it some of the best and most plentiful gluten free food she’d had. Further inquiry revealed that it was reasonably typical.
Ohio Wesleyan literally gave us vouchers for meals when we arrived, but due to an oddly bad overnight we never ate in the dining hall. I guess the answer is that every place is different.
You can ask for passes in the admissions office. Many will give them but not all. In general, I’d say there is an inverse relationship between giving free meal passes and selectivity, which males sense I guess due to the volumes coming through their doors and the relative need to impress or not. I also found that LACs in more remote locations are very generous with giving dining passes.
1 Like
@Pheebers Tell me about it! One place she visited, she had to have a CUP OF GRAPES for lunch… 
Want to add that Union and Wesleyan both had great GF options as did wherever she ate at Syracuse. No surprise, those three are her current top choices even though they are very different from one another; being able to eat more than a cup of fruit is an important part of the college dining experience. 
@JenJenJenJen I’m not GF, but I’m vegan so I totally get what you mean. I only ate on campus for two accepted students days: Earlham and Ohio State. Earlham had very little for me to eat and nothing was labeled - not only were there no allergens listed, there was also no mention of what the food even was :-q Ohio State on the other hand had a catered lunch for their business school and the vegan option was AWESOME. It was plated nicely, was well seasoned, and I actually wanted seconds.