Colleges your child crossed off the list after visiting, schools that moved up on the list. Why?

Parents Forum
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I posted about a couple schools way back in the dark ages of this thread. Because it has been so entertaining, and because I think our visits are pretty much all wrapped up, I grabbed my daughters notes last night and figured I would put up a longer post.

Moved up after a visit

Tufts - Daughter loved the tour guide, liked the emphasis on living in a global world and “giving back” in the info session. Mom and I were really impressed by the two girls who struck up a conversation with us in the cafeteria while we were going over the visit and sat down and spoke with our daughter for a good twenty/thirty minutes.

Wesleyan - As noted earlier, didn’t want to visit in the first place, but really loved it when she did. Becoming a bigger and bigger fan as time goes by actually. Loved the baseball diamond in the middle of campus, liked the “quirky, artsy” vibe. Likes the combined BA/MA program a lot. The tour guide was getting ready to audition for a part our daughter had played the previous fall, and that also helped a lot.

Barnard - Much to my chagrin, daughter is not a big fan of the single sex schools, likely because she attended an all girls high school. After visiting both Barnard and Columbia, and realizing how close/integrated the two are, Barnard made its way to the short list. Daughter liked the ability to take small classes but still have access to the resources of a school like Columbia. Thought the “nine ways of knowing” was a better, more flexible, set of requirements than the Core. Liked that the info session and tour both emphasized that there was a close relationship, but a distinct difference, between Barnard and Columbia.

Vassar - Hard to say this moved up, because it was pretty high on the list to start with. But it remains on the short list. Daughter loved the focus on the arts and the “foundation” (her word) as a women’s school. Was impressed by the new science buildings, which were not yet completed when we toured. Like at Tufts, daughter got a real sense of social responsibility, giving back to the world, vibe which she identifies with. The main quad and the library may be the most quintessentially college setting I have seen.

Moved down
Columbia - Too big. Really not a fan of the Core. Daughter could not figure out why she would apply to Columbia if she could go to Barnard and share the same resources.

Yale - Too big again. Daughter did not like how the campus was cut up by city streets. She was really not a fan of the residential college system either. Thought the Yale video creepy.

Brown - As noted before, she really wanted to like Brown. But she did not get a great vibe from the tour guide. Did not like the completely open curriculum, and was not a fan of the Freshmen housing system either. Also bigger than she prefers.

Miami of Ohio - Way too big. Way to preppy. To close to home.

Bryn Mawr - Loved the campus, liked the size of the school. Even with the relationship with Haverford, thought the campus was too single sex, and could not envision a lot of day to day mixing with guys. Also thought some of the traditions, and their obvious importance on campus, was kind of off putting.

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@Ohiodad51 I don’t know if it has changed much, but “in my day” (i.e., the dark ages), the only single sex experience I had as a BMC student was my freshman composition seminar, which was specifically limited to BMC students. Every other class I took at BMC was co-ed, plus a lot of Hford students ate in the BMC dining halls. I understand that the room exchange is much smaller now than it used to be, but again, back in the day, my family was a bit flummoxed when they moved me into my dorm and there were two Hford males living down the hall!

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@Midwestmomofboys, thanks for the insight. I think you highlight a real issue with only being able to visit a lot of schools on one occasion and for a brief time. It is crazy, but it is what it is.

What turned my daughter off about Bryn Mawr was that when we were walking around campus that particular morning, she only saw two or three guys. I think from there it kind of reinforced her preconceived notions about an all girls college, and she started looking for reasons to rule out BMC rather than rule it in. Sometimes, all it takes is being there at the wrong time. Of course it works in the reverse, as happened with my daughter at Wesleyan where her initial impression was much different than her preconception, and now she is looking for reasons to “rule in” Wes…

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We have not made any college-specific trips. Just if we happen to be in the area.

Down:
Cal Poly SLO. DS thought that being confined to a major and a strong focus on churning out professionals would not provide him with opportunities to explore. Liked campus.

Colorado College. Loved campus and food, but block schedule seemed too intense for sciences.

Oberlin. Loved conservatory, but not main campus. Seemed like it used to be great some decades ago.

No Change:
Case Western. Too industrial, but DS could see himself there.

Berkeley. DS fell asleep in a large lecture class. Still liked it because… It’s Berkeley.

Stanford. Prof would not let DS sit in on a class. Still liked it because… It’s Stanford.

Up:
Carnegie Mellon. Loved campus and BXA opportunities to explore.

U Denver. Loved campus, people, food, and commitment to sciences and arts.

Norte Dame. Loved the feel of traditions. Friendly people with great science labs. Taking mandatory religion classes was a turn off.

SDSU. Loved campus and friendly people. Folks on campus were eager to show us directions and answer questions.

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@svetoy You just happen to be in the area of a lot of different places - sounds fun.

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Our experience in the end was that our visits didn’t play a defining role in what school our S picked. And that’s after endless travel over 2.5 years to about 20 schools. In hindsight we wish we had toured far less. We kept hoping that our S would get a strong instinct/vibe from one of the tours and that would become the target he got excited about. Never happened. Almost all the LAC’s blended together. They were mostly all attractive, they all said 99% the same things in the info sessions, etc. Even when they were claiming “what makes us unique is…” it didn’t. I can’t tell you how many schools think their honor code is unique and take the tour to the wall where every students signature card is framed.

