This reminds me of our Columbia tour. Our student tour guide was a train wreck, but in a really likable way.
She had two majors and one concentration, and was pre-med or pre-law or going into fashion design (she met Emma Stone during a fashion shoot). Plus she gave tons of tours.
I told me D that she would be a fun friend, but not the type of person you want to study with.
I love this thread. It is helping me to not strangle my kid when she had a weird reason for liking/disliking a school… she’s normal!
DOWN-
University of Oregon - Peeling paint on the dorm windows, flower bed areas that were just dirt and weeds. (To be fair, she also had some good reasons.)
Arizona State University - A couple of girls walked by the Honors tour group and announced loudly “The Barrett kids are all weird. Every Single One.” In general, the students struck her as “very high school”. The boys were show-offs, the girls were silly, and there was a general disrespect for the facilities (trash, walking through landscaping, etc).
UP -
Arizona State University - She thought the campus was beautiful, and loved all of the activity. Nice focus on the sciences.
I always tell my children, physical plant issues aren’t a red flag, but they certainly are a yellow flag—so it seems a good reason to me.
@Mommertons - Did you mean to put ASU in both the up and down lists?
The only school that went up, way up after visiting and especially after accepted students day is UMass Amherst. We had heard so much about zoomass and the brutalist architecture and in general how much Mass kids don’t want to go to Umass that we were expecting to see I am not sure what but something horror? Well, it was actually very nice. Beautiful surroundings, very clean and well maintained, unreal food, excellent tour guides and student panels etc etc. I mean it was everything you expect to see in a solid flagship. Even my son that was persuaded that the school was the worst in his list got confused and “admitted” that he actually liked it. Imagine this, to get an “I was wrong” from a stubborn teenager.
This is a great thread. It’s a weird dichotomy that while it is so important to visit a school, the snapshot you get is dependent on really random and uncontrollable factors that may or may not be that accurate! One school may zoom up the list because the host tells awesome puns and took your kid kayaking, while another plummets to the bottom when the tour guide mentions a campus showing of a movie that is “totally lame.”
So with a grain or two of salt:
Moved Up:
University of Puget Sound: Great admissions talk, free towel for the overnight (!), class visit was stellar, very engaging and attractive guide (I could tell my S payed a LOT more attention to her talk), great food and plentiful meal tickets, beautiful campus on a rare sunny day - probably everyone we talked to mentioned how lucky we were with the weather, and most importantly, an overnight host who took his job seriously. My kid had a really good time.
Willamette: Very personal treatment. They went out of their way to find out my S’s interests and customized the tour for him. Got a change to sit down and talk with theater prof, student who interned at capital, and another in his possible major. Plentiful meal tickets and best food we have had anywhere. Very friendly students, knowledgable tour guide…all-around good.
Beloit: They flew him out for the admitted students weekend so I did not attend. He came back really impressed with people, programs, campus, everything.
Stayed the same:
Whitman: Everything about this tour was great. Tour guide did a great job selling the school - probably the best I have seen. More meal tickets! Best class visit of all the tours for sure. Why stay the same? Because of a dud host! Grrrrrr… His original host had to cancel so we got someone else. Nice guy, but not very outgoing or really my kid’s cup of tea. They ended up going to bed at 9 and then we had to leave really early in morning to get to next school on time. I was bummed because despite Whitman being a great fit and all around great pick, my kid lost some enthusiasm.
Bard: On paper seems so so good. Just didn’t feel it on campus. Chalked it up to tour fatigue.
Moved Down:
Lewis and Clark: I loved it. Kid saw signs up in dorms that made him feel uncomfortable - rigidly dogmatic was his take. And cliquey feel to cafeteria. Not as friendly as other Pac NW schools. Also, last of five schools in that tour round.
Macalaster: Dead feeling. And cold.
@am9799 I wish we had the same experience. My son actually went out to visit Umass and he had been told it was pretty nice. He was there for all of 2 minutes and had made up his mind he thought it looked run down, didn’t like the scenery or buildings and basically that was that. I don’t know if I could get him to change his mind, which is too bad because I do think he might enjoy the undergrad business school there. Glad you liked it!
@am9799 That’s interesting about UMass. My son had an extremely strong negative impression about it, and so we never put it on the list. In fairness, though, about 40 kids a year from his HS go there which he didn’t find appealing. Your comment makes me think we should have at least visited it though. Oh well.
@Momofmrb
Yep,initially (before visiting) my son had an extremely strong negative impression about it too, ha ha ha
In the end he thought the school was comparable to some other big flagships that he was considering except for location. Amherst feels too rural to him.
I do not know. If we went there expecting to be “dazzled” maybe we would be disappointed. But what we saw did not match what we had heard.
For us that was the only school that we felt a disconnect between the reputation and our experience.
