@taverngirl thank you - this is good to know.
We just got back from a great visit to Virginia Tech with S21. I had no idea how gorgeous the campus is with all the Hokie stone buildings. Normally I don’t like really cohesive looking campuses (all Gothic all the time Duke, for example, which I know most folks like but I find dreary) but there’s something warm and attractive about the VT building style. It’s a big campus with a huge ‘quad’ that is really a drill field going back to its military origins.
We went to the traditional general admissions session and on a student led tour. Both did very nice jobs and covered the typical things. They are not on the Common App which surprised me.
We also went to two program specific info sessions totally led by students – not a staff member in sight – which I found impressive. Says a lot that the college trusts students to be not only professional but all well informed to answer all the questions. My S is interested in engineering and they’ve really got it going there, that’s for sure. Location is pretty isolated and it was cold for late March! Lots of school spirit was evident with so many students wearing their gear. Food is ranked really high and we had lunch on campus and it was very good! All in all my S liked it a lot!
What do you do when your kid likes everything? We spent a full day each at Williams, Columbia and Princeton. Did tours, info sessions, classes, met with students. The verdict was they were all just great, liked them all equally though differently. How can one like all 3 of such different places??
@roycroftmom My D20 is the same - she has liked most of the schools she has visited. She is a pretty easygoing kid and doesn’t develop really strong dislikes. Handy in real life, but tough when you are trying to trim a lengthy college list.
@AlmostThere2018 Glad you had a great visit to Virginia Tech! VT is not a Common Application school, but they ARE a Coalition Application school.
@sevmom – yes, we learned they’re on Coalition app!
DD20 took Elon off the list. Campus is nice but there is very little else close by. Too few places to eat, shop, browse, be entertained, or simply walk to for her taste. Yes, Burlington can be reached by car but she will not have one as a freshman (family rule). It also was a bit too small for her. She prefers 10,000 or more students.
Moved up
University of Clark [the staff and guide really took their time and were thoughtful]
SUNY New Paltz [student guide was so impassioned and approached it with such a good sense of humor]
SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry [the campus tour was standard but talking to the students outside the tour they were all so articulate and engaged]
Oberlin College [beautiful campus and engaging and articulate students]
Move down:
Brown University [student tour supply lacking knowledge, and obviously following a wrote script]
Vassar College [less inspiring then the images, however we had no official tour]
D20 and I have started our tours:
Up- Marist College- adcom presentation was given by a Nigerian grad student. No real new information but she was very entertaining and had a real love for the school. Campus was beautiful and students seemed down to earth and “normal” according to D. D didn’t love the surrounding area but there was enough shopping/ restaurants nearby to satisfy her. Dorms were just okay, room seemed pretty small. Couldn’t get any info from either tour guide about the social life. I don’t think they are allowed to talk about parties, bars etc. and couldn’t get a great read on how much programming the school offers on weekends.
Up- Hobart & WS- adcom was good and the admission building is stunning with a beautiful view of the lake. My D loved the theme houses. Campus was really nice even on a cold Feb day. Think it would be beautiful in spring & fall. Tons of open space. Dorm room they showed us was very large & that was one of the smallest on campus. Cafeteria seemed really small with limited selections. Academics and alumni network seemed great.
Undecided- Clark Univ. We just did a tour, no info session as it is close to home & figured we could go back if she was interested. It was the Fri before break so campus was emptying out. Had a super nice tour guide from FL (even sent us a follow up note afterwards so my D could stay in touch with her). Students were a bit too quirky for her and she thought the campus would be more downtown. It’s sort of in a residential area with lots of 2-3 family houses. Campus seemed smal. She loved the dorms and the huge hangout space on each floor. Academics seemed top notch and the 5th year free is definitely enticing.
Down- Syracuse Univ- we didn’t do a tour but stayed in Syracuse for our Hobart tour. Drove around the campus around 3 on a Saturday and then parked & walked around a bit. Day was cold, 22 degrees, but lots of girls walking around with 1/2 sweatshirts on heading out to party. Frat parties were out in full force already. D was somewhat intrigued but it definitely was not for her. Way too big physically. Main buildings were really beautiful but dorms were like high rises.
Down- Providence College. This was our first tour and D was not into it at all. Said it was too religious, too homogenous, and didn’t like the neighborhood. Being my alma mater didn’t help at all. I thought the campus loooked great, so many improvements since I went there, but not what my D is looking for.
