My D didn’t like Richmond. It was one of her top choices before visiting but she felt it was super preppy and the buildings were too nice and the grounds were too well groomed. She said it felt fake and superficial. It completely fell off her list after the visit. Different strokes.
Interesting take on Richmond. We are seeing it over spring break. I’ll be curious what S19 thinks especially since we are also seeing Davidson and Wake, which I assume also have preppy students and well groomed campuses.
Richmonds campus is not just well groomed…It looks like something out of a magazine and is nothing like what I have ever seen before. Some people love it… while some don’t… like most things I guess!
New Orleans is dreamy any time of year. Add me to the list of Tulane fans. Okay, Tulane swooner.
Interesting discussion about USC a few pages back. I’m eager to see how D18 perceives the school when she visits next month. She didn’t like WashU because it felt too perfect and alt-reality (our tour guide even likened the campus to DisneyWorld–not a selling point for D!).
@amom2girls I think you meant to post your comment in a different thread
@homerdog Wake felt very preppy, but Davidson, surprisingly not. At Davidson, we saw a wider range of kids and they didn’t seem particularly fussy about their clothing. Richmond was definately preppy, but seemed more relaxed to us and less country clubish than Wake.
As for well-groomed campuses: Richmond was like no other I have ever seen. Wake was pretty tidy too, but Davidson’s was more similar to many NE lacs. Some wear and tear here and there. Pretty, but not so perfectly manicured.
Well, my kids’ only experience with New Orleans is early August. Dreamy, not so much.
My D19 would still be happy to apply to Tulane anyway—she’s in love with the local accent—but they don’t offer anything she’s really interested in. 
But that leads to a topical question: Anyone else have a kid where one of the filters is to go on YouTube and listen to what locals sound like? (And for my D19, it clearly isn’t some one specific variety of English she’s after—she particularly likes New Orleans, the Upper Midwest, the Pacific Northwest, and the Inland South/Appalachia.)
@dfbdfb Interesting question. D18 plans to major in linguistics, and she wants to be exposed to a wide variety of dialects/accents/languages. Top three choices right now are McGill, UBC, and USC.
Crossed off Vanderbilt and U of Penn. LOVED Princeton, UVA, Columbia, and Yale.
@wisteria100 you are absolutely correct, but too late to delete! This what happens when I am on cold medicine. Thanks and sorry all!
@MayBIvyMomma Curious - why did you love Princeton and UVA but not Vandy; or Columbia and Yale but not Penn?
Seem quite similar to me.
S visited these schools.
BU - off the list. Too urban and no real campus. The city runs right through it. The dorm that was shown on the tour was not good - building was old, really narrow hallways with grayish cement like walls, low ceilings, very depressing. For the prices, the dorm was an embarrassment. S cross it right off after that.
Northeastern - off the list. Compared to BU, more campus-like, but still way too urban. Dorms are old and really tiny, not appealing.
UMass Amherst - remains on the list. Met expectations. We are in state and this is our flagship school.
UVM - remains on the list. Charming college town and great campus and feel.
Purdue - LOVE it. This was on the list but became S’s first choice after the visit. S calls it his “dream school”. Beautiful campus and very vibrant culture. Awesome facilities, friendly students, very diverse. Good college town.
Pitt - remains on the list. Met expectations, lovely city. Urban setting but still has a very nice campus feel. Diverse student body, vibrant atmosphere. S can see him fit in there.
Binghamton - off. Campus is ok, not beautiful but not awful either. The town felt dead, not much going on. It is “blah”.
Syracuse - on the list. Gorgeous campus and dorms.
UConn - on the list. Not a top choice, but strong school academically and the campus felt ok.
DD visited URochester and Case Western this month.
Moved down: Rochester. So, this was the Monday after the Florian Jaeger story broke online the previous Friday, and we were not aware of what was going on. Tour spent an odd amount of time in the library (to avoid protest signs?) and I think they were trying too hard to be super upbeat about the place, and it felt fake. Finding out about the sexual harassment and EEOC complaints obviously adds to the concern here.
Moved up: Case. They honored her request to sit in on an upper level class instead of intro geology, which she appreciated. She also had a great tour guide and spent a little time just chatting with a professor she met while walking around on campus. Seemed like a friendly place, perhaps top choice, but one little box isn’t checked off.
I was surprised by the reactions of my 2018 and 2020 thoughts:
Virginia: moved down. Info Session was very broad and none of those specific details (dates, admission criteria, etc.). Felt like the tour was the “backstage” version… backs of parking lots and buildings. Only was at the very end we saw green grass. Felt like we left campus knowing less about it than when we arrived.
Wake: moved up. Info session and tour were very good. Luckily, my kids aren’t really interested because it is too small, so I can breathe a sigh of relief at not paying that tuition bill.
