I note the discussion has gone off track. Perhaps a climate-adjustment discussion is needed, allowing the stated discussion topic to continue.
UC Santa Cruz. Not as much fog in recent years but you still get that feel up among the redwoods. I love it up there but it is definitely not the stereotypical college vibe.
My bad @MinnesotaDadof3. In the spirit of keeping on topic:
Down:
Oregon State University. D said she wasn’t going to school with cows.
Sorry to comment on humidity again, but outside of maybe South Florida and New Orleans, you won’t have much problem with humidity in the Southeast during the school year. Just “summer” somewhere milder.
In the spirit of bumping this thread to the top of the forum again, are there any other parents or students who can share how some schools on their lists went up or down once visited?
Tulane got knocked off the list after a visit. D loved the city, but no one at the school seemed remotely New Orlean-ish. She would consider it for grad or med school though. Rutgers got the early boot as they seemed to have a desire to have kids take classes with the largest numbers of students possible and basically pooh-poohed using most AP credits. Not a great visit there.
Delaware and UCF, her two finalists, started out as not even being on the list. Both campuses are beautiful in different ways and the kids and profs were simply knockouts and extraordinarily helpful and friendly when she visited.
Up Tulane. Loved campus, loved honors program. Felt like California without the price tag. But in the end was still too expensive for her.
Up Columbia. D loved the campus within the city. But Down Columbia. Admissions and tour guides seemed full of themselves and D felt discouraged.
Up Kansas. Had a great experience at their Honors Day program. They did a great job selling that program.
Up Truman State. Beautiful if unknown campus. Very friendly and down to earth tour guide.
Down Illinois. Hated it (I could never get her to explain why, but it was extremely deserted on a Saturday morning).
Down Iowa. Disliked the “huge hill”.
Down Davidson. “Too green”. I thought it was beautiful.
Down William and Mary. Also “too green”. I think she is more anti-grass than anti-tree.
Neutral Pitt. Tour was just ok, honors day was boring and not compelling at all. Compared with Kansas and Tulane, they did not sell themselves well. But students were very nice and she liked urban atmosphere, and loved her scholarship. That’s where she’ll be.
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@Dustyfeathers D1 saw LOTS of schools! Comments in a nutshell:
Down:
Amherst: felt the vibe was too competitive
Williams: vibe too intense
Connecticut College: felt too small, didn’t like the campus,
Swarthemore: vibe too intense though campus gorgeous
Dartmouth: not into the greek life, didn’t like the quarter system (D Plan)
Georgetown: wanted a secular school, not outdoorsy enough, just wasn’t right for her though lovely school
American: didn’t like the campus or the vibe, defintily did not feel right for her
Hampshire: didn’t like the campus or the unique curriculum, lots of students smoking, big turnoff
Wheaton (MA): didn’t like location, wanted a more intellectual environment
UC Boulder: visiting this school made her certain she wanted an LAC for undergrad (or medium size university for safety if LACs didn’t work out admissions wise)
Stayed same… liked them but nothing resonated with her enough to want to apply to them. Didn’t dislike them but just wasn’t interested given her other choices in similar tiers:
Tufts, Brown, Carleton, Colby, Denver University, Wesleyan University
UP- these rose to the top, D applied to some of these and would have applied to all if ED choice didn’t work out:
Middlebury- where she attends. Loves it. Location, intellectual vibe, fun, very outdoorsy, env studies, everything
Colorado College- loved it. Block plan, students, dynamic vibe, outdoorsy, loved classes she attended
Bowdoin- loved location, academics, students, campus, vibe, liked campus
Bates- loved the friendly atmosphere, felt very inclusive, location was fine, outdoorsy, pretty campus
Univ Vermont- loved Burlington, liked the campus, outdoorsy, good env studies, was her one and only safety
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With twins graduating this year (and each wanting something completely different from their sibling), we went to 20 college visits and about half of a dozen drive throughs without staying for the tours.
First for DD:
Down St. Anselm. The first person she saw on campus was a monk. She was OK with the idea that monks teach some of the classes, but when she learned the monks live their whole lives there, die there, and are buried on a special cemetery on campus, she got a bit unnerved by that.
Down Ithaca. We had an early tour time, so many students weren’t up yet. And combined with the metal-looking buildings the campus “felt sterile”.
Up Susquehanna. We attended a prospective students’ day and she really liked the vibe of the place. Became her #2 choice.
Way Up Hobart and William Smith. Beautiful campus by the lake. Everyone seemed friendly and enjoying themselves. Was fun when our tour group was stopped by a couple of WS students in a golf cart driving around campus, handing out free lollipops, and reminding everyone to attend their group’s performance that evening.
Now for DS:
Down Penn State. Too big. “If I went here, I’d feel like an ant.”
Crossed Off RPI. Before any of our official college visits and after my family joined me at an alumni event there while the twins were still HS freshmen, this was his #1 choice. Unfortunately, on the official tour we had the worst tour ever. Rather than fill up space here, the visit probably deserves its own rant thread. All I could tell my son was that the tour was no representative of my time there.
Down Dartmouth. This visit was the fourteenth or so college visit we had attended, so we had seen a few for comparison. While waiting for the info presentation to start, you could feel the tension in the room among the families waiting for the talk to start. Was a big turn off.
Way Up RIT. Attended a prospective students’ day presentation that was friendly, geeky, creative/artistic. He was sold on the school when he learned those skilled at League of Legends where held in regard at RIT like captains of football or basketball teams are esteemed at other schools.
