This past weekend I took my HS junior DS to info sessions and tours at Bucknell, Lehigh and Lafayette, and we did a self-guided tour of Muhlenberg. Here’s some impressions:
Bucknell: it was a cold and very windy day, but the tour guide was excellent under trying conditions. Info session was so-so. Pretty campus for sure, but not the “nicest” as listed in the Princeton Review. Very nice buildings and facilities, with a really nice student union and main dining hall. The dorm we saw had typical doubles and was perfectly fine. Lots of new construction shows a vibrant university. Overall a pretty good vibe and will likely stay on the list.
Muhlenberg: Very nice facilities, particularly the theater complex, student union and athletic facilities. Quite a compact campus, and it might be smaller than my son is looking for. May stay on the list for now.
Lehigh: a too lengthy info session (hour-and-a-quarter) by an earnest adcom who tried a bit too hard to be humorous. The tour guide was pleasant and informative. Neither of us loved the campus, which seemed a bit drab and disjointed. The area around the school was uninviiting. Not likely to make the cut.
Lafayette: the clear winner of this trip for both of us. I’d visited 7 years before with my DD, and it was as lovely as I remembered. The 45 minute info session by the senior adcom was informative and down-to-earth. No visuals, just a sincere discussion of college admissions and the Lafayette “way” of doing things. The campus is nicely laid out with a classic college green and some beautiful buildings. Terrific student center, and my son (who does not impress easily) really liked the library. Our tour guide was terrific, as she was knowledgeable and showed sincere affection for the college. I noted that there were lots of students wearing Lafayette apparel, and there seemed to be a lot of smiling faces around campus. Of the visited schools my son could most see himself at Lafayette.
@scoop85 I have been to all three and agree with Lafayette being the best of that bunch, as long as you don’t mind the smaller size and lack of a business school. I went last year and was very impressed by the sense of community and the down-to-earth vibe. And the campus is lovely. I have heard many people visit who come away surprised how much they love it. I know a girl going there next year as a recruited athlete, and she is very smart as well. She did an overnight there and Bucknell and Lafayette was the clear winner. I believe she will be studying some kind of science.
My daughter is an OOS student at UNC. It’s not a walk in the park… she works hard for her grades and I can vouch for the fact that there are, indeed, some smart kids around from N.C. They don’t all flee their state system. She is having the classroom experience she wants. And yes… it’s true that OOS kids are fondly ( and jokingly) known as either athletic or smart ( sometimes both)… but after the first year this stops. Ironically, she has equal amounts of instate and OOS friends.
Do the OOS students tend to shine? Yes. But really… isn’t shining at a top notch university a good thing, especially if med school may be on the horizon?
Adding to the list of schools she crossed off ( they are all great… but not for her):
Northeastern- she learned that the co-op was not for her
Vanderbilt- the interviewer asked her 4 times to join a sorority and kept talking about her experience. She was turned off by the fact that after saying she wasn’t interested… this topic was brought up 3 more times
Cornell- she knows well over 20 students there. After spending a a few hours there with a friend, she concluded that the intensity was definitely not what she wanted
Don’t forget the mission of state institutions is to educate students from their state, and many are legislatively mandated to do so. My D20 was not thrilled with the fact that such a high number of students are in state at W&M. I wonder how much of the campus empties out on the weekend making for a no so great experience for out of state students.
My D says it wasn’t an issue for her. Students who live 2-3 hours away may leave for a long weekend, but the OOS kids generally stay, and there are instate kids who live far ( it’s a big state).
@twogirls you are correct that the size of the state directly impacts whether a school empties out. My DS16 goes to an instate school 3 1/2 hrs away. He does come home for breaks, but other trips are rare and saved for special occasions. He would actually be closer to home if attended college in our neighboring states.
Concur UNC does a lot to attract top in-state students through generous need and merit aid, honors program plus other Excel Carolina opportunities, free tuition for grads of the state’s public STEM boarding school for gifted kids, and just the overall low in-state cost – at $23k per year it’s been Kiplinger’s top best value college every year for years and is too good of a deal for most families to pass up if their kid gets into UNC.
Being OOS gives a student an initial shine but agree with @twogirls that there’s lots of in-state students at UNC who are tippy top students and passed on other options. Also OOS legacy students tend to have pretty close to same admit rate as in-state students, I believe.