Visits Sept 15 with my D19:
Dickinson: Way up. I was worried D19 would find Carlisle too small, as she says she wants to be in a city. Downtown is next to campus, with neat shops and good restaurants. Campus is beautiful, with limestone buildings. Science building was new and well-equipped. (Campus seems to have avoided adding ugly mid-century buildings. A cool era for furniture and automobiles and Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald…not so much for architecture). We ate lunch at main dining hall. Food very good. Students appeared to be a good mix of diversity and clothing styles. Nearly all students live on campus, a definite plus for us coming from NC. Also, I’ll add we had about 7 students in info session, divided among 3 tour guides. Admissions staff very helpful. Dickinson has moved into ED consideration for D19.
Franklin and Marshall: Another solid like for D19. One particular we liked was that freshman are divided among 5 houses, kinda of like Harry Potter, without the HP look. Campus is mainly brick, which reminded us of Elon. F and M is maybe 50% Greek and it shows. (Dickinson is 20% and without separate Greek housing. D does not want too much Greek—not that there’s anything wrong with it!) As for the setting, Lancaster is larger than Carlisle, but the college is on the edge of town, with the downtown over a mile away. We drove, and I don’t recall the sidewalks being too inviting. We paid to park, which was worth it, as Lancaster has great food options for all price points.
Next up is Open House Bryn Mawr on Oct 9. D19 went to same 2 years ago, tagging with D17, and BMC has remained top choice since then.
@PetulaClark Super helpful! S19 maybe interested in Dickinson but I don’t think we will get to visit before he applies. It’s the only school in that area he’s thinking about and I just don’t think a flight from Chicago for one school makes sense. He is visiting with the Dickinson rep, though, when she comes to our school in Oct. So interesting to hear how much your D liked it!
Here’s a late recap of April 2017 trip.
Skidmore: Down. Campus is uniform and a bit dull, built in 1960s. Beautiful walk to downtown Saratoga Springs, great town, if a bit pricey for college students. But we were turned off by our guide saying that nearly all freshmen were tripled. Then we were shown a dorm room, with 3 beds crammed into space for 2. A disappointment for an expensive LAC. Guide also said he’d never checked a book out of the library. We also found the sole dining hall crowded.
Mount Holyoke: Stayed the same. Lovely campus, as everybody says. Great academics. South Hadley is small but literally across a two-lane road from the college. Northampton and Amherst each only 10 miles away (but N’Hampton takes longer to drive to). D19 wonders about the isolation, but I believe cars are allowed for freshmen, and she knows there is a bus sysyem between the Five Colleges.
Smith: Way up! College system of houses is very appealing. Info sessions great, tour great. We did not get any bad ‘vibes’ (I hate that word, sorry) that we heard bouncing about on the Interweb. After the tour, another guide just came up to us and asked if we had any other questions. Northampton is as great a college town as we had heard. Grungier than Saratoga Springs, much more than a mere college town. D19 could see herself here in what looks like a great supportive environment.
Looking at this post and my last, I wonder if we are mainly concerned with the buildings and settings and so on. But for D19, the aesthetics and the feel are important. She is considering environmental studies or other science major, and prefers a liberal arts college. And we have also virtually eliminated every college in the USA save 12 or so (by student characteristics, size, location, academic fit, colleges she actually has a shot of getting into). We are also considering Lewis and Clark, St Olaf, Wheaton (Mass), Lawrence…and for something different, Santa Clara and U of San Diego. Just in case someone wants to post on any of these
@PetulaClark , D17 is a freshman at U of San Diego (not to be confused with UCSD and SDSU as many of my East Coaster friends seem to do). We live in the mid-Atlantic so USD is a long distance for us but my husband is originally from California so we have lots of family up in San Francisco and a brother-on-law in L.A. We did not look at any of the other schools you mention. D17 wanted an urban location (also applied to Northeastern, Fordham, Loyola of Baltimore, UMD-our state flagship, Loyola Marymount and College of Charleston). I don’t have any info on Santa Clara tho my father-in-law is a grad. For some reason, we never looked at it with D17 though it would’ve been a good fit for her I think. USD was not actually D’s first choice but she is very happy there 3 weeks in. We did a tour her junior year, then she went back after being accepted and spent the day with a student going to class and some other activities and texted us halfway through saying she was ready to send in her deposit. If you have any specific questions that I can answer, let me know.
Lewis and Clark-We absolutely loved Lewis and Clark. The campus is stunning. Great story behind the old mansion that became Lewis and Clark. The academics seemed very solid. My D sat in on a Bio class and enjoyed it. The dorms were nice varied in age and a bit eclectic…If I remember correctly quite a few community themed options. I think we saw the wellness dorm. Food was decent. Community seemed very supportive. We also had a great tour guide so that helped. The info session was okay information wise but the administrator seemed very sincere. Portland is a few miles away and a great fun city. There is a shuttle from school to downtown. We liked sanctuary of campus with access to big city (great bookstore in Portland FYI). My D though was not impressed by music program so that is why it got crossed off her list. They have a few good merit scholarships too. I think one was is tuition.
If the student and parent do like urban colleges, why bother visiting them? You can do a virtual campus tour with Google Maps Street View.