Sorry with my writing… My phone also sucks but I needed to post my comment. LOL!
We have a son at OSU, @mrminsky. We cannot be more impressed with the resources available to our son. They use their size as an advantage with all they offer as far as programming, advising, pre-professional everything. Love OSU. Good luck!
"I still say the craziest dorm tour we did was at Pomona. They walk a large group of about 30 people into the common room at the entrance of the dorm then tell everyone to randomly walk up and down the halls and see if they can find an open door of a actual dorm to peak into. This is around 9:30am on a Tuesday. "
This sounds similar to our WashU tour, but it was a Saturday morning. The guide walked us up and down the halls of a dorm knocking on doors until one of the students agreed to let us (and by us I mean about 25 people) in. They were nice dorms, but it was awkward.
@winky1 That is very promising comment. I hear nothing but positive feedback about Ohio State U. We also like that there are things to do in Columbus
re#3035:
With no experience of it, some things can sound bad when they really aren’t.
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The reality is that the off-campus housing is preferable, to most upperclassmen, vs living in a dorm. In part for the same reasons, you, in all likelihood, would rather live in an apartment than in a dorm.
Upperclassmen generally prefer to live in smaller, more intimate groups of their friends, rather than with random people in a large dorm.
They have more personal space, more room to entertain, kitchens to use. And, let’s face it, no university rules and RAs to monitor what they are doing there.
Collegetown is immediately adjacent to campus. It is effectively an extension of the campus. In fact the university itself has some buildings and dorms in Collegetown… Some parts of Collegetown are as close or closer to some scholastic buildings as some university dorms are.
My daughter & I both had better living situations living off campus vs. living in the dorms. Hers was obviously more recent. For both of us, Collegetown house parties were staples of upperclassmen social life. She gave and attended dinner parties at various of her friends group’s apartments. One year she wouldn’t come home for a holiday because she was hosting a holiday party for her friends, there, in her apartment!!
As for me, I well remember calling my mother form my Collegetown apartment asking her how to cook a hamburger.
When I got my first job after college I had no problem negotiating a living situation and living on my own. I wanted my kids to grow up during this period. The living situation helped with that, IMO.
I don’t know any alums who complain about their living situations off-campus.
My son went to a different school, where there was no shortage of dorm space avalable for upperclassmen. Yet most upperclassmen (actually all of his friends) still elected to live off campus. And in that case campus was further away.
The reasons were all the same. More personal space, more autonomy, no RAs, live with friends…
re #3038: Did they fail to inform you that they have information sessions for each college there that are held in a building of the respective college? And a separate dorm tour? If so, too bad…
If they tried to take you to seven different buildings, to make sure everyone sees a classroom that is relevant to their particular interests/college, plus the freshman doms, the tour would last all day !!
And FWIW my D2 had time for, and did, part-time jobs and extracurriculars that fit her interests, and were not connected to her major. She loved it there. To bad she was not on that panel.
As an adult I would seriously love to live in a place where I did not have to cook and clean bathrooms or pay monthly utility bills split between several parties. Ugh! dorm life… those were the days. I’m all for all four years on campus.
BTW, people living off campus can still be on the university’s meal plans. I think my D2 was on some sort of modified plan, for at least part of her time there. But with two years of campus meal plans under their belt already, and with a kitchen right there, a lot of people tend to want to check it out, eventually.
How much is obviously a matter of personal preference. It was very important to D2, socially.
Agree that although it is nice to have the space to live on campus throughout college if you choose to do so, it’s also nice to have the flexibility to move off if you want as well. Some colleges require you to live on campus for 3 or 4 years. And then, unless you’re lucky enough to get an apartment on campus with a kitchen, you’re required to be on the meal plan. It can get to be a real drag by your junior or senior year.
April 2017:
Middlebury: UP UP UP:
If there ever was a “perfect” campus, this is it. Absolutely every building’s exterior and interior, and the grounds, were beautifully maintained so that they looked new. Everything was matching gray stone, whether an old original building or a new building. The campus had big green expanses of grass everywhere and was framed by the Green Mountains on one side and the Adirondack Mountains on the other.
We saw some kids on a quad playing what appeared to be, in my son’s words, “a casual pick-up game of Quidditch!”
Dining hall food was great, and we did not have to pay for it! There was no one there to collect money, and the students told us we could just come in. Apparently, all kids are on an all-inclusive, go-as-many-times-a-day-as-you-like, meal plan. We joked that we should move to the village of Middlebury and just walk into the dining hall for free food every day.
Our tour guide was a political science major who was very polished. Other kids we saw ranged from hockey players to cross dressers. At other colleges’ dining halls we saw, there was self-segregation by race in the dining halls; at Middlebury, table groupings contained students of various races happily conversing with one another. That is what diversity should look like!
