I think kids also tend to give silly reasons for removing a school from the list because they can’t really verbalized what it is they don’t like. I call this ‘vibe’. You’ll see this when kids knock a school for a certain reason, then attend another school with the exact same attribute.
@homerdog UVA can be as much as 1/3 OOS , usually around 30 percent. Many of the instate kids are from northern Virginia and lots of those have lived elsewhere.
Was just reading my UNC-CH alumni magazine last night and there was a short article about being fined for going over the OOS quota 2 years in a row. Might be a teensy bit harder to get in OOS this coming year.
@OldFashioned1 I think it’s silly to keep a school that has a poor tour guide and and architecture you don’t like just because it has a 10% acceptance rate. We’ll agree to disagree. There are plenty of schools out there with good tour guides and architecture you like that also happen to have low acceptance rates. This seems an easy way to begin to limit those schools to which you apply.
@Lindagaf My D17 decided not to apply to Lehigh purely because of the hills! You never know what little thing might deter or persuade teenagers to swing one way or another. I remember, way back when I was doing overnights at the colleges that accepted me (this is back in the paleolithic era), I decided against one school because it rained the whole time.
Here’s another post about the Yale video. My oldest was applying to college when that video debuted. He, too, thought it was over-the-top and a complete turn-off. But his sensibility is more indie than Glee/Broadway musical. He attended Brown, which appealed to him with its low-key, indie & learning-for-the-sake-of-learning vibe. It really is all about fit.
For those interested, here’s a link to the Yale video and to a funny spoof of it that Harvard kids created:
Yale video:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tGn3-RW8Ajk
Harvard spoof:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RYRF5-zdY8Q
Article about the Yale video & Harvard spoof in harvard’s paper, the crimson:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/11/23/yale-video-yales-harvard/
1 Like
@m0minmd Your comment about your son eliminating colleges for elitism is not exceptional. Our daughter took the same approach. While we are comfortable enough to send her anywhere, she essentially ruled out all of the Ivies as being stuck up and elitist. We took her to Princeton, Penn, Cornell, Dartmouth and Harvard. While she respected Princeton’s academics, she literally ran from the place as being very snobby and aloof. Not an Ivy, but she had the same reaction at Swarthmore. She was completely turned off by the Penn info session emphasizing how hard it was to get into. Those experiences ended up tainting all of the Ivies.
In contrast, she didn’t get the elitist vibe at Chicago and Duke, and ultimately applied ED to Rice which she found much more welcoming and down to earth.
Moved up:
Williams - Cold and remote, but loved the idea of tutorials.
Brown - Liked Providence, liked the open curriculum, liked the campus, loved the tour guide.
UVA - Stayed overnight and discovered you can have fresh-baked cookies delivered to your dorm. In-state, so it’s probably a safety for her based on the Naviance data.
Moved down:
Amherst - Cold. Tour guide was uninspiring and had a foreign accent that made him difficult to understand. Will probably apply anyway.
Moved off:
Columbia: Great tour, liked the campus, had fun sitting in on a class. Too much New York.
Swarthmore: During the info session, the admissions officer joked that Swarthmore was “where fun goes to die”. Thanks for making it easy, buddy.
Dartmouth: Cold.
Tufts - Cold. Would never choose it over UVA.
Waiting to visit:
Duke, Vanderbilt, UPenn, Pomona
1 Like
Love this thread and am hoping to hear impressions of some less selective colleges (as I am now helping my very average stats junior find some options).
I hesitate to describe these next three as “Down” because they had some nice aspects, just weren’t what my kids were looking for. However, their CC forums have almost no activity (or don’t exist) so maybe this will help someone:
St. Bonaventure. Franciscan college in Olean, NY, < 2,000 students. Attractive campus (S thought it looked like SIL’s country club), great welcome presentation, good tour. Met a super-enthusiastic student who obviously loved his school. They provided free passes for lunch (don’t know if they do that all the time but this was a half-day event) so we ate in the student dining hall and observed the Saturday lunch crowd (food was pretty good, students seemed to be having fun). It had snowed overnight so we did not get to see the 9-hole golf course. The positive aspects will likely not outweigh what are (for S) two big negatives: very small and very rural.
