Crossed off: Williams and Swarthmore, D felt the vibe was too intense at both; Colby, D just didn’t feel a connection; Carleton, a little too quirky/nerdy for her; Tufts, didn’t like the Campus and location
Moved up: Middlebury, Colorado College,Bates, Bowdoin. Loved the campuses, loved the classes, loved the overall feeling when she did overnights
Crossed off- BU- too urban and no campus. However, her sister (class of 2018) loved everything about it. Northeastern- didn’t like co-op.
Moved up- Scripps. She was initially only interested in CMC but I made her tour Scripps since we traveled to Claremont. She liked it but was still on the fence about applying. She attended a 5C fair and heard admissions officers from each school, turned to me and said, “I think I’m more Scripps than CMC.” She later attended a weekend diversity program, decided it was the place for her, and applied and was accepted EDII.
Moved down the list: George Washington, a perfect fit on paper. She did not like the mega freshman dorm (which we could not see) nor did she like the dining options. We will still do a second visit.
Crossed off:
Moved up:
Memo to Admissions Offices: Choose your student tour guides carefully! Fairly or not, they can have a big impact on a prospective’s impression of your school.
This is a fantastic thread, love reading these testimonials 
As a student who has never had the chance to visit a college campus (yet), it’s always nice to know what other people though of their visits.
Writing for D: Moved up - Santa Clara, U of Miami, U of San Diego, GW, Northwestern, UCLA
Moved down: all Claremont/Pomona schools (too isolated) Wash U, UC SD, Tufts, Haverford…wanted warm, more urban, mid sized…Thought we’d love Wash U but didn’t click…same with UC SD, too sprawling…Haverford lovely but too small…all the LACs were too small…Surprised by how much we loved U of SD - a safety but a nice one…narrowed down to S Clara and Northwestern computer science. Didn’t get into NU and was happy anyway because SC was first choice with Miami second or third along with NU. Decided U of Cal schools were too much money OOS for too much uncertainty with the state budget. If your child wants a medium sized University in a real town check out the Jesuit schools…SC, BC, Vill., USD…we are not Catholic but we liked them all
Crossed off:
[ul][]Earlham: My second child didn’t like the architecture or the smell
[]George Mason: Too dark, physical plant not really thoroughly kept up
[]Georgetown: Off smell in buildings
[]Miami (Ohio): Disorganized admissions office, too preppy for my oldest
[]Mt Holyoke: My second child went in neutral to slightly negative on women’s colleges, but found the heavy focus on the very specifically women’s-college tradition there off-putting enough to take it and all other women’s schools off her list
[]Ohio State: too big and too impersonal for my oldest
[]Penn: Too rich, too competitive
[]Trinity (Texas): Too much focus on the size of its endowment in both the info session and the tour (and the fact that it’s in Texas—sorry, Texans!—didn’t help, especially with my oldest)[/ul]
Moved down:
[ul][]Macalester: Too self-important
[]Minnesota: Too simultaneously big and cramped for my oldest[/ul]
Moved up:
[ul][]Earlham: My oldest found the sense of community and the evidence of trust placed in the students incredibly appealing
[]Kansas: Despite its size (a negative for her), my oldest found the effort that the entire school, not just the admissions office, put into developing a personal connection with her as a potential student to be wonderful
[]Miami (Ohio): A sense of tradition that appealed to my second child, beautiful campus
[]Mt Holyoke: Great facilities, and my oldest was sold entirely on the idea of women’s colleges after this tour
[]Muhlenberg: Went in not knowing what to expect, but the sense of community and support was a strong draw for my oldest
[]Ohio State: Fantastic atmosphere for my second child, palpable on-campus excitement even in the summer[/ul]
Careful readers may notice that some of the same schools appear on multiple lists. These are not errors.
@NUwildcat92 , I am still amazed at some of the awful tour guides we had at several colleges, form top tier to moderately selective. My D did make a conscious effort to try and forget the duds. On tours when guides underwhelmed us, we just focussed on students around us, which was more useful anyway. One tour had two guides. The guy was pompous, the girl, in training, was lovely. Thank goodness, or he might have put us off. That college is ones of Ds top choices now.