One hall had “the largest window in Vermont,” with a great mountain view. Before final exams, students try to shoot paper airplanes across the room from a balcony through a small door on the other side.
Sustainability and environmental awareness are huge. They bragged of their carbon neutral status (I think that was the right term?), their solar panels, etc.— and how a student’s research made their carbon neutrality possible.
Want to study a foreign language? You should apply to Middlebury. They are renowned for languages, on campus, during the summer, and abroad.
We stayed at the Middlebury Inn in a bustling village.
My husband and I were in awe of the campus. It was just so perfect in terms of beauty and upkeep.
My son liked it a lot— it went up into his top five and stayed there until the end, and was a serious contender for ED— but ultimately, he preferred Williams for a variety of reasons. It also didn’t help that he emailed Middlebury admissions a question over the summer and never got an answer back, and since he was unsure of the answer, he was not ready to apply there ED. Happily, Williams is two hours closer to home than Middlebury.
Middlebury was by far the least diverse school we have seen. When asked about diversity, the tour guide used the example that not everyone was a skier.
@Deaston LOL :))
I respectfully disagree. While it may be preferable to some, I don’t think it’s necessarily preferable to “most.” It wasn’t to me, most of my college friends, or to my D and her friends. There are on-campus apartments which they can live in, but some still prefer the dorms and the dining hall. My friends who have kids living in off campus apartments (all around the country) often complain to me about the issues with leases, paying for times they aren’t there, and also about the fact that they have already had to sign a lease and decide on their roommates for the 2018/2019 year. Personally, I think it depends on the student. For my family, with the distance in between us and our D, on campus is definitely preferable. Colleges with 4 years of guaranteed housing were definitely favored a bit when doing our research.
Living off campus can be a lot cheaper, especially for the savings on the meal plan. My daughter lived 2 years in the dorm and 2 in a house right next to campus. It was cheaper to live off campus, and really a lot quieter.
It was more work for one parent (not me!) who collected the checks, paid the utilities, etc. It was also a little scary during the two hurricanes they had because the management company did not come over to board up the house or make sure it was safe.
I’m so glad everyone lived on campus at my college. Same dorms, stronger sense of community, and less class stratification than in apartments. We are avoiding colleges where a sizeable part of the class lives off campus.
This is probably a thread on it’s own - living on or off campus, but since we are here - living off campus at many schools doesn’t mean a commute but a simple walk across the street, as off campus housing is often all around the school. My four were one year and done with the dorms, wouldn’t have it any other way, so we don’t know another world. My youngest left a tour early when they said you had to live on campus three years. No way. Managing their own housing and utilities was good for them and living with people they wanted to live with was great, they end up being their life long friends. We usually started with the partial meal plan to make sure they didn’t starve, but that was abandoned after the first semester off campus. They are so done with dorm food. I am sure some students like staying on campus and it is certainly easier and less stressful on the parents, so it certainly has its merits too. To each their own - as with everything in the college process.
@CADREAMIN but what if they haven’t found people to live with off campus? I don’t know. Sounds stressful to find your people in the first six months of freshman year.
Sure that can be an issue, just wasn’t in our case and it all worked out. They would not have been happy staying in a dorm, that was clear. ymmv of course, totally get that. I think either scenario can work well, depends on the kids and situation. Dorm/on campus living is easier and less stressful for parents, that’s for sure!
Same with mine- one year in the dorms was plenty. No problem finding people they connected with and figured it out from there. It is surprising what they can figure out if they need to. It is really an individual thing as to what is important. Some kids want to live in residential housing for all four years. Many do not.
It should be a different thread, you are right. I loved that the middle eastern Prince and the poor city kids were all on the same floor (literally) and that I had a chance to live equally with people from truly all social classes-those who had a ton of live in servants at home, and those whose parents were the servants. It didn’t negate the differences, but I thought it was wonderful for all concerned for 4 years.
As an aside, as touring goes, I note that parents seem more swayed by dorms than kids, and that may be for the best. I tried to push my kid into requesting the brand new fancier dorm at her college but she accurately assessed that the 1950s style dorm instead was more conducive to open door and impromptu hall socializing. She was right.
I think the living on campus requirements and cost do play a part in moving up or down the list, same as ‘we didn’t get to see a dorm’ or ‘the food was terrible on the tour.’ Also if there is ‘off campus’ just off campus or if it is miles away. My daughter’s house shares a fence with the freshmen dorms. There is ‘on campus’ housing that is farther away (miles away). My other daughter’s sorority house is closer to the classroom buildings than the dorms.