Colgate gave out awesome ice cream sandwiches after their tour!
I was going to add that even with snow on the ground, the Colgate ice cream sandwich made us like them!
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Hands down the best ice cream dairy is near Colgate! (It is all about the cows.)
UConn used to have a very popular ice cream shop; not sure if it’s still around?
The Dairy State https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/wisconsin/wi-babcock-dairy/
They do, and it’s awesome!
UConn has the BEST ice cream!
Let’s move on from ice cream and get back to topic please.
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Gosh, we have not toured enough compared to most folks. .
NO PREVIOUS OPINION
My daughter attended an overnight at Williams through DIVE and could NOT stop talking about how nice everyone was - from random students to her hosts to counselors and profs. Some of what I’ve seen on YouTube gives me a different sense - more of a SJW vibe which is now what she’s looking for. I think it’s hard to pick up the real vibe in such a short time!.She was concerned about remoteness…she felt there wasn’t anything nearby except cow fields. I think there is a downtown but she didn’t get to see it perhaps.
She was also enamored with several professors and decided she’d like to minor in astrophysics after meeting one of them. She said they were so passionate about what they taught that you just naturally gravitated toward them. The personal attention and opportunities sold her on the idea of a smaller, selective school. (Now if she jsut gets in!!)
CROSSED OFF
My daughter crossed off USF (really didn’t like anything about it, but particularly the campus) and New College (student vibe and size) right away, And to be fair, she desperately wants to leave Florida.
MOVED UP
UCF moved up - and I think it would be higher on her list if she’d stop worrying about ranking. Friendly students, great honors college, amazing dorms. I thought I wouldn’t like it at all, and ended up loving it.
She had a weekend visit at Washington and Lee also. She LOVED the school and could see herself there. I heard an excitement in her voice which had been missing…It’s the one school where she gave me a walking tour via Facetime b/c she was excited to show me the campus. 
She’s very influenced by campus aesthetics, which is not a great reason imo to choose a school. But she also really liked her hosts and pretty much everything else too. And while the campus seems as remote as Williams to me, she says it’s the cutest little town.
MEH
She also had overnight visit to Wesleyan (didn’t have much to say oddly enough) and chose not to apply. She liked it, but it was a fairly distant third place compared to Williams and W and L.
Same “meh” reaction to UF, but that may primarily just be because it’s in Florida. She applied and may very well end up there.
SIDE NOTE
She didn’t apply to Cornell because she’d have to endure too many Office references.
@TrendaLeigh Williams’ “downtown” is Spring Street. Pretty much one or two long blocks. I would be surprised if your daughter didn’t see it but it’s hardly a college town.
Interesting that some students are fearful of moving to a cold climate while others are desperate to get out of Florida.
But a nice college village
I think it’s the extremes in temperatures thats the issue. For example, living in cold weather climates like Minneapolis and Chicago vs the high heat and humidity environments one would find in Florida. There are many colleges that don’t fall within these extremes and have relatively mild weather when college kids are in school.
Just a quick note that weather expectations don’t always match the reality:
One of the things that swayed my D19 into going to college at Mississippi State (coming from Alaska) is her utter, utter hatred of cold, and her corresponding love of heat and humidity. When she finally first set foot on campus the summer before she started there, she was absolutely luxuriating in the high 80s/low 90s she found herself surrounded by.
Fast forward, and she has been occasionally very cranky about how frequently the temperatures in North Mississippi have (as is actually pretty normal) been dipping near or below freezing during this academic year.
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Which is one of the reasons that Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, and USC are so popular. UCLA had 135,000 applicants in 2019, which is kinda insane.
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I didn’t read the whole thread but a few of our perspectives from visits:
Removed:
UC - Berkeley - While my D20 is looking for a metro/urban area, Berkeley felt like a little too much. Frenetic, bordering on unsafe, and hubby felt the equipment (labs, etc) was outdated.
Meh:
Stanford - there were no students in session and her impression was “boring”. My husband wanted to sign up on the spot. She does think the education would be amazing, it is a pretty campus, the weather is fab, and it’s still her #1 pick if we can swing the bills. I suspect the feeling would be different with students on campus.
LOVE:
UW - Madison - This campus presents like a high-end resort in a comfortable lake town. Ginormous back patio overlooking the lake! Cute college town integrated with the capitol district. The thing we noticed most (and subsequently found lacking on other visits) was the abundance of outdoor gathering spaces. Not just fields, but tables and chairs and benches outside. For anyone who lives in the upper midwest, we will get outside anytime the weather is even moderately nice (35 and above as long as there is no cold wind) so those outdoor spaces to gather and visit and study were huge to us.
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Up: Texas A & M. S21 went with a friend’s family, on a whim. Loved the school spirit and had a wonderful time visiting with local friends who are enrolled there.
Up: OU. S21 and I both really liked it. They seemed really interested in the kids; long but great tour and tour guide. Checks all the big state school boxes but not enormous; lots of out of state students.
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UP: Quinnipiac had beautiful campus. Less than 2 hours from New York City and Boston. 15 minutes from New Haven. The 3+1 or 4+1 programs are of real interest to D21. The ability to leave school with a Masters in 4 or 5 years is a great option.
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@BmacNJ QU does have a beautiful campus. I lived in the area for years and never saw it. Was so pleasantly surprised when my S and I visited. It also had a local rep of being a bunch of rich kids from NJ and Long Island, and we didn’t find that at all. Everyone we met were very nice and down to earth, friendly. Academics seem strong. We were impressed. S just went for an accepted students day and spent the day with a group of current students. He really enjoyed it. He likely won’t attend, though, as he does have better options for his major, and it’s the most expensive as well, though not by a lot.
@Taverngirl Thanks for the feedback. We really thought on paper that Sacred Heart was going to be a perfect fit. Went to open house and felt like everything was geared toward their nursing program. Real turn-off. We were worried that QU was going to be along those same lines and were really pleasantly surprised to find out that it was not the case. QU is a serious contender at this point for her.
Best of luck to your son.
PS, Blue Collar form NJ 