Our S did have better and worse impressions of the physical campuses and surrounding areas and early on that colored the ranking of schools. But as he got closer to decision time that ended up having almost no correlation with his finalists. In the end he came down to 2 schools he had ranked rather low after the initial visits and one he initially was indifferent to that he hadn’t even wanted to visit until the last minute. And these were high target to reach schools, so it’s not that he settled for ones he didn’t like, just that what he ended up prioritizing was not really discoverable from the limited tours and info sessions. And since he still has no idea what he wants to study, it wasn’t the reputation of individual majors, either. It really came down more than anything to student culture/vibe, and him researching that a ton from messaging former classmates and websites like this one and half-a-dozen others. One of the finalists was a school he had a strong negative reaction to the campus, but it made the short list because it was strong in all the extracurriculars he liked, but he never got over the student vibe reputation. Etc.

With our next one we plan to tour less before applications and plan for more late tours after acceptances.

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@svetoy , how young was your son when you started doing these tours? We tend to go to CA or CO for summer vacations/spring breaks, etc, but haven’t considered looking at schools yet. Our son will be a sophomore in the fall. Maybe our family vacations should start including visits!

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@homerdog , we did our first tour at a local college during the Martin Luther King holiday of his Sophomore year. After that we did a couple pretty local schools were negligible travel was involved and then tried to be strategic with our vacations to visit places nearby. Until summer after Sophomore year where we did a batch of longer trip visits for the express purpose of touring. Then again Spring Break of Junior year and summer after Junior year. Then some last minute scrambling in March/April after he got decisions from places he either hadn’t visited or wanted to see again. In every case we didn’t let the visits dominate those breaks or vacation periods – we used 2 days of spring break week for example. But over all that time it added up to about 20 schools. The most intense was start of summer after Junior year where in 1 road trip of probably 1,500 miles we visited 5 schools, 3 in one day! But it was just way more efficient than trying to visit them all separately. That said, so many of the LAC’s blended together and we could have done a representative sample instead. Like I said, we had hoped for a spark so that’s why we did it all.

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This thread is really fun. Seems like best plan is (1) focussing visits on likelies, matches, and those where demonstrated interest matters, and (2) saving most of the high reaches for April if the kid gets in.

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@Sunny66 I agree. Really using the visits to make sure there are schools that my daughter likes and will be happy to attend when she most likely will not get into/be able to afford Highly Selective U.

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^^^ I would agree with that generally. The reach schools are often some of the most impressive to visit and it’s hard to get kids excited about targets if they are judging them against the reaches. I would also say to the extent possible plan your tours for when class is in session. This is easier said than done because summer is the easiest time for road trip tours. But the experience is SO different when the campus is active versus not, and it can strongly color the experience either way. We always made a point of eating in the cafeterias during peak lunch time too.

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@homerdog From a graduating senior’s prospective I think it can be good to visit colleges in 10th grade, but just be aware that your son will change a lot over the next three years. What a 10th grader wants in a college will most likely be totally different then what they want as a senior. When I was in tenth grade my top college just happened to be the one my crush was interested in :wink: Your son may be completely different, but do keep in mind that his priorities will most likely change over time.

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We are looking at OU…Texas Tech…UNT and Texas A&M…Is there anyone here that has visited those colleges?

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@homerdog Sophomore year we started visiting colleges as side trips.

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@Tgirlfriend We visited Texas A&M last spring when my Daughter was a Sophomore along with UT and Rice. She like A&M but she had been there for an engineering camp one summer and loved it. The admissions presentation the day we went was awful however, I can say Carnegie Mellon’s was worse. The campus tour was good and the residence hall tour was great. One of the young lady’s was very helpful in talking to her about options if she did not get on-campus housing. It is still one of the schools on her list and we will apply in the fall since she is an automatic admit based on Test Scores. Ii still has a small feel on the main campus since it is pretty contained. Lots of students on campus walking around and she felt that she fit in with the other kids she talked while we were there.

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@Tgirlfriend

Texas A&M visit reports…
http://www.collegeconfidential.com/vibe/texas-a-m-university#visitreports

OU…
http://www.collegeconfidential.com/vibe/ohio-state-university-main-campus#visitreports

Nothing for UNT. Texas Tech reports were from 2006.

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Have had a similar experience to @citivas. It was very helpful to see a selection of different types of schools - D16 thought she only wanted those near a city but we toured all kinds and she is happily going to a small LAC more than an hour away from any good sized city. So big, small, rural and urban are probably good to expose a high schooler to. But they definitely tend to blur a bit when you see too many, and it is somewhat hard to really get a feel for the vibe with just a generic tour. Our admitted student visits were where DD really looked to see if she could imagine herself there, if the program was right for her etc. And a few schools that didn’t
’ impress us the first time around really ended up growing on us once she was accepted and we learned more about the school and its offerings, and vice versa…

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@sunny66, I don’t think one strategy works for everyone. In hindsight my daughter and I probably did visit too many reaches early on but we live in NYC and it was a lot easier to make a day trip to Penn or Princeton than it would have been to visit the safeties she eventually did apply to, like Earlham. Earlham was the college she only visited after she had been admitted, and they paid her airfare.

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I can’t emphasize enough the admitted students days, or equivalents. Our S was 90% convinced on one school and totally changed his mind after the admitted student experience. I attended as a parent and thought it was great (it had previously been my second choice but we tried hard not to bias his decision). But he did an overnight and just didn’t click with the students he met. I wish he could have done more of those, but many of them overlapped and they are all occurring at a peak time for school activities. He missed several due to band and theater events and and even what he did attend couldn’t have been worse timing for his AP classes. We’ve already made a mental note for 3 years from now with our daughter to consider when her activities big events are senior year and steer her away from things that occur in mid-April. That said, schools do offer overnight options outside of admitted student days and if it’s a school being seriously considered, they are highly informative – far more valuable than generic info sessions.

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@homerdog - Strategically, consider starting visits in the sophomore year or earlier but save the ones you think are the best fits for the junior year, or summer before. If you do stumble across a gem earlier, plan to go back and revisit closer to app time.

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