Boulder is a place where visiting in the summer still gives a good idea of how busy the campus can be. I was there last Sat night for a meeting just off campus, and the only difference I noticed was that I actually found a parking spot.
In the summer there are a ton of camps (cheerleading, band, MUN, debate) so those on campus might be younger, but there are still bodies there. There is also the Shakespeare festival, concerts in the football stadium, sports practices, and summer school. My nephew graduated in May but is returning for grad school, so he’s living in Boulder this summer but working in Golden.
I think we are having visit fatigue because the things we are tending to find many more faults then on visits we did at the start of the process!
Villanova - down. Info session basically went like this. Mention the basketball championship, then mention it again. Talk about how well Villanova does in college rankings. Basketball again. Veiled insult of ‘those Jesuit schools’. Admissions process - look how competitive we are. Look how many apps we get, show a gpa range that they then had to admit was meaningless. basketball again.
Thankfully the tour guides had real information to share!
Conn College -stayed the same- perfectly nice school, nice campus, nice art center. But all the niceness came off as a little generic.
They have a new connections program which is an interdisciplinary approach with ‘themes’ and ‘pathways’ and core parts of the curriculum, but it seemed a bit confusing and possibly like it would narrow your studies rather than broaden them.
Carleton -stayed the same. Great location as it is situated in a very cute town, that is bigger than you would expect, as well as being close to Minneapolis. Very nice campus- lots of tress and greenery and spots on the vast lawns for frisbee throwing and hanging out. (we saw it in the summer so no snow!) The Arboretum is also a plus. Seemed a little intense - probably due to the trimester system and a couple mentions of really having to work hard to find the balance
@wisteria100 your description of your Villanova visit exactly describes my fall 1985 visit to Villanova after they won the NCAA b-ball championship the first tiime. The only difference is that it wasn’t during the info session that I had this experience but with the admissions counselor who was interviewing me. My visit was followed up the next day with a tour of one of “those Jesuit schools” which I ultimately ended up attending. Coincidentally, Villanova won for the second time the same year my oldest was a senior in h.s. Needless to say, we did not even look at Villanova as I figured it would be a similar experience to my own. Apparently I was correct in my assumption.
College of the Holy Cross: Down. So disappointing. No info session at all. No adults involved in the process except the person who checked in my son. First thing tour guide started talking about was the Worcester consortium and how if you can’t find the class you want at Holy Cross, you can find it elsewhere. Then talked about bus schedules and how to get around Not a very smart way to start a tour! My husband was so annoyed and bordering on angry that this was a total waste of his time. Too bad because it was one of his safeties. Campus was pretty but small, but truly did not get a sense of this school during the tour at all.
Boston College: Up. Gorgeous campus. Wonderful student panel discussion. That is really what sold my son on the school.
My D was the same. Dining options were bad and it seemed built for students ready to be very independent right away. Also, felt like she’d miss out on many typical college experiences.
@4kids4us@wisteria100 I was a student at “one of those Jesuit” schools down the road from Villanova in 1985 … they were insufferable! Yes, I’m still a little bitter after all these years …
Interesting Villanova comments and I agree about the bragging for lack of a better word about the basketball and surge in competitiveness in admissions and increase in rankings.
I took my son to see Villanova and Lehigh in the same day. Interestingly enough, he picked up on something I already thought myself and that was that Lehigh, while probably now on par in admissions competitiveness, is the stronger academic school. Doesn’t have the popularity of Villanova these days (NCAA, Bloomberg Businessweek rankings) but he felt it had a more intellectual vibe (I know Lehigh is a work hard/play hard school).
I have wondered if Villanova will live up to the recent surge in competitiveness.
As for Boston College…@WineLover, glad to hear it went up for you. I am a grad and my daughter is a rising senior in the business school…the school has exceeded our expectations in all regards and they were high to begin with…couldn’t say more good things about it. And just yesterday she received her full time employment offer for after graduation from the prestigious company she is interning at (that she got through BC). I hope your son goes and enjoys it. Feel free to private message me if you have any questions.
@collegemomjam - Congrats to your D!
and regarding my comments about Villanova - I will say that the tour guides presented themselves well, as they were articulate and very personable.
@TomSrOfBoston The definition of safety seems to be debated here often. There’s no one universal definition. Like @OCDaddy my kids and their peers at their high school tended to put schools on their safety list that had admit rates as low as 30% nationally – though they and their school college counselor could see the stats were far greater than that for kids from their school with their stats. There’s always the chance you get rejected due to yield protection or just not hitting the admissions person the right way, etc. So apply to a few and having a rolling admit school backup. My son got into all his self-defined safeties, all of which had lower admit stats than Holy Cross. Lafayette and Case Western even offered generous merit aid scholarships he didn’t apply for.
@wisteria100 thanks! My husband is so happy to soon get her “off of our payroll”…lol. Hoping she can pay the rent and enjoy her life…isn’t that the point?
As it relates to safeties…I can see the point about HC being more of a safety for some people, but I kind of agree that a school like that is too good to be considered a safety for anyone. I just think there are so many top students and these ivy-league “safety” schools are starting to employ yield protection. Taking upwards of 50% of the class ED and then having ridiculously low acceptance rates during the RD round. And then in the RD round I think some of them won’t take the super over achieving types because they assume they won’t go if accepted. So, I kind of agree…you can’t take a school like Holy Cross for granted.
@OCDaddy - I have to say I agree with others vis a vis safeties (though I have NO knowledge about HC), hoping you will be happy with safeties when admissions time rolls around.
My D goes to HC so I have skin in the game. The admit rate hasn’t been officially reported for this past year, but is likely to be in the 33-35% range due to an increase in apps and a decrease in acceptances as they were over enrolled the year before. I think for certain high stats kids it can be considered a safety or pretty solid match. but you would have to demonstrate some interest, perhaps be from a high school with a good relationship with the school etc. It can get tricky in the RD round as almost half the class comes in ED, and they like kids who like them.
A school is a safety if they admit all high stats kids. <<
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Well, HC is not a safety for this kid because he wouldn’t be happy to go there even if admitted.
I read an interesting thing about basketball at catholic schools in cities. In the 40’s and 50s, they were trying to serve their neighborhoods as well as attract good catholic boys to their schools. Basketball became very popular and it was an easy sport for these schools to support. Football was too expensive and needed a lot of players and a big facility. Basketball needed about 10 players and a gym. Before the NCAA came along to organize them, the catholic schools could organize basketball on their own, and HC could travel to BC, to NYC to play those schools, to Philly to play Villanova and St. Joseph. Xavior, Dayton, Scranton…easy to have a little competions.
But the candidate pool at holy cross is known to be uniformly strong top to bottom. So there is less a variance top to bottom. Mostly from the catholic high schools across the country. Admit rates are just one aspect. If they were not in Worcester mass and not catholic I think it would get an extra 10000 aps and many perhaps not as strong.
Nd is 19 percent gtown 15 percent and BC is 26 percent. Look at the accepted students profile. And accepted students threads. Lots and lots of high stats kids were left out. But the catholic schools will never have the mass application volume but the quality is elite.