Moved waaaay up—University of Rochester. I had never paid any attention to UR (and I kept confusing it with RIT), but D thought it was “worth a look.” We were on a college-tour roadtrip and Rochester was halfway between Chicago and Boston. So I called the night before to see if we could squeeze in a tour. She fell in love with the campus and the school. She’ll be finishing up her freshman year there in a couple of weeks.
Crossed off—Tulane. D returned a dropped ID to a random student who, instead of saying “thank you,” made a rude comment. Moral of the story: One bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. (It made me mad because I thought Tulane would have been a great school for D. But it all worked out in the end.)
Also a note to anyone visiting Northwestern in the next couple of months—don’t let the current construction turn you off. I was in Evanston the other day and it was horrific. But NU is really a beautiful campus when it’s not over-run by construction vehicles.
U of Michigan. Saw quite a few undergrads wearing Ivy League apparel. And tour guide went out of her way to tell us she had been accepted to Vanderbilt and UPenn. Was a reminder that half the school probably wished they were elsewhere.
Crossed off:
NYU – Decided he’s not that much of a big city person. Boston ok, NY no.
Moved up:
UC Santa Cruz – Loved the smell of the redwood trees and the look of the campus overall.
Moved down:
Berkeley – Stories about difficulty getting into classes.
Crossed off:
-UPenn (The vibe was way too preprofessional for my taste. The tour guide talked more about internships than his classes.)
-William and Mary (Some parts of campus were inaccessible for me in a wheelchair.)
Neither moved up nor down:
-Georgetown (Horrible tour guide, but I loved the gothic-style architecture.)
-Pomona
Moved up:
-UVA (Something about the long tradition of scholarship that made me feel at home.I just adored the fact that they have a full-scale copy of the School of Athens.)
-Scripps
-USC (I thought it would be too big, but I actually didn’t mind too much. The professors and students I talked to were very friendly.)
Crossed off:
*Haverford. Felt claustrophobic at roughly 1,200 students. Didn’t like the dining-hall food, either.
Moved up:
*Vassar. Engaging, energetic tour guide. Jaw-droppingly beautiful gothic buildings.
Oh yes, Haverford moved down the list after visiting. My D thought it seemed really “precious” but we didn’t find it claustrophobic. Instead, we felt it was excessively large for just 1200 students. And while their honor system is admirable, my cynical D just can’t beleive that no one ever cheats, and with teenage logic decided that was intolerably unrealistic.
And agree with others about U Rochester. D didn’t want to go back for a proper visit but I insisted (first time was a quick walk around.) She met friendly people, and the campus didn’t feel sprawling despite 6000 undergrads. She loved the arty touches she saw both at the college and in the city. It’s now jostling for first place for D. It is definitely an underrated school.
I visited Purdue and Ohio State with two different children, and couldn’t help but compare the experience of two large flagships.
Moved Down: OSU. The admissions presentation was too long, with an over-emphasis (as if defending itself from those who aspire to more) on being a selective school. Our tour guide was impersonal, almost mechanical and was not a representative standardbearer for a “selective” school. We expected a more intellectually curious/interactive spokesperson. Even though she was not much older than the group of kids she was talking to, she asserted an inexplicable patronizing tone that distanced her from her not-much-younger would-be peers.This tone, coupled with the redundant reminders of “we are VERY SELECTIVE” from the admissions officer’s presentation was a total turn off. My D actually counted the number of times they said “competitive” in the presentation. It was more than 20+ times in an hour.
Moved Up: Purdue. The admissions presentation was perfect in length - just enough to cover the high points, with great slides heavy on photography and personal testimony. The tone was confident, but also accessible. Our tour-guide was met my expectation of a typical Purdue student. He was affable, personable - quick to say “I don’t know” when appropriate and very enthusiastic in sharing his own experiences. Totally exuberant in his embrace of campus life. Talked in a tone appropriate for high schoolers. I did not expect to like Purdue. I came away very impressed.
