More stories of colleges that moved up and down, please, just to bring the thread back on topic. Anyone else want to share their tour information?
I’ll start with the moved down ones! Current senior here.
Moved down/crossed off:
Georgetown- Various people had told me it was “basically secular”. Uh, not the case. Also, reproductive rights groups couldn’t be recognized by the school. Both things I really should’ve realized before. Also, I got a kind of overly wealthy/prep school vibe, especially based on the dorms. Didn’t apply.
Goucher- Too quiet tour guide, and the buildings just seemed kind of ugly & prison-like. My parents & I found out at the end of the admissions presentation that they had just eliminated their full tuition scholarships, so that was that- didn’t apply.
Miami: I basically only saw white people the whole day & the College Democrats board in the political science building was significantly less decorated. Our tour guide said she bought two printers (color and normal) for her room freshman year because she didn’t want to go to the basement of her dorm to print stuff. Found out you have to sign up to get a house off campus two years in advance (what if I’m not friends with the people I signed up with then??)
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We saw Duke in a drive by, not going on an official tour but stopping at the admissions ‘tour house.’ I didn’t like the surrounding area at all. We came in by the medical offices and it was nothing but construction that didn’t seem like it would be ending any time in this century. Didn’t help that it was 190 degrees and 400% humidity that day (definitely took a bottle of free water).
It didn’t move up or down because it was never on a list (or a possibility), but my kids just wanted to see it because friends were applying. We had a lot of schools like that, and it is kind of nice to look at schools without wanting to like them or finding fault, just looking.
Agreed, @Dustyfeathers!
Mine are for 2 different kids.
DOWN (all crossed off the list):
St. Lawrence. Felt too isolated and the tour was given by a nice kid who didn’t seem to be able to talk about anything but sports.
Muhlenberg. In my D’s words, “Not my people.”
Goucher. The sample room had kids sitting around drinking and was stuffed to the gills with empty beer bottles, and the group of kids smoking pot on the grass didn’t make any attempt to cover what they were doing when H and S walked through… on a Tuesday morning.
Trinity. Wasn’t feeling the neighborhood, was at the end of the tour and had seen schools she liked better by then.
Juniata. It’s not really fair to claim this because H and S never made it there. They realized how long it was going to take to get there and decided to move on to the next school. Highly recommended by the school counselor but seemed like a hellacious drive.
Wesleyan. Campus seemed tired.
College of Charleston. Lots of talk about the fun things to do in Charleston, not enough about academics. Seemed to have heavy Greek presence, which did not appeal to a kid not interested in joining a sorority.
Wheaton (MA). The school made a good case for their academics but D was turned off by the leftover traditions from when it was a women’s college (e.g., “Let a boy walk you around the pond 3 times and he gets to kiss you.”) Food looked atrocious.
Just not feeling them-Gettysburg, Union.
UP:
Bates. The first school S saw and he fell in love. D fell in love with it when she went to drop her brother off and sat in the dining commons overlooking the men’s soccer team in a preseason game of shirts vs. skins.
To be fair, she was already targeting NESCAC schools.
Conn College. Great visit with a coach who stressed that she placed primary value on education.
Hamilton. Beautiful campus and a good fit.
Hobart & William-Smith. Good tour, admissions did good job of making kid feel wanted.
Franklin and Marshall. Honestly can’t remember. I think it had to do with the residential system.
Eckerd-“You can go to class barefoot and I could scuba every day!” Ended up slipping when he realized he probably wouldn’t get any work done.
About the same (neither up nor down):
Dickinson, Skidmore, Bucknell
Moved way down: UVa.
DD, DH and I were totally prepared to like it because on paper, it fit a lot of what DD was looking for. We were very surprised when we saw the grounds because we couldn’t get past the spray painted secret society letters on so many campus buildings. It sort of seemed like the secret societies were running things and you couldn’t avoid contact with them even if you wanted, and also strange that graffiti was tolerated by the administration. We were also surprised at the town of Charlottesville - in our minds, we had pictured a quaint small town with a lot of shops, etc., located within walking distance so the Corner was a disappointment, and we had no idea how “big” the town was in reality. We also saw the large pit where the fraternities play touch football and thought it looked pretty grim. This was all very soon after the murder of Hannah Graham so I think we were pretty freaked out about that tragedy.
Moved off: Davidson
Again, another one on paper that looked good but wasn’t a fit when we toured. The fact that (IIRC) there is one main building where most of the non-science classes are held was really a turn-off to DD - her prep school has multiple academic buildings and she crosses its campus between them many times a day, so the one academic building seemed to be a step into a smaller environment that did not feel right. We toured in June and found some issues of the college newspaper in the student center, and noticed ads placed by families honoring their graduating seniors, which also seemed very “high school” to us. Two strange things about the info session - the admissions officer giving it had a huge UNC Tervis Tumbler she was drinking out of during her talk (she said she was a Chapel Hill alumna) and it was extremely distracting, especially since we had toured UNC-CH the day before. Frankly, it was sort of weird. Also, after the info session we chatted with the Tarheel-cup swigging admissions officer and asked what colleges Davidson sees as its peers - she replied Pomona, Williams and Amherst, among others. My husband, a very amiable W&L alum, teasingly asked if there was much applicant crossover with Washington & Lee and her answer was a curt “no,” which we found a little hard to believe.
