@dragonmom3 re: Wake Forest - I didn’t go on the tour with her, so I don’t know exactly why she ruled it out. She had an interview scheduled a couple of hours after the tour and cancelled it. She said it didn’t feel friendly, and that’s about it. I know she was there right after visiting Furman, which she felt had the most friendly students of any campus she visited.
@jbsanderlin It’s so funny because our impression of Furman was the exact same impression your daughter had at Wake. We found the students a little more pretentious than the other schools we visited . This is after several visits to the campus.
@carolinamom2boys That is funny. If anything, I’ve learned that I can’t read my daughter’s mind or predict what is important to her.
Was the Hofstra campus itself depressing? They layout and the buildings? What about the school safety and surrounding areas?
Crossed Off:
Notre Dame - loved the campus, got in the evening prior and walked around, stayed on campus at hotel. The tour the following day was tough - felt way too religious - we are not Catholic and both of us felt uncomfortable following the tour. Disappointed as I thought my son would love it.
Columbia - got the impression they could care less about anyone visiting - well over the number at session than would fit in the room, huge tour groups, etc.
Moved Down:
Northwestern - great tour guide, but lack of interest from admissions people, also saw after UChicago so not as impressive
Moved Up:
UChicago - second college visit and fell in love with the campus, the tour guide was great, the regional AO rep agreed to meet with my son and really felt welcomed.
UMichigan - although large campus, Ross Business School is much smaller and felt quite welcoming.
UPenn - great campus, wonderful tour, overall good impression
Crossed Off:
UVA–Hands down the worst tour we had. Some of it was not UVA’s fault, and some of it was. We toured the day after a snow storm. We were walking on ice, and the tour guide was walking too fast for the entire group. My daughter was stressed out watching older adults teeter and slip. The guide was sarcastic, but not in a good way (this comment is coming from someone fluent in sarcasm!) and when asked why he attended UVA, he said, “Because I didn’t get into Stanford.” At the end of the tour, the guide began speaking about the various lawn moments people have at UVA, when they “know” and “feel” the school in a special way. Our guide said he never had a lawn moment and didn’t care if he ever had one. Then he invited us to go to the Admissions and rate his tour. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough, and decided to hit the restrooms in the admissions building on the way out. Then a fire alarm sounded, and everything was evacuated just as we were trying to ahem evacuate as well. Trying to leave campus during the fire drill was just another sign from the college gods that this was not the right place for D18. It also meant that we didn’t have a chance to fill out a rating for our tour guide.
Swarthmore–I didn’t go on this tour, Mr. Katespeare did. He loved the campus, D18 declared the students “weirdly intense.”
Haverford–D18 didn’t like the campus. This makes no sense to me, as the college on paper ticks all of her boxes, but whatever. This was another tour with Mr. Katespeare. Maybe it’s his fault? 
NYU–D18 toured this during a performance opportunity in New York. She realized she didn’t want an urban campus.
Moved Down:
Vanderbilt–One of the first schools we toured. D18 thought the campus was too big for what she is looking for.
Duke–D18 loves camping, but thought camping out for basketball tickets “cultish and weird.” Keep in mind that her grandfather is a diehard Duke fan who would probably sell his soul to be 18 and camping out for tickets. She is applying, but she didn’t love it in the fanatical way many of her peers do.
Moved Up:
Davidson–From the Mayberry-eque town to the small but beautiful campus, she loved it and declared that it was an ideal place. A top choice.
University of Richmond–I was worried she would object to the spider mascot, but she liked this more than I thought she would, and it’s a top choice of hers.
Washington and Lee–She objected to touring on principle because I went there, but she visited and sheepishly admitted that she really liked it. Also a top choice.
@dspflyer I visited a friend a very long time ago at Hofstra. It was in the 80s so things could have changed. I just didn’t like the campus or the architecture. The whole place just seemed cold to me. I spent the night and met her friends and roommate. I just remember thinking that it was depressing. I am certain that there are people who love the place. It was just my impression many moons ago.
WAY UP
This is the third time I’ve done the “college round” but must say that one of the most impressive universities we visited was the UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN in Ann Arbor. We visited in the fall and Ann Arbor was simply gorgeous. Very “arty”, it was neither large nor small and had a fantastic feel about it. The facilities were also very impressive and we had a terrific tour. The students were very friendly and we met two faculty who taught in the university’s “Residential College”. They couldn’t have been nicer.
Most impressive was the meeting we had with financial aid. They actively encouraged OOS applicants and said that they were now just about able to meet the full need of all OOS students who demonstrated need. What a change from other universities. Alas, UM is now one of the most competitive universities but it still was a wonderful experience.
DOWN
AMERICAN UNIVERSITY. Nice campus but nothing really spectacular. The tour guide mentioned twice that AU was “just as good as Georgetown” and I sensed a bit of an inferiority complex. The housing situation and poor FA were turn offs.
VASSAR. Beautiful campus and great tour. It was simply too remote for our liking.