Moved up:
Kenyon-- Despite frigid cold, after spending 2 days there my daughter was enchanted by her surroundings. We went on two tours, one Sunday afternoon, the other Monday morning. The two guides were quite different, and both did an amazing job conveying what makes Kenyon special. (There were no cows wandering around) My daughter had a great interview with a senior English major (her prospective major), they talked about the department, writing opportunities and the Kenyon Review. She was sold on the place by the time we left. As for being “in corn fields in the middle of nowhere” as many people say, we didn’t get that impression at all. Columbus is only an hour away, and all the basic necessities are five minutes away in Mount Vernon.
Hamilton–Hands down our best college trip, and we did many. The tour was excellent, campus has a unique blend of architecture that really works, all facilities are updated and thoughtfully designed both inside and out. While my daughter interviewed I had the pleasure of chatting with a professor. When she returned he chatted with her as well. Great interview, overall fantastic experience. She liked it so much we stayed an extra few hours to eat lunch and wander around campus. This is another school that sometimes gets maligned for being in the middle of nowhere (cows). A little awareness of geography is all it takes to realize that Utica is 8 miles down the road, and Syracuse is 48 miles away. It did not feel too rural to us.
Moved Down:
Smith–We attended an admissions event. I was impressed, my daughter was not. She didn’t like the campus, didn’t like the feel of the place. She felt it was too busy and the students seemed intense. Also did not like the house system.
Wesleyan–We tried really hard to like Wes, especially because one of her early interests was film. After three visits and an interview that can only be described as mediocre, she crossed it off the list. Interestingly, she did like the football/baseball field in the middle of campus. Some of the architecture turned her off. That and the amount of traffic given its location within Middletown. It was noisy unless you were in the middle of campus.
Vassar–Another school that was on the list because of film and English. Pretty campus, but did not measure up to Kenyon and Hamilton for us. Another one we tried to like, and visited twice. It was her first choice for a while. Ultimately she liked the English departments at Kenyon and Hamilton better. As was the case with Smith, she wasn’t enthralled by the house system. Living in the same dorm for three or four years seemed limiting.
For DS, crossed off Skidmore - just meh, even for a safety; felt like a well-funded state school; Colby, beautiful campus, but very unimpressed by visit to class "by one of our best professors.: Moved up: Vassar, beautiful campus, “Ivy feel” For DD: UC Santa Barbara - too spread out, felt she would get lost; moved up: Claremont Colleges (Pomona, Scripps, Pitzer) Visits incredibly useful in testing out whether kids really wanted what they thought they wanted; DD decided maybe she didn’t want a large university after all; DS decided “to go for it” and skip applying to safety schools, if he didn’t get in he would go to UMAss Amherst (and like it or transfer) rather than a school he wasn’t excited about.
Moved down: Harvard (Engineering tour had five guides, all of whom were insufferably pretentious and unfriendly.) Princeton (My kid had breakfast in an eating club, and reported back that many of the students were very snarky.) Harvey Mudd (Tour guide used “like” in every sentence; I’m not kidding. Info session was led by a student, rather than by anyone from admissions. No slides or video shown, just Q&A.) Rice (Everyone was smashed into a tiny waiting room and then led through the rain to a conference room. To find a bathroom prior to the info session, you had to exit the admissions office, go down a walkway, and enter another hallway.) Berkeley (No on-campus parking. Campus protests were really off-putting. Buildings seemed very run-down.)
Moved up: Cornell (At campus entrance were people that directed you to the parking garage and handed out free parking passes. Incredibly well-run tour and info session. Kids on-campus saw us struggling to find a building and volunteered to help.) MIT (Made you feel at home. Administration staff was super friendly. At info session check-in, a paper was handed out with suggestions tailored to each kid’s interests.) Yale (Absolutely hilarious tour guide. Great info session. Kids during lunch in main eating hall initiated a conversation with us.) Stanford (Fabulous tour guide. Beautiful admissions waiting room with touch screens.)
Bottom line: First impressions are important, as are the tour guides.
@lindagaf, Rochester is on our list, too! We’ll be visiting next year. I have a feeling DS will really like it.
S was accepted at Rochester. But we never visited. From what you guys say, maybe we should have. He definitely put Carnegie Mellon lower after we visited on an accepted student weekend. The campus was ok. Not sure he was comfortable with the student population he saw.