Sorry for diversion. Prolly the best tour we did that moved a college up was Middlebury. The campus is so gorgeous, the tour guide excellent, and July in Vermont is to die for. My only critique (and this happened a lot of places) was too many anecdotes about campus traditions and not enough focus on the academic experience of the students during the tour. D ended up not applying in the end b/c she felt it was too Northeastern preppy for her tastes, but I’d love to go back to that area on vacation!
@twogirls my daughter would have picked UNC over Vanderbilt and Cornell also for the exact same reasons.
I have also heard that it is a lot easier to get into UNC out of state as a sophomore transfer. I don’t think the applicants are held to the same standards as freshmen. I wonder if your daughter has ever noticed a difference in the transfer OOS students. I know a girl who had absolutely no shot as an OOS admit as a freshman but got in as a transfer no problem. There is a general feeling that this is the way to get into UNC from OOS if you really have your heart set on it (and it is clearly a lot of kids first choice!).
@collegemomjam – yep, my D realized she’d pick UNC over Cornell (almost same exact size) too b/c she couldn’t justify the cost difference. UNC (honors) made her ‘final four’ (ha!) but in the end picked among LACs that offered her money because she realized by March/April that she wanted a small college environment. Though, if she’d gotten the Robertson or Morehead she would have gone to UNC I’m pretty sure. But alas. . .
Getting us back on topic, I’ve shared here before that Brown was the tour that turned my D off the most. NYU did a a great tour that showed exactly what it was – and as a result it immediately came off my D’s list. Honestly, she was just a Sophomore and we were in NYC so we figured ‘why not’ – had we known much about it we would have known it was a terrible fit for her. My niece graduated from there and said she thinks ‘lone wolves’ do best at NYU and I think she’s right! You gotta be young, scrappy and hungry!
@collegemomjam , my D is a senior at USCal. Most sophomores get to live in the new University Village, unless they live in Greek housing which is only a block from campus. Since freshman year my D has never lived further than one block off campus. There are some private apt complexes further away, though they have shuttles.
We visited from Ca - visited university of Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota— after our trip Minnesota moved way up our list - we loved it! Such a beautiful, vibrant city - excellent tour and we loved how urban it was.
Oh another surprise- we visited UCSB and Claremont McKenna in the same visit — we LOVED UCSB but crossed Claremont off our list. It was too small and hot and too “private” feeling if that makes sense
I know students there that love it and are not loners. I think as far as urban campuses go, I think it’s a great one. We did the tour a few years ago and what you don’t realize is that NYU is really all contained in like a 5 block square. Everything is very close together. I did my MBA there so it was a little different than undergrad, but the professors were great. But you have to be prepared for and want NYC if you go to NYU…definitely a different urban feel than BU or GW, which are also great schools.
A lot of good insights in this thread. I wish there is a function of hyperlink or hashtag that one can navigate to interested schools instead of browse thru 270+ pages.
How many students stay on a flagship campus versus leave it on the weekends depends on the campus. A great campus (and immediate area surrounding it) means staying regardless of the distance from home. And that can change with time. Eons ago U of Minn seemed dead on the weekend while UW was vibrant but times change as I suspect U of M keeps more on weekends.
California parent who visited three strong Big Ten schools- expect a fair number of Wisconsin residents at Minnesota as with reciprocity there are those who favor one over the other without needing to worry about finances. Some from the Twin Cities want to leave town and find a comparable school not too far away.
I really get why flagships cater to instate students, especially where traditionally state taxes have provided a lot of the funding. There is a balance between providing for the state’s top students and getting that OOS revenue plus the exposure of the locals to OOS students to widen their world. btw- there is only a slight difference in test scores for UW (the Wisconsin one) instate and out from my UW thread reading. New Jersey seems to have been exporting students forever- UW was a favorite in my days eons ago ( the NJ friend was no smarter than we honors instate students, however- his parents had more money and his father had a PhD from UW).
There are definitely some state schools that actually PREFER OOS students because they pay so much more. U of Colorado at Boulder (great school, we loved it!). Pretty sure it is EASIER to get in as an OOS student there. I also think the SUNY’s might want more out of staters. Maybe even Rutgers? Not only for money, but for the geographic diversity.
Either way, it seems like the state flagships are better than ever and students are seeing that and appreciating what they have to offer. Good to know tax dollars are being well spent.
