I would not move back to Seattle if Bill Gates gave me his house to live in.
I would. Then I would sell it and purchace another in a more sunny place.
A few weeks ago, I visited the UDub - my alma mater - with my twin daughters. As with all things with these two, one loved loved loved it and the other hated hated hated it. Top of one kids list, off the other’s.
@roycroftmom Oxford University campus is fantastic. The town of Oxford is easily amongst our favorites as well. The issue is the English system is highly specialized from Day 1, so if a kid isn’t quite certain what to major in one doesn’t have two years to decide like the American liberal arts foundation. A zoology major will pretty much focus on zoology for all three years of the English university structure. The Scottish and Irish system are more similar to American education and accept more Americans. One daughter looked very closely at Scottish universities, but then did not apply.
Crossed off - Otterbein, USC Aiken, University of Tennessee, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (loved the campus but it became apparent that their pre-med program was not very developed)
Moved Up - Findlay, Eastern Michigan University
Spring break college tour -
Univ of Delaware - pretty campus nice enough downtown area with close access - we were told about 75 restaurants and cafés Then walking distance of the campus.My main thought was getting in and out and visiting with the traffic on that part of 95 in the Philly Delaware area. A little bit greedy and urban. More so than some other city schools we have looked at (Like BC) Aside from that parental the kids liked it the people seemed very friendly and we stayed on campus in one of the hotels
Virginia Tech - Wow! What a beautiful area surrounding the town. Rolling hills and lots of cattle. The campus was amazing and even with it being such a large one it definitely felt homey. With it being so large it’s good they make a point to group classes for kids from the same colleges within a smaller area within the university. The fact that students can walk into downtown Blacksburg is a plus and we again ate at a downtown restaurant and saw that there was a good mix of restaurants including a vegan one that was coming soon. We again stayed on campus at the Inn at Virginia Tech. Definitely worth it to stay there it helps you get a real feel for the people and the campus.
Clemson - The third campus we visited and again a third one my son will apply to. Beautiful campus, very friendly and helpful people. because of the construction we had to park off-campus and were shuttled in. I thought that would be a pain but it worked out well and even better on the way back to waiting for our shuttle we were picked up by a gentleman trying to start his own business (tiger tail tuk tuk) Of shuttling locals, students and parents around the area in a tricked out seven seater golf cart. He took us for free around the campus, down to the lake and then back to our car. Only asked that we review him online. We got to see a lot more of the campus than we had planned - able to see the lake area and the fact that they control over development on it was a plus.
Furman - A bit different then the other three. Quite a bit smaller and without the easy walkable access to a downtown area. However the campus was exquisite ( pretty forested paths with arched bridges ) and while we met with friendly people at all campuses I would have to say the ones at Furman were by far the friendliest/sweetest. Love that a good deal of the campus housing surrounds their small lake and kids are also given an option to live in eco-friendly smaller cabins (Cold showers!). After asking around we learned that since it’s between Greenville and Travelers rest kids tend to go to both to look for things to do. Only downside with this one is that a car would be more necessary than the others.
On a sidenote we stayed in Greenville to have access to both Clemson and Furman for our visits. We definitely plan on going back to Greenville whether or not anyone chooses to go to those schools as we did not get enough time to explore the downtown area as well as the beautiful walking paths that are on a 20 something miles stretch from the town through other adjacent towns. It was so nice to see from our hotel the amount of people biking, strolling, with their families young and old taking advantage of the city on the paths.
@bloomfield88 I’d be interested to hear your take on Wake and W&M.
@Publisher We like the last three on your list too.
Stanford (wife alum), Northwestern (me alum), and U. of Chicago
Stanford: We lived in Stanford’s married housing in 2017 and 2018, while my wife earned her Masters degree from Stanford. Despite this tremendous legacy advantage, not one of my kids ever considered Stanford.
First, the bad. Palo Alto is disappointing, very expensive and soulless. Aside from a couple of quaint towns, the entire Bay Area really has no soul. It is one giant, traffic-filled burb. San Fran is not that easy to get to and the San Francisco I enjoyed in the 1990s is no more. There is a significant outflow of citizens from the Bay Area and unfortunately, the homeless crisis is not fake news. It even impacts the nimbys in Palo Alto. The entire mile of El Camino Real serving as the border to Stanford’s main entrance (Palm Drive) is lined with dilapidated, parked motorhomes like a pikey camp from a movie. While we like the Stanford campus itself, we hope to never move back to the Bay Area.
Now, the good. The Stanford brand is jaw-dropping incredible to me. My wife would email from her @stanford account to any CEO anywhere in the nation and they’d frickin reply, usually within hours. If she emailed from any other email account, crickets. The brand opens doors and the alumni really look out for each other.
