^^^^^Don’t ever tour Elon. They show this video during the info session that brings many people to tears (me too). This whole process is so intense with kids thinking of starting their adulthood and parents thinking of losing their babies. I can understand it being emotional for some people. @milee30
Ha - I think I saw the same video at UW-Madison. All the tears!
@citymama9 , yes to crying at the Elon video and I am as cynical as the next person;)
@milee30 , she didn’t say her daughter broke at sobbing during the tour.
Please tell me you are joking.
Please.
Note to self: a few more colleges to cross off the list…
“she didn’t say her daughter broke at sobbing during the tour.”
No, just that she cried at the tour. I guess it’s marginally better than falling to the floor and speaking in tongues. But both would be a little weird for most of the people around them.
@rickle1, I can’t figure out how to PM you, but your son sounds a lot like mine and he is trying to decide about Wake Forest. If you are able to email me I would love to ask you some questions. Thanks!
“Those crummy old houses often end up building a lifetime of memories. And they have porches–real front porches perfect for an old couch.”
They did for me, old couch on the front porch and all. 
It must nice to go through the college process not feeling a single emotion 
I’ve only cried on visits where we’ve picked up brochures and noticed how much we’d shell out for full pay COA.
Crying can be subtle or loud- that son would have had to have been there to figure out his reaction. Don’t project on other people without enough info.
"It must nice to go through the college process not feeling a single emotion "
It is! So much simpler.
Just like it’s so much more convenient to love my children less than the other, more devoted parents. Just makes things easier.
milee30- you have lost me. Introverts can surprise you and may perceive subtle crying as a good thing, not the negative you project on them. btw- it takes diversity to make a good campus- too boring/stifling if everyone is the same.
Our snowflakes and their dorm assessments. I am all about “fit” and with my four children touring colleges, I paid special attention to their impressions…but I place little weight to the praise/criticism of the dorms. I just believe that it is not the highest ranking factor in the decision process. One was in a single sex dorm with parietals (ND)…he was not happy, but adapted…one was in really, really old dorms with no A/C (W&M), one was 1.5 miles away from the main campus (Boston College…which she bitched about and is now nostalgic about) and now one is now looking at the Miami U dorms/old houses mentioned just a few posts above. We factor in a lot of things on college campuses, but the dorms fall lower on the list.
So funny because my dd didn’t care at all about the dorms and appreciated the schools that showed her the “worst possible” instead of the newest/flashiest.
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@galmighty Same here— dorms were the absolute last thing D18 considered on her list of importance. I found myself much more “woo’ed” by nice dorms and had to keep myself in check when factoring it in as a “pro” when having the final financial decision making discussion with my husband. Incidentally the least expensive school on our list (UKY with Patterson scholarship) by far had the nicest dorms. It may have been a pro for me, but I knew that my daughter could have cared less. Incidentally when I was discussing UKY with a friend who’s daughter goes there, she mentioned that those beautiful suite style dorms (that give you your own bedroom in a sense) made meeting people very hard for her D Freshman year. It wasn’t the type of dorm where everyone kept their doors opened and mingled… and that actually ended up being an obstacle. I had never thought about that before. Sometimes the things we parents see as “pro’s” can end up being cons.
Regarding dorms: we visited ASU’s Barrett dorms, which are beautiful and new, and where my D could have had her own bedroom in a two or four person suite, with just two people sharing a nice private bathroom. She commented while we were there that she had no idea that dorms could be so nice.
Last week we visited CSULB where the dorms are older, without air-conditioning, and where she’d share a room with another person and share a bathroom with 13 other kids. The bathroom was like an old school locker room with two small sinks and two small showers. I thought for sure she’d be turned off and that it would sway her to ASU. Not so. She commented that is was exactly what she had expected a dorm would be like and registered for CSULB the next day. So I guess you can say quality of the dorms were not a factor in her decision.
At CMU we never got to see a dorm. It was clear from the info that dorms had different prices. The newest had a/c and was the costliest.
In all seriousness, kids need some way to filter down their lists. If that’s dorms, then good; if it’s something else, no matter how pointless it seems to anyone else, then good.
@bookworm One correction. I believe prices for CMU dorm rooms are based on room amenities (single, double, triple, private or floor bathroom, etc.) and not on newness or availability of AC. From a parental perspective, even the pricier ones are not too impressive…
@dfbdfb My D19, on her first college tour, after visiting the dorm “show room” actually made a point of comparing the length and width of this particular room with her sister’s dorm room at a different university, and decided that because she preferred her future room to be longer and narrower vs shorter and wider, thus was a strike against the university we were visiting. I literally had to hold myself back as I not-so-patiently or kindly explained that this was a SAMPLE dorm room, just like her sister’s dorm room was just one of many possible dorm rooms at her school. I guess I’m ok with using dorm rooms as a weed out, but not on the first school and not on the basis of desired proportions