That’s interesting. We saw 5 Ivy League schools, but not Dartmouth. None of the others felt that way.
FWIW, Penn felt like that to us.
Down- GW- had an okay tour, great tour of business school, but no trees/grass/campus to speak of- same reason DS did not want any NYC schools.
Up- UVA, UMD and IU- all for the same reason, beautiful campus, lots of green, trees and open space. This was the campus feel he was looking for.
Moved (plummeted) down:
Yale: Honestly, don’t know if it was the college’s fault. It was the 6th college in 5 days we had seen and she was done. We drove in the evening before and a panhandler hit us up as we exited the car outside the hotel (stayed very close to campus). I could see on my daughter’s face how much that bummed her out (we can have a whole separate discussion about suburban kids who haven’t had to confront this - I grew up in NYC and it was normal to me…). Then we went to the Info Session the next morning and they started with a lengthy video of people singing and dancing about how much they love Yale. Both of us thought it was bizarro and overdone (yes, I know many must love it, but we thought it was over the top). She was completely done then. Should never have even bothered with the tour. After Yale my daughter realized that although she had thought she wanted an urban campus, she had been wrong. So important visit all in all.
Georgetown: my husband took her but she apparently hated it. Seemed very intense to her with too many people hurrying around in business suits (probably to government internships). Other people think this was a bizarre reaction on her part.
Moved up:
Middlebury: We had just come from Williams where she had confirmed her opinion that she didn’t want too small or rural. Middlebury blew us both away. Gorgeous campus, people seemed wonderful, and strengths in her desired areas of study. The ED decision came down to between there and Tufts (where she is going next year), and it was a very difficult decision as she loved Middlebury so much. She would never have predicted she would have liked it that much.
UVA: my husband took her and he said the look on her face as she walked onto campus was,“Now this is what a college campus should be like.”
Tufts: She already was predisposed to like it (seemed like the “goldilocks” school to her on paper), and her visits - the last one during a Nor’easter - confirmed her love. She told me that every time she spoke to a student there she didn’t want the conversation to end - everyone was so interesting and passionate about something.
@Momtothreegirls - we had the same problem seeing the 5th of 5 schools in 5 whirlwind days - didn’t love the last one but in hindsight think it was due mostly to exhaustion - didn’t like the town and that threw off our visit the next day. Ironically, went back last week - loved everything and D16 committed to the school. So maybe a word of warning to future touring families not to pack too much into one trip, if possible…
One more that moved down a bit after touring: Columbia.
She had originally thought she wanted urban, likes NYC, and thought the core curriculum sounded very interesting. We went on an absolutely frigid winter day. The Info session was great, but the tour, ouch. So so painful. Didn’t enter a single buliding the entire time. Everything was frozen on our bodies. It got to the point that when our tour guide stopped to talk, everyone on the (large) tour would rush the small bit of sunlight available in the area. I got pretty good at it 
I expected the majority of the tour would be outside, but really didn’t expect never to go inside. Actually, just remembered that we went inside the student center for a very brief moment. But aside from that, didn’t enter a single other building. We were so relieved when the tour was over and we could run down to the warm subway.
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@myjanda - definitely. I learned a valuable lesson about not packing in too many visits in a short time period. As it was, her shot at getting into Yale was extremely slim (like everyone’s), so it was nice to be able to cross something off our list.
Forgot to add about the Yale tour: it was honestly not a great tour. I felt like we were on a sightseeing tour, and our guide spoke mostly about the buildings and their history. I recall visiting Yale and loving it, and the vibe there, when I was looking at colleges. I didn’t get any feel from our tour guide at all about what the school and its student body were like. Just learned a lot of historical facts about buildings and library collections. During the tour, my otherwise very polite and well behaved daughter remarked on how bored she was. Just a very bad tour to have at the end of an exhausting week.
Last post (probably shouldn’t promise), but I love this thread so much. Have found it very entertaining.
Younger daughter ('18) went along on tours of Carleton and Macalester with my older one. I honestly pushed them to tour Carleton for my younger one’s sake, thinking it sounded like a perfect fit for her on paper, and was likely too small for my older one. Older one liked it and considered it strongly, but younger one hated it. Now, she is a quirky one with strong likes/dislikes, but the tour guide was extremely “perky” and loud and really turned her off (and my husband and older daughter both confirmed that the guide was a little too much to take at times). Above and beyond that, apparently the incredible emphasis on frisbees there has turned off my younger one: “they talked about frisbees constantly and I don’t play frisbee.” Which is a huge shame because, as mentioned, on paper Carleton seems perfect for her. I am going to make her revisit the summer before her senior year. But I have a feeling that if they continue to emphasize frisbees, Carleton is out.
Silly, but that’s the way it is.
Another interesting take on the part of D18: toured Haverford and Swarthmore and preferred Haverford. Like Swarthmore fine, but walked away saying, “They seemed overly competitive about how uncompetitive the students are there.” Lol. She said there was an underlying competitive undercurrent to their constant emphasis on how uncompetitive an atmosphere it was.
“Above and beyond that, apparently the incredible emphasis on frisbees there has turned off my younger one”
Lol! My D did not apply to Carlton but likes the fact that early in the process, they sent her a frisbee! @Momtothreegirls
@Deaston I replied because someone pointed it out to me. And I wasn’t being rude. If you go to a Catholic university, you see symbols of the Catholic faith. Everyone takes offence these days.