Both great schools, and both visits helped DD hone in on exactly what she wanted.
On an amusing note, DH, DS (HS class of 2019) and I had an hour to kill on the way to the Hartford airport before catching a flight last summer and went to walk around Trinity College. To say we were underwhelmed with both the college facilities and the surrounding neighborhood would be a massive understatement. We are still regaling DD (HS class of 2016, not with us on that trip) with our impressions of it and she is bummed she missed out on seeing the school that left such a huge negative impression on us.
Also, a shout-out to the family that experienced “Vincent” on a tour (“don’t be a Vincent” @Dave_N) and the parent whose kid thinks pine trees (and the knife-wielding strangers inevitably lurking behind them) are creepy: we want to meet you.
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Eliminated:
Tulane: Third World. Enough said
Wesleyan: Kid is too conservative to go there, at times it seemed like a prank
Trinity: There are far nicer/better located safety schools
Lafayette: Seemed dumpy and in a depressing town
Lehigh: Basically a slightly less awful version of Lafayette
JHU/Loyola: Baltimore LOL
Down the list but still applied:
NYU: While not as bad as Wesleyan still a little too out there
Bucknell: They have their own “Bucknell Brick,” found them pompous for a middling LAC
Colgate: Middle of nowhere
Moved Up:
BC: Great tour, well marketed, seemed “substantial”
U Miami: We all were very impressed, beautiful weather and good programs
Villanova: For when BC doesn’t quite work out basically the same thing and national champs in basketball
Fordham: Very nice and welcoming, great presentation and good internship opportunities
UNC: Again very impressive, cool town, nice school
Elon: Nice campus, great presentation, elite safety school
The Georgetown posts reminded me of our tour there. My husband and I went to Syracuse- big rivalry between the 2 schools. He snuck away from the tour and went into the chapel. He came back and said that he just prayed that she wouldn’t go there. She never ended up applying. She didn’t want to take 2 subject tests and Georgetown would have been her 5th reach school. She didn’t want that many reaches.
Villanova is not Jesuit
@GnocchiB Trinity College. To say we were underwhelmed with both the college facilities and the surrounding neighborhood would be a massive understatement.
I’ll agree the surrounding area isn’t great. And while it wasn’t top of D’s list by any means, on campus alone it ranked high. Thought the architecture and grounds were beautiful like a picture perfect LAC on a gorgeous fall day you would see in a catalog. Now we had issues with freshmen retention rate and overall grad rate, compared to other schools on the list, but we thought it ‘showed’ well.
@dabawwse Elon: Nice campus, great presentation, elite safety school
we thought nothing elite at all. Seemed like it was for kids who weren’t serious students but wanted a ‘name’ on their tee shirt after making it throughtheir prep school
“Tulane: Third World. Enough said”
I don’t know what this means. Anyone?
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@maya54 No idea. Tulane is in a pretty upscale neighborhood in New Orleans, which is a great city.
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MODERATOR’S NOTE:
FYI - I removed several posts that were weirdly off topic especially given that a user tagged in a post did not make the comment quoted.
Wesleyan - my son loved it, we had lunch in the town and thought it was nice. I thought that the people giving the admissions presentation seemed caffeinated. Very energetic and talking fast.
Our neighbor went at a different time with her son. Thought the people giving the presentation were lethargic. Thought the town looked rundown.
Did a drive through only of Hampshire. Son thought it looked like a summer camp.
Really liked the tours at Vassar and Connecticut.
@Marcie123 He snuck away from the tour and went into the chapel. He came back and said that he just prayed that she wouldn’t go there.
omg - that is so funny! Thanks for the chuckle
Your comments about Tulane and New Orleans show superficial ignorance. To cite a shooting several miles from campus is pretty bad form on your part. All cities have violent crime. It is like comparing the neighborhood of U Chicago to that of Northwestern, or Temple and UPenn to that of Villanova (which you liked). Why didn’t you look up shootings in Philly’s west side? It would have been as relevant. Or why not talk about the UNC student that was killed in a Chapel Hill convenience store a few years ago? FWIW, Drew Brees lives right next door to Tulane, and the Mannings live in between Tulane and where that shooting was. Yes, so Third World.
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This should be subtitled, “The Parents With Economic Choices” thread (just keeping’ it real.)
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I choose to interpret @circuitrider’s comment as being a commentary on the larger thread, not specific to Tulane, as in “Families who don’t have to choose based on where their kids get the best financial aid have the luxury to jettison a school from the list based on thing like whether there are enough or too many trees, or whether the local town has cute cafes.”
Down: Scared of My Shadow U. Everyone was nervously looking over their shoulder all the time.
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I’ve deleted many OT posts.
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Oh, man. Now my post lost all context! 