Stanford has the largest campus in the world. 60% is still open land. However, the main campus is easy to get around, though the buildings are more spread out than most campuses. We biked everywhere. There are so many one-off cool sites on campus that one doesn’t know unless one lives there. It isn’t my favorite architecture, but it blends rather nicely with the almost always sunny, parched dry environment.
Moving up from LA, I was thinking Condoleeza Rice, John Elway, Bryce Love, Christian McCaffrey, ok the Stanford student body will surely lean towards stereotypical USC kids, not stereotypical Caltech kids. Boy, was I wrong. Stanford takes great pride in its “Nerd Nation” status. The undergrads flaunt nerdiness and it is rather charming.
Professors are the opposite. They are polished, slick presenters that are movers and shakers. So many of the faculty have success in business that quite a few are teaching for fun and to give back. Their business contacts are incredible. Stanford is Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is Stanford. No university surpasses Stanford in collaboration between colleges, departments and cross-disciplines. So many people think outside the box. The try and fail, try and fail, try and succeed entrepreneurial model is infectious. Educated risk-taking is encouraged. My wife only applied to one business school and she is ecstatic to be a Stanford alum.
Northwestern:
I earned my MBA from Northwestern, so not a peep from me on the tour. One of my daughters loved the sailing center and the beach on the lake. I thought it was one of the most well-crafted tours of the bunch, because the presentation was slick and they were constantly pushing all the right ‘teen’ buttons, rather than what the parents wanted to hear per se. I think many kids wanted to wear purple by the end. Since, the weather was nice, we walked all over after the tour. I warned her about the frigid winter winds.
She also enjoyed the diversity of options in Evanston and of course, the work hard, play hard city of Chicago beckons on the horizon. We both agreed the architecture is a bit incongruous. To bad more buildings don’t look like University Library. I was very surprised by the student body. Northwestern and U. Chicago haven’t converged, but Northwestern’s student body is moving towards Chicago’s. Again, my geeky daughter was put off by that, but she did apply in the end.
I have mixed feelings about what Northwestern once was (fantastic and well-rounded) and what it is today (very good, but off-track). They have been wasting money on frivolous agendas and I am not just referring to the Kellogg Business school overextending itself and diluting its once illustrious brand. We donate tiny, but growing amounts to Vanderbilt and Stanford each year, because we feel so indebted to them for the education of our eldest and my wife, but we won’t send a penny to Northwestern unless I witness a change in direction.
U. of Chicago:
I toured this campus twice. I am a big fan. My eldest is a big fan. During my second visit, my middle child said, “No way. I simply cannot go here.” This is partly, because even Stanford’s ‘Nerd Nation’ takes a back seat to U. Chicago’s student body. My eldest absolutely loved the bookish vibe. My nerdier, bookish middle child did not. The campus is not large, but the architecture is fantastic to me. Yes, it is in a rough neighborhood, compared to Northwestern, but there are clear demarcations between neighborhood and campus and most of the perimeter is surrounded by beautiful townhouses. Downtown Chicago and some of the most underrated museums in the world are so close too.
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@bloomfield88: Thank you for sharing your thoughts & impressions regarding Stanford, Northwestern & Chicago. Very interesting.
Small point: I believe that Stanford has the fifth or sixth largest campus in the continental US at 8,180 acres.
@Frydaddy
Wake Forest: I am so impressed with Wake Forest. No school pays more attention to detail and thinks about what really matters to the students and the university rather than just what is popular at the moment. They aren’t afraid to go in their own direction, but it isn’t just to be different. Although, I prefer older looking buildings (throw up some ivy and I probably would have thought it was older), the campus is laid out so well and it has a great college vibe. We could tell kids are very happy there and the university really cares.
The forest makes a nice boundary. Winston-Salem isn’t my favorite southern town, but Wake feels like a different world anyway. It has a lot of the advantages of a medium-sized liberal arts college with the bonus of the ACC conference. My takeaway was this college was designed, specifically for my middle child. Definitely one of my favorite tours. After the tour, she liked it and applied, but chose Vanderbilt.
William & Mary: The public college many think is private. Well, W&M relies heavily on private funding. We liked that it is such a historic institution and Williamsburg is so close. Because W&M is so old, my kids were expecting Harry Potter architecture, they were surprised by the Williamsburg brick buildings. As I recall Richmond is about an hour away and the beach is only an hour away too. All the alums I know loved it. W&M wasn’t really on my kids’ radar though.