D20 and I recently had the occasion to visit two frequently comparable schools in Boston - BU and NEU. When comparing the two (everyone is different), we agreed that we liked the vibe at BU far better than at NEU. DD and I frequently disagree but here, we agreed surprisingly.
Other recent visits included:
Down - Bucknell. D20 was not loving the rural-ish setting and the strong preppy and homogenous culture. She goes to a NE boarding school and I think she’ll be done with that scene after next year.
Up - Johns Hopkins. She loved the campus and its proximity to the city. She enjoyed meeting with the coaches from her sport and could definitely see herself there.
Up - MIT. It’s pretty quirky there and she loved it, but not sure the love will be reciprocal. She’s a recruited athlete but there’s not a heck of a lot of pull by coaches although her stats are within range.
Up-ish - UPenn. She probably will not receive coach support so although her preparation might make her a viable candidate admissions wise, she’s not willing to forgo her sport.
Undecided - Villanova. She felt an ok fit but her exact words were “I feel like if you take the most the most popular kids from every high school, you end up with Villanova.” She also said this as it relates to S19 as he was just accepted there and she doesn’t think he would find his people there.
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Just a tip to pass along to other parents. Almost all tours show dining halls, residence buildings, etc. Ask to see career services. Unless you know for certain your student will go directly to grad school, the career services office likely will have a major impact on your student’s internship placement and stress level at college. Worth checking out.
"Marist College- … Dorms were just okay, room seemed pretty small. "
Wow – Marist must be making an effort to under-promise and over-deliver. I stayed in the new group of Marist dorms for a conference last June, designed by the same firm that did the new residential colleges at Yale. They are palatial.
@Hanna thanks for the helpful info on Marist. They did say they had new upperclassmen dorms/apartments but the “dorm tour” (it’s a separate tour from the regular tour) just showed us a freshman dorm room. The room and lounge area were pretty small and the stairwell smelled like antiseptic (think someone may have partied a little too hard the night before). I would love it if colleges would show you a variety of housing, esp those that have a 4 year residence requirement. Also 'artist had kind of.a strange point system for upperclassman housing based on the number of activities you participate in.
@AlmostThere2018 we felt the exact same way on our recent visit to VT. My s20 really liked it and we were also impressed with the student led groups. I had to remind him that as a Virginia state school his chance at acceptance is lower than it looks. It is towards the top of his list at this point.
I like @roycroftmom’s tip, and I’d add that in fact, you can learn even more from the school’s website. There should be a rich lode of info there, about who recruits, what internships/extenships support there is, career fairs, interview days, and so on.
Asking to see the office is a great idea, it’s just that you might be visiting on a day when the office itself looks empty-ish because the staff is busy workshopping with seniors or something like that, especially in the spring. So dig in via the website.
Ask career services how they use social media to connect with the students, when do they make their first outreach to students, how do they involve the mentors/advisors into the mix, does the school mandate a student to have have least 1 internship, how does career services work with alum and local institutions, will they assist a student who wants to develop their own internship, look at the service they use to survey the students post grad on job placement and grad school.
I had the same experience this past week! Clemson, Elon, Furman, and Wake Forest - he liked them all!
After 'bout 8 or 9 college tours my D18 came to the profound conclusion, “College is great!” She’d reached her saturation point, lol
S20 and I toured U Richmond and Washington and Lee this week. A little background: He is leaning towards ED at Wake Forest (sister is there) and we are looking for possible alternatives.
Down-U Richmond. Very impressive school, beautiful campus with strong undergratuate teaching focus, happy looking students, great merit aid. We’re from the Southeast, it felt like a larger Rhodes with brick, Division 1 athletics and a lot more money. There was nothing not to like, but it didn’t wow him. I’m sure his familiarity with Wake informed his feelings.
Up- Washington and Lee. We had a great tour guide who started off by talking about a pre-orentation camp where freshman spend a week on the Appalachian Trail and S was hooked. The school ticked off all the boxes for him: Impressive facilities, rigorous academics with a strong liberal arts focus and a separate business school, good career connections, and lots of outdoor leisure opportunities. He commented that the student body was not very diverse (and he won’t help that), but overall he loved the school.
We hoped to find a LAC alternative for him on the trip, and we found it.
@bamamom2021 Re Virginia Tech, engineering is hard to get into even in-state. I don’t think admission is too tough otherwise, even out-of-state, and wow do the students love their school!