My D really liked Elon, Bucknell and U of Richmond. All 3 felt similar to her, but I guess each kids gets a different vibe from the schools they visit. As for Wake Forest, that was a school that I thought my D would love, but it felt too serious for her. She liked a lot about Lafayette, but the tour guide spent a lot of time talking about STEM so she wasn’t sure it was the right fit.
@citymama9 Lafayette is excellent in non-STEM fields as well. One reason my D chose the school was that it was strong across the board academically. D was a psychology major (theater minor) and had friends majoring in English, history, political science etc who were very happy with the academics at Lafayette. If you want any details (from a mom’s perspective) feel free to PM me.
Don;t think I posted this before:
Wittenberg- at their scholarship weekend they did a panel on student life where everyone was involved in Greek Liife. This wasn’t representative of the campus but really turned my D off.
@happy1 thank you. that’s what I thought about Lafayette. It may still end up on her list.
Haha! I went to Lehigh, and we regarded Lafayette as the “non-STEM” school. Of course that’s not accurate either, they do both.
Emory moved off list after visit. Nice school, got the impression they are competent, etc., and our tour guide was fine, but my DS 19 is interested in social sciences and the admissions session and tour guide spent almost all of their time harping about sciences, the business school, STEM, and the medical school. Almost nothing about the liberal arts otherwise except to point out the curricular distribution requirements. Campus buildings were pretty and impressive, but my son did not like how functioning streets seemed to cut through everything and there seemed a lack of true grass quads and quaint college spaces compared to many campuses he has otherwise visited.
At PITT today/ we love the campus/ urban but with a defined campus feel. Really impressed with the day the Honors College put together. Love the interdisciplinary focus- you want to do Math and Basket Weaving - great! With a DD interested in Bio and Theatre it was very exciting! Tomorrow is admitted students day so lots of activities planned. Everyone very friendly. Busy bustling campus- even on a freezing cold day!
“at their scholarship weekend they did a panel on student life where everyone was involved in Greek Liife.”
This is such a common pattern, even at commuter campuses where the Greek participation is like .001%. People whose personalities make them good hosts are often the same people who like to join social clubs.
““at their scholarship weekend they did a panel on student life where everyone was involved in Greek Liife.”
This is such a common pattern, even at commuter campuses where the Greek participation is like .001%. People whose personalities make them good hosts are often the same people who like to join social clubs”
That’s not true at my kids school at all. To work as a tour guide ( and that’s who works admissions events) you have to agree to work Saturdays and most kids in Greek life don’t want to miss out on football saturdays.
1 Like
At many schools the Greeks also hold a lot of other student offices like student body president, student senate, club presidents, etc. Why? because they have the votes. There was a 60 Minutes piece on Ole Miss (I think) and the student body president was a black woman who had joined a panhell sorority rather than a traditionally black one because she wanted the votes of the Greeks. She felt that was the way to win the election.
My daughter’s sorority president was also president of the MechE society, on the jet car team, and I’m sure did a dozen other things. Straight A student, full ride to Columbia for grad school. A real under achiever. She just had a personality to be involved in everything.
Cornell had the second highest rate of bars per person and a lot of strip joints in the redneck woods. Don’t know if stll true. I know Little Rascals were filmed there, and I sat in the same desk in which Christopher Reeves sat in his English Lit class. Carl Sagan was well known there.
I heard that about restaurants per person, not bars per person.
But whatever the bar count was then, it is less undoubtedly now, since all the bars are gone from Collegetown, IIRC.
IF there were “strip joints in the woods” I never knew about them, either when I attended, when my daughter attended or afterwards, since we still go up there virtually every year.
Our South African exchange student is interested (so far) in the U of Chicago and Columbia U. She is quite emotional and artsy and I have tried to impart my knowledge to her (like visiting this site…) about colleges. Some has sunk in, while some has been ignored. So be it: her life, her education. Not my child. She does understand, at least (and thank goodness), that Columbia and UChicago are extremely selective.
Anyway, we tried to spend four days in NYC; flight cancellations gave us two. We got home yesterday.
I accompanied her on a Columbia tour. Our tour guide was bubbly, fairly knowledgeable, and latched onto my “could you describe the core curriculum?” softball like Barry Bonds on a knee-high fastball. My girl was the only other female in our group of about 15, so I also (hint, hint… hint) asked about Barnard admissions.
She loved the alma mater statue, the story about being the first to find the shell (or whatever it is); she loves NYC, and she loves that Columbia is there. And she loved the building architecture – the big columns in front of the old and new(er) libraries, the expanse between them, etc.
I, knowing who most of these people were, walked around with my chin on the concrete reading all the great names on the buildings.
We also spent some time near Washington Square, so we saw some of the purple banners marking NYU buildings, but she was most impressed with Columbia.
She also visited AMDA, which means we walked past/through the Fordham-LC campus. Another very solid option if she wants to study in NYC.
I’m buying her a Fiske Guide as a going-away present – she leaves in June – and if she consults that, and heeds my advice to come here, she’ll be fine. And for heaven’s sake, add matches and a safety…
The Ohio State University was high on my D list until her visit. Way too expansive - “Dad this place has 40 residence halls and 12 libraries.” She walked out on her campus tour long before its conclusion. Me: “Yes! Finally an elimination.”
My daughter crossed Carleton off her list after a group visit summer after her junior year. No real reason other than it didn’t grab her. Likely had more to do with the fact that it was hot, she was tired and it was the second school of the day. It was probably for the best since I don’t think she would liked it there, but I found it interesting that she had such a strong reaction based on little information. Finding the right school really does feel like a crap shoot.
Carleton is really good for students who are interested in a few different fields of study, like cold weather, and don’t mind a small town. The professors are some of the best in the nation, as teachers, and its got strong departments in the sciences. There are not too many LACs that match Carleton College for friendliness, and rigor and good social life.
@Coloradomama which subjects are strongest at Carleton? Math, right? What else?
@Coloradomama I know Carleton is a great school - my sister went there - but for whatever reason DD didn’t like it. Besides being hot and tired, she didn’t connect with the tour guide. I think it’s kind of funny how little things can be what tip you one way or the other.
My son crossed Ithaca College off after the Open House. He is a liberal arts major, interested in History, but they were heavily pushing all the special colleges, Business, Communications, Music, Theater, etc, even though the liberal arts program is supposedly their most popular. Tour guide was a theater major at the Theater scholl and talked about his audition to get in. The promotional film they showed was about the school of Communications and how you could have a great career in media if ypu went through that program. All the special student presentations were science based. He is interested in Business as well and would like to minor in it, but when we asked, they made it seem like that would be too complicated since it is a seperate college. Other schools we visited said it was no problem to do this. He left feeling that the school had nothing to offer him as a LA major. Probably all had to do with the way they were marketing the school to attract students to the special schools, but it ended up alienating him.
He also crossed off Skidmore. He felt it was too artsy and hipster and there would be no “dudes” for him to hang out with. Also had the worst dorm room I have ever seen, a tiny cramped triple that looked like it should be a double.
@momof2boys65, my wife went on the Ithaca tour with our son and wasn’t impressed. She is a liberal arts person, so that’s not surprising. Our son, who is interested in film and communication, liked it. He applied to the Park School as a reach and got in. Unfortunately, it was also a financial reach.
My wife thought it was a campus full of ugly buildings plopped down in a beautiful setting.