@Momofmrb We’re in MA and have about 60 kids go each year, and that was, I think, the biggest turnoff for my kids. To be fair, they didn’t want a big school in general, but that was the icing on the cake. No amount of “there are 20,000 undergrads, you don’t HAVE to see people from your HS” would have mattered. For safety reasons I insisted it be on my kids’ lists but it was a waste of application money.
It’s something about how so many in-state students hate UMass. My D wouldn’t consider applying. She did visit because we asked her to, but it didn’t go well. She didn’t like the location in western MA, she wanted a city. She thought the buildings were ugly. She didn’t like that so many other kids from her high school would be going. My H had attended and assured her that it was so big she would rarely run into someone that she already knew. And then we took the tour and she knew the tour guide. The kiss of death. But, she did like the food.
I think everyone can find a safety school that they will like that is not their large state school with many in-state kids! Just have to do a little legwork to find it. 
@mommertons – to clarify – did Arizona state really move up and down? Or was that a typo?
Yes, agree with @latetogame – great thread. Kids will be kids, and there is definitely an emotional connect or disconnect that happens when visiting colleges in person that is fascinating. Not always explainable, but fascinating. So interesting to see all the different reactions to the same schools.
Correction: On my post (#221), I had Arizona State University listed twice. I should have listed ASU in the DOWN, and University of Arizona in the UP. Sorry for the confusion. Thanks for pointing it out, @Otterma and @mstee.
Agree about UMA. Daughter was adamant she didn’t want to go there, one because of size but two because so many kids from our area would be there. Her two cousins also attended there. I insisted she use it as a safety (although its not a safety for anyone so she did EA). She was admitted into the honors college and then selected for their BioTap program as well but it still remained low on the list. In the end, she is attending elsewhere but knows that if she decides to transfer for any reason that is where she will go (assuming they’ll take her). Its a great school, kids should be proud to graduate from there!
We are OOS for U Mass and oddly enough it’s still on my daughter’s list even though the tour was mind-numbingly long and the campus architecture was uninspiring. Our in state flagship, however, holds no appeal whatsoever.
My D has no idea what type of school she is looking for (as evidenced by her list) but we were able to remove some after the tours.
Moved Up –
University of Alabama - WOW – she was feeling the love - from information sessions to tours to meet and greets and meals – she loved every second. She started out intrigued by the scholarships – left in love with it all. Not as impressed with the town/city and after returning home indicated she would like another visit to make sure it wasn’t just “shiny” but she would like to see it again with a more critical eye.
University of Pittsburgh - She had a great tour guide, a beautiful day, and outstanding meeting with a professor. People were friendly and we ended up in a cafeteria chatting with some students who were very open and honest - and great impromptu ambassadors of their school. She was really impressed with the city and feels that the location is the best she has seen.
Lycoming College - Little LAC in the center of PA. This was a last minute addition to view a small school safety after visiting Bucknell. She loved the look and feel of the both the college and the city. Very friendly people, right distance from home, larger town/small city, and she was really impressed with the facilities (amazing science buildings), academic offerings, and the admissions people. It jumped above much higher ranked schools (Bucknell, Lehigh, Gettysburg, Lafayette, Scranton). Fits the bill for “love your safety” and her only reservation was the small size - it was really small/personal. She should qualify for some outstanding merit based on her stats and feels she could have lots of leadership opportunities.
Neutral: Auburn, Clemson, Lafayette, Villanova, U of Scranton, U of Richmond – All met expectations and were overall very good - but nothing to “seal the deal” from the tour. She said she would be very happy at them all and could see herself thriving at each of them.
Moved down–
CMU – she had high hopes and had a great visit to Pitt the day before. The tour guide did not connect and she felt the campus was “cold” - buildings and people. She said she felt everyone looked stressed and isolated (no pockets of people working together or socializing). Didn’t get a good feeling from the admissions meeting. – It was a miss all around. We were happy to take something off of the list. Best friend loved it - go figure!
Susquehanna University – smelled like cows/fresh tilled farmland – could not get her past that and she did not really engage in the tours - only thing on that page of the notebook is (ewww - it smelled). Mom and Dad really liked it - but it is off of the list.
Bucknell University --Tour was OK - guide seemed disinterested. She was told by a group of girls that there was nothing to do there and that stuck with her. She was unimpressed with the tiny town and wondered about internships and jobs nearby.
Gettysburg – too rural - too small – loved everything else. Had an amazing tour guide who loved her school.
It is good when things fall off of the list even if it is for silly reasons- especially when there are so many choices. For us it will come down to location and cost – she loves all of the schools still on her list and can see herself making the most of any of them. It would have been nice if she could have narrowed down a region or a size - but she is still all over the place.
@novicemom23kids – “ewww - it smelled” has to be the best off-the-list reason ever!!! Love it!!
We saw CMU last week and felt exactly the same way. The buildings were also very run down.