Important or not to you. Others care about who the tour guide is. At Wash U, they seem to all be pre-med, so that’s the impression the school wants to give. My daughter was on the Wash U Christmas card list, and everything they sent talked about pre-med. She had no interest in pre-med. The more I hear about Wash U, it’s all about the pre-med.
Scratch scratch.
@pickledginger You are so right! The law school my DD eventually did attend (SLU) was very cooperative. Most law schools rank their classes, and only students above a certain rank get particular interviews and opportunities. There is a certain payback for being an obstacle to other’s success. There is perhaps a personal drawback to being cooperative. The students at the school my DD did attend noted that classmates WERE ranked and worked hard to do well, but felt cooperative study was a positive motivator that raised everyone’s level. Even though the school was nowhere near as highly ranked as Wash U, my daughter was certainly not limited in her program, opportunities, nor future success. The moral being, I guess, to find the culture in which your student feels most confident and comfortable and that will lead to success.
“The more I hear about Wash U, it’s all about the pre-med.”
But it’s not. I have a humanities kid who only applied to LACs otherwise who would have been quite happy to go there. Didn’t get accepted. Focused, intelligent students, yes. A little bit of a pre-professional and serious, yes. Reminded us a bit of Georgetown in terms of its student body. But it is much more than pre-med although it has an obvious draw for that based on the strength of its science programs and the medical school. It also has a very strong business school and a stellar school in design and visual arts, among other programs. Kicking it off the list if it makes sense for you based on the strength of its programs in other areas would be a mistake if solely based on reading comments about it being too pre-med, would be short-sighted IMO. YMMV.
@NEPatsGirl - Posting something here and that results in a PM doesn’t address the issue @doschicos points out in #2717… there is no context for anything on this site. It is one of the great weaknesses of this site…you either post to a topic and mention a school or post to a school and mention a topic. They aren’t associated cleanly to each other. I can’t tell you how many times Amherst or Bates or Colby…etc…were mentioned here, but if I go looking for information on those schools via the conversations started with each, you can’t find references without painful and exhausting searches.
This site is fun, as you get to regale others with one of the great experiences/competitions of adulthood now…but the value of the information available is what you paid for it…
The reason you visit any school is to get what you can’t get online or in a brochure: the campus vibe. Now, that vibe might be thrown off by bad weather, a weird tour guide, a bad meal in the dining hall, etc. but it could equally be enhanced by a beautiful day, a great guide, etc. There’s probably no way, in fact, to get a completely neutral read on a school. So you can only go by your impression, knowing it’s probably flawed. Everyone’s impression is going to be different. Which is why we have this thread.
I find this thread so helpful for a million reasons. Sometimes I read about a school here and then go and google it to learn more. What I found particularly helpful the other day was when someone wrote about the reasons a school that I loved (Richmond) wasn’t a good fit for her child. Everything she listed as negatives were the things that made us love the school. It reinforced why the school was so appealing to us. So… those are just a couple of examples why this thread is a great resource. Feel free to name schools even when you have something bad to say. You don’t know how it will help someone even if it means they go on to research it further.
My D’s experience with Wash U was very, very different from some of the other posters. Neither she nor I perceived anything close to a overly pre-professional or pre-med obsessed vibe (and as a humanities kid seeking a place with serious scholarship and being totally turned off to pre-professionalism at the undergraduate level, my D was, if anything, hypersensitive to that sort of thing).
What she did see were bright, serious students and engaged faculty in a supportive environment. She had communicated extensively with one of the faculty that reached out to her and gave her thoughtful feedback about her scholarship essay, and she was impressed by how well organized their scholarship weekend was. She ultimately decided to go elsewhere, but Wash.U. was a major contender.
This thread would have never made it past the first page if people didn’t name the colleges that moved up or down the list. I know I certainly would not still be reading if this was 182 pages of anonymous schools.
Basically, we want real names and real dirt, and also real names and real gold.
I think everybody here is informed enough to recognize that a negative report of a single event at a named school doesn’t mean it’s a horrible place, just as a positive report of a single event at a named school doesn’t mean it’s a perfectly wonderful place. It is, however, both informative and entertaining either way, but both of those are diminished when actual school names aren’t given.
I’m all onboard for entertainment value. 
@doschicos re: WashU: “stellar school in design and visual arts, among other programs.”
Agree. My niece went there for Visual Arts, and loved it. Accepted in to prestigious MFA program after graduating. She is about as far from “pre-professional” as you can possibly get.
If I could chim in. I thought Milee30 not naming the school was good.
I openly admit I started this thread for three reasons.
One, my daughter started with a few threads with questions and almost no one replied, so I took it over.
Two, I wanted to bash a school, Bowdoin because after our negative experience, I e-mailed admissions and did not hear back after a few weeks, so I wrote my experience, who knew I was creating what became a popular thread. They did send me an e-mail a few weeks after I started this thread, but to late, cat was already out of the bag. And no, my daughter did not get rejected, she never applied.