Here’s a sampling of my experiences touring as a prospective student. Let me start with the good news:
Moved up:
Pomona: I got the chance to sit in on a class, which was truly wonderful. It wasn’t even a subject I was interested in, but the professor was phenomenal and I was impressed that there were students from two other colleges in the 5C’s in a class of about 12. There was gorgeous weather; the campus layout and buildings were different than what I’m used to but nicely functional.
Williams: Heard some really good things about the math department from our tour guide (even though it’s not my intended major, I really like the subject). The school feels connected to the town and surrounding area, with internships and documentary projects that capitalize on the location, however remote. The info session was actually interesting as opposed to the usual torture: the presenters were confident, comfortable, and had a sense of humor, and they made the presentation interactive. Students were settling in for the start of the year, and it was a sunny day.
Moved down (and off the list entirely):
Northwestern: We had a sassy tour guide who mocked the tour group for not being very talkative. The other prospective students seemed uncomfortable and didn’t make eye contact with me. The campus is decentralized and I think the Brutalist library is ugly (superficial, I know); anyway, reports of tension with neighboring town seem ominous; it was cloudy.
University of Chicago: I personally didn’t like the architecture; although I heard snippets of really interesting conversations from students on the path, the tour didn’t help me visualize what my actual academic course would look like, and the students’ stress levels seemed unnecessarily high. Also, my uncle and cousin have had bad experiences with the school and that realization caught up to me. Again, it was cloudy
Dartmouth: Too much like home and the school I’ve attended for the past three years
*N.b. I’m aware that my judgments based on the weather might have little bearing on my actual experience if I were to attend, but in the case of Northwestern and UChicago I realized that proximity to Lake Michigan results in a lot more cloudy days I am used to. The timing of my visit to Williams stands in stark contrast to my visit to Amherst, when the campus was essentially dead. However, other factors, such as layout and the student body I glimpsed, suggested the schools I listed first would be better suited to me.
@AWrinkleInTime For some people, the weather is definitely a factor to consider. As a person with Seasonal Affective Disorder, living in a place that had a significant number of cloudy/rainy days would be detrimental to my health. I think it’s wise to consider all the factors, especially if you are used to mild sunny weather. I told my kids that they could get a great education in any geographical area of the US, so pick a place they liked.
@sahmkc Agreed. Weather is definitely important!
Interpreting the thread’s title strictly, I don’t think any college got crossed off, nor moved a great deal, on my D19’s list (and it’s early in the list-making process) as a result of these tours. Still, I’ve found this thread to be useful to collect impressions of others and to find out what we might expect in visiting places, so wanted to share our general thoughts. One comment for all visits: I’ve read stories of disinterested or poor student tour guides, but the ones we had ranged from good to really good.
Carleton: First college visit, early on a cold MN October morning. Cold weather is not a problem, but I think it took a while for the tour group to warmup (figuratively, and possibly literally). Pretty campus, though it’s unclear in places where the campus ends and the (pretty) town begins. Like I said, first visit so D19 didn’t necessarily ask as many questions as she did on later tours. D19 attended a class, which was… fine? (I didn’t attend any of the classes, obviously.)
St. Olaf: After lunch, we crossed the river and went to SO. Like many folks on CC threads, the parental units came away impressed with St. Olaf. Compared to Carleton, the campus is bigger and is IMHO slightly prettier. (The drive up the hill doesn’t hurt.) Probably the best tour guide we had, though it’s not clear if that was because we were the only ones on the tour. (I think every visitor got their own tour guide.) Their facilities looked a little newer than Carleton’s. Just to prove that tours don’t mean everything, even though I think SO checks a lot of boxes on D19’s list, it still ranked below the other schools on the list. (I’m hoping it stays on, though.) Also, and I know this is a weird thing to comment on (though this thread has a lot of them), they had the most useful piece of non-pen swag: a plastic cup. Surest way to keep a school front-of-mind (and not annoy them with constant e-mails) is to have some member of the family use a cup with its logo 2-3x/week.
Macalester: Next day, we toured Mac. Another compact campus like Carleton, though with a more distinct border between campus and the surrounding St. Paul neighborhood. They also have some newer buildings. The only school that offered us (free, and pretty good) lunch (though we probably could’ve got some at SO had we started the tour/meeting earlier in the afternoon). D19 attended a class, which was… slightly more interesting than the Carleton class?
Later in the fall, D19 and I took a brief trip out to CA.
Caltech: It was not quite as pretty as the MN campuses; some of the buildings (on the outside at least) seemed to have seen better days (though they do have one very nice new building). While this was the school D19 was most interested in, I think this tour began to outline that Caltech is a very specialized school, and she’s discovering that while she’s definitely STEM-interested, she has other interests she doesn’t want ignored. So from that perspective, it was a good tour in that they gave a clear indication of who they are. (Sort of like how a bad internship can still be pretty useful.) Attended a class, don’t remember her opinion of it. Ate on campus – banh mi! – though we had to pay for it. (Which is fine, really!) I thought the info session was useful (unlike the MN ones, which didn’t say much beyond what brochures might say).