@bloomfield88 Thanks for the comprehensive review of your visits. I’d be curious as to your view of UVA vs. UNC-Chapel Hill. I love both, but obviously have my leanings, but want to be able to convey a more objective opinion to a family friend that is looking (and it’s been a while for me). Often those two universities get compared a lot as prominent “public Ivy’s” in the south and am curious as to an objective opinion as to how similar to dissimilar they are in practice and/or pros/cons of both. Thanks.
Not a parent but a transfer student, just finished a big VA roadtrip to look at colleges with my little brother who’s a junior. Somehow ended up having to go in I-95 north hell traffic up from Richmond TWICE, but it was fun! Thought I’d share our thoughts.
UVA: Not as preppy as I thought it would be! Super lively campus, academics seem great, feels big enough to have some breathing room, but there’s still a sense of community. I might end up here! My brother liked that they are good at basketball and not much else, said it was too “bougie” for him, thought the secret society stuff everywhere was weird. Parking was SO hard to find and we got lost several times, but Charlottesville is a cute town.
Richmond: Despite UVA being too fancy, my brother liked UR a lot more than me. Campus is absolutely gorgeous, but seems VERY formal. Great business program for what he’s considering, but it’s also small and feels like it, also super removed from the city of Richmond, or at least compared to where I thought it’d be. Off for me, might be on for him.
JMU: Go dukes! There’s SO much school spirit here. Campus is absolutely huge, but really pretty in the spring. A little conservative for me, and I think I like the town of Harrisonburg more than JMU itself, but my brother liked this one a lot! Only complaint is that I-81 goes right through campus, which isn’t ideal. Academics seemed surprisingly solid, at least for me because where we’re from in the north, it definitely has a reputation for being a party school.
W&L: As we drove around the campus/lexington for a little bit, my brother leaned over and said “this place looks like something from Get Out.” Something about the vibe just wasn’t right- we took the advice of that movie title and got out.
VT: Forget I said JMU had a lot of school spirit. Tech beats them out by a mile. I’m a humanities major and wasn’t really sold on the huge campus and all the gray buildings (hokie stone?), or the academics, but bro LOVED it. Great business school, lots of happy students, they play football a lot? Not for me, but I think it’s probably his top choice.
CNU: This place is SO manicured. Campus is tiny but it really looks like they tried to build UVA from the ground up like 5 years ago and spared no expense. The campus (and student body) is also super small. Students all seem to love it here, but neither of us really got it, off the list for both of us.
W&M: I had to drag my brother out to see this one, but it was near CNU so might as well. Really thought I’d like it more than I did- seemed very subdued, that “quiet, quirky, nerd” vibe really pops out here, and it’s an academic powerhouse. There’s also SO much brick. Can’t really put my finger down on why I didn’t like it, but something just seemed off. Do appreciate the WaWa on campus, though.
I really what GT did, warning Texas applicants like that. Rather than trying everything to max out applications and decrease their admit rate, they help you with (presumably correct) information and makes your application process a little more efficient. Respect.
@illiteratemoron – loved your write-ups! Tks for sharing.
It’s almost impossible to avoid these issues at engineering schools I’ve seen. They just aren’t places with comfortable social life. I will avoid debating why, and whether it has to be that way – it just is. And having attended one myself as an undergrad, I do not recommend that experience for my kids. One can receive a fine undergraduate education and go through those years where the growing is not just academic but social too, at many schools. If the technical part of the education isn’t quite as strong, it can be strong enough to prepare for work or graduate school, where learning will continue. The engineering-school environment is a fine place for graduate study, but I wouldn’t and didn’t send my kids there.
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Amen. I’m sure for others it’s fine too. That’s why we have so many options. And when someone states that unequivocally that X is better than near equal Y, it’s inaccurate.
Yes, the more of New Haven is bought by Yale directly or indirectly, the better it becomes. Yale has been expanding into the formerly worst areas. Where we used to hear gunshots from a couple streets away, now the new Yale Police Department building sits. So no gunshots there.
The University of Chicago has wanted to expand in its neighborhood too, but for decades the neighborhood has pushed back in very intentional and coordinated fashion against such gentrification. UC has less money than Yale, but it had enough to do this. Money wasn’t the problem. They just weren’t allowed to buy adjacent land at any price.
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Did you live on Mansfield too? Maybe we were there at the same time!
@bloomfield88, I’ve been enjoying your insights that you’ve been sharing. Wondering if you could share your impressions of Colorado State, Georgia, Indiana and Notre Dame.
“ Downtown Chicago and some of the most underrated museums in the world are so close too.“
In this country Chicago has a top five art museum, natural history museum, science museum, aquarium, planetarium, etc.etc. Not sure why you would think they were underrated…