Three, I was so impressed with our tour guide at Mount Holyoke, we had a tiger parent (over 30 questions) almost argue with our tour guide and she handled it so well. Not only is my daughter a happy freshman at Mount Holyoke, she wants to be a tour guide and hopes she can have the impact on a prospective student our tour guide had on us. Our tour guide was one of the top ten most impressive people I have met in my life ( and I could drop some pretty impressive names ), and the tour guide admitted she didn’t enter the school as confident as when she gave us the tour. The truth is, it quite possibly was a life changing event, and a great one indeed. I guess we will never know if she would have chosen the school with a different tour guide. So no, even though the thread has some funny stories, it wasn’t meant for chuckles, I wanted to share the extreme opposite experiences we had. I also started this thread well before she applied to schools, maybe no coincidence she ended up at the school that moved up on the list. I know I’m not a great writer, so sorry for the imperfect grammar.
Most people who have posted anything negative have not done so to purposely “bash a school.”. Both positive and negative impressions are interesting, and usually subjective. To post comments and then not be willing to name the school, seems like a tease to me. I just don’t see how it is helpful, but that is just my opinion.
The comment about disliking no reply from an email to an LAC brought back a memory. Nosy mom here, I looked at son’s probable second semester schedule at my alma mater, a large flagship. Two of his Honors STEM sequences would have clashed according to the online timetable released before registration and when students would have been busy with end semester work. I sent emails and/or made phone calls to the two departmental chairmen (or profs in charge- don’t remember) and Honors whoever. Got quick, nice replies and they fixed the glitch (changing teaching times for profs) before students were to do registration.
What- personal attention from one of those huge, “impersonal” schools?! The school was UW-Madison and it would be nice if others have positive experiences to relate about schools often bashed because of being large public U’s. I, too, am on this site for the fun of it.
@wis75 I am wondering if that topic deserves to stand alone… ? It’s a good one!
@Akqj10 - my initial interest in this subject was piqued by a complete dismissal of a long email I wrote to the director of Colby. The women who lead the information session was abusive to a prospective student who was respectful but was clearly struggling with issues on the autism spectrum. It was disturbing enough that I spent an hour or so writing an email, only to get an email at 5:30 the next morning saying “thanks”.
We had a great tour guide at Colby, and on a spectacular August day had views that felt like you could see Europe from the top of that hill…but wouldn’t have applied if they were handing out $100 bills.
What’s amazing about this discussion is the depth of emotion (in both directions) people get from an hour on campus after interacting with 2 or 3 people.
^^Agreed, @EyeVeee! And the way these emotions continue to color what posters say about these schools for admissions cycles thereafter.
Any 2 hours is your experience, but you may have had an exceptional (good or bad ) 2 hours. Heck, I know people I graduated college with whose experience was an alternate reality to mine!
We visited one school spring of junior year. Weather was cruddy, paths across sprawling campus were muddy and wet, guide was a delight but as a theater major, a complete mismatch for athlete DS, and student union visit was over the top bizarre. Bottom of the list. We were back in the area fall senior year and coach wanted to chat with DS so in the “we are as close as we’ll ever be” spirit, we went back. Beautiful day, great visit, upbeat, not weird kids… DS ended up liking it enough to apply and go to Accepted Students event and consider seriously.
2 different afternoons, same school.
Hamilton, beloved by so many on this board, could not overcome a bad first impression. When the whole cycle was over, I think we all felt like we probably just had an unusual visit and knocked it out of the running when it should have stayed.
But I admit, I enjoy reading people’s impressions of their 2 hours.
@gardenstategal - ^^^ we love…LOVE, Hamilton. I could try to explain it, but it’s too boring for comment #2738 of this discussion.
Great topic,…because its reality. Good visits, bad visits, good weather days vs bad, good tour guides vs bad…thats why visits are needed and lots of them. They are a business and thats what makes it so tough on families. Some visits are hilarious and I hope people just realize,…“a bad day” but with that said first impressions can be everything. Here’s to our visit journey,…“cheers!” We will report back!
Moving up (staying at top) is Bryn Mawr. We went to their Open House 3 days ago. It was raining (one day of weather is the dumbest reason to dislike a college, climate is a different story) and our tour host was great. We have been on 20 tours between 3 daughters and every tour host has been good to excellent. Info sessions really vary though.
Open House was very well-planned. We were able to meet a panel of profs, then a panel of students. Also a mock session in which small groups of parents an prospective students looked at fictional applications. Lunch was provided in Great Hall on tables with tablecloths; BMC admissions staff mingled and an associate dean sat with us. We were also able to meet our regional rep at 4 PM. A full day, and well worth it.
We had been to another open house earlier this year, that was not much more than regular visit, with meal vouchers thrown in. Lunch was about noon, so we were able to crowd in with half the student body at the main dining hall, also hungry and not in the mood to chat with the campus visitors.