Harvey Mudd: Let’s face it, Harvey Mudd’s campus will win no beauty awards, it’s probably even less sightly than Caltech’s. (The new building in which Admissions resides is nice, though.) It was the largest tour group we had. The info session was also useful here as well. Harvey Mudd’s secret weapon is the Claremont Campus – before the tour/info session we wandered through Scripps and Pomona’s campus, even watched a D3 regional cross-country event. (This was a Saturday, the only Saturday of any of these tours.) It helped make clear the idea that Harvey Mudd students would be part of a broader, not necessarily STEM-focused community in addition to its own community. From that perspective, I think D19 moved Harvey Mudd above Caltech.
“@AWrinkleInTime For some people, the weather is definitely a factor to consider. As a person with Seasonal Affective Disorder, living in a place that had a significant number of cloudy/rainy days would be detrimental to my health. I think it’s wise to consider all the factors, especially if you are used to mild sunny weather. I told my kids that they could get a great education in any geographical area of the US, so pick a place they liked.”
@sahmkc Not to veer off topic, but I totally agree. My college roommate had Seasonal Affective Disorder, undiagnosed, until after freshman year. She could not get out of bed for an entire week our freshman year. She was not “sick” that we could see so we could not figure out what was wrong with her. We had to bring her food from the cafeteria b/c she just could not get up other than to go to the bathroom). I don’t remember how we finally got her to go back to class, but it was a real struggle for her in her classes all winter. Oddly, though from Boston where she was used to the dreary winter (we went to school in NYC), somehow it did not rear its head until she was away in college. She came back sophomore year with a huge UV light she had to sit in front of daily which definitely helped. So yes, I saw first hand how weather negatively impacted someone in college. She was an A student the rest of the year, so had to work super hard to maintain her grades during those dreary months.
After marrying, she moved to TX b/c the winter months were just too much for her.
Moved down and then off the list after a visit for S:
Marquette
Moved up and on the list after visits for D:
Davidson
William and Mary
BorgityB, very interesting. My son really liked Caltech, especially with the Houses being so close to each other. He has visited Carleton too, but I never asked him his impression.
@bookworm – I think she’s intrigued by the idea of houses, but as you probably know, people sort of self-select into houses based on their various personalities, and when I asked our tour guide why he chose his particular house, he demurred, saying it was everyone’s particular choice and didn’t want to prejudice anyone. It’s easier to perceive as an outsider if the house has an explicit theme, like “French” or “clean living” or “outdoor enthusiast.”
@katespeare Just read your tour post & wanted to say we had the SAME tour guide I think! Ours wasn’t snow & ice it was foot tall grass that had not been mowed in weeks! It was mid July & that was a terrible 1st impression. Our guide said all the same things yours did. I kept wondering how the school would feel if they knew the guide was so crappy. He had such an attitude!
My DD chose Univ of Richmond & is there now. She likes the school but the concerns we were hoping she would overcome instead magnified. Her HS was nearly 4000 kids so UR just feels too small. She feels isolated & trapped on campus as the shuttle doesn’t run as often as we thought or to the places she wanted (museum). She wanted to make friends in all the clubs but found the meetings poorly attended or non existent. Professors are very knowledgeable but not as eager to get to know their students as we were led to believe. She likes everything else & it’s gorgeous, food is fabulous. She is trying to transfer to the U.K. in a bigger city. Not sure it will work though, lol. Just my 2 cents about UR. Personally I wish she would stay & am hoping it gets better her next sem.
@cloudysmom Surprised your daughter is thinking about transferring after only one semester. You had lots of concerns about funding your daughter’s education , but University of Richmond gave you the money you needed to make attendance there possible. It is usually harder as a transfer student to get any substantial money from a school. Hope she enjoys her second semester better.
@sevmom I was surprised too, and disappointed. After her William & Mary denial she was sooo upset. She was excited for UR & we all hoped our concerns would go away instead of being magnified.
I know transfer students don’t usually get $ so I doubt she will transfer to anywhere else in the US and the UK will not let her transfer as a Junior, so it must be as a sophmore only so this is really her only chance to try for a UK school. UR gave us barely enough but we made it work. It will actually be a good bit cheaper for her to go to UofE and there will be no payments as we pay 50% at the start of the fall and 50% at the start of the spring sem, however, I might be able to just pay it outright or at least pay most of it at the start of the fall. Lots to consider and I think she would love it but we’ll see. I hope she enjoys UR more this semester but UofE, so far, seems a good choice, more so than the other UK schools, esp if she can transfer and not lose a year. If we have to pay for an extra yr then it probably won’t work and she knows that but only 1 way to find out and that is to apply and then if they accept her they ask for a transcript and compare classes. Luckily she took only classes for her major so EofU said that would increase her chances. Who knows though.
Short version, after D17’s visits:
Princeton - Stayed same, always near top
Lehigh - Moved up - top choice now
University of Miami - moved up, knew nothing except what I’ve told her and she loved it more than I thought she would
Drexel - moved up - she initially thought she’d hate city schools but loved it
UPenn - same as Drexel, moved up after realizing she liked city schools.
Stockton - moved up slightly after seeing the equestrian barn
Rowan - down slightly - can’t say why, campus just felt bland to her.
Rutgers - moved up - like with the city school, thought she’d hate “really big” school, but liked it.