Canisius: Jesuit school in Buffalo, about 2,700 students. Academic presentations were quite good (discussion of course work and internships required for specific majors – visitors chose which ones they wanted to sit in on). Another free lunch (pretty good) seated among current students who looked tired (it was Sunday at noon so no surprise there). Enthusiastic, well-prepared tour guide took us inside various academic buildings, the freshman dorm, and through some of the tunnels that run between buildings (smart idea in Buffalo!) but ran way too long (2+ hours for a relatively small campus). Sounded like most students come from within an hour or so of the school.
Loyola Maryland: Jesuit school in Baltimore, about 4,000 students. Pretty campus with a traditional quad. Some of the largest dorm rooms I’ve seen. Good academic presentations (another special Saturday event, so visitors picked 3 different majors to attend). Beautiful new business building and apparently the B school is quite good. Free lunch (excellent quality), but it was buffet style in a gym with other visiting families so we didn’t see many current students, plus we had no idea if the student food was anywhere near as good as what we had. Adjacent to a lovely residential area with bus access to downtown Baltimore. Might be a good option for a student who likes Villanova but is looking for a somewhat easier admit and/or better chance at merit (up to $25,000/yr for top applicants).
1 Like
@m0minmd & @wandlmink - Elitism/self-importance a huge turnoff in our household as well. We found down-to-earthness easier to find in the midwest (though certainly not exclusive to the midwest). Which is not to say there aren’t lots of lovely down-to-earth kids at many elite Northeastern schools. But there’s something in the air at a lot of them that was a turn-off to my particular kid. Perfectly happy to have a reason to look no further.
If a student gets a bad vibe due to the architecture or tour guide or whatever why is that any less sensible with a school that has a 10% acceptance rate than one with a 50% rate? If they are good enough to get into the 10% school, there are plenty of other highly competitive schools they also may get into. And you can get a great education at any of them, so within the tier why not let them go with whatever their gut is telling them? As someone else said, whatever helps them narrow their list. Our S had a heck of a time picking among a bunch of good choices, any of which we were happy with. So there was no reason to worry about him dropping one from the list because of look of the campus. The only thing we worried about is him eliminating a school because of a perceived issue where we figured he would likely run into it at any of the schools on his list – i.e. the drinking culture. We had no problem with that criteria, just making sure he didn’t have false expectations about it being better at the schools he left on the list.
Agreed with many above – our S was allergic to the schools where there was too much of a preppy vibe, whether on the tour or just from the online rep. In the end he soften on it a bit when his favorite choices for other reasons all had some of that rep. As for not reading too much into the tour guides, I don’t know. Tour guide positions are always extremely hot jobs on campus with far more applicants than slots. So the school can be super picky with who represents them. If they pick someone, train them, shadow them, etc. and don’t get a sense the person is giving off a vibe at odds with the school’s culture, then maybe it isn’t at odds with it.
My point is it’s presumptuous to cross off schools you’re probably going to be declined from. But it’s also my opinion that unless you’re a “Malia Obama” (a rock star lock for any college you want), touring elite colleges before acceptance is a silly and most pretentious exercise.
Not sure it was elitism or the “preppy”, high fashion vibe but one of mine was turned off by Georgetown and BC and loved Brandeis. Georgetown too many young woman in high heels carrying designer bags, plus a tour guide that seemed like a complete Southern belle. BC too preppy. He loved the laid-back feel of Brandeis (and a very funny tour guide helped). He also liked Tufts a lot, even on a cloudy and cold day, but followed the merit money elsewhere.
@LuckyCharms913 less selective school parent here as well, at least with this one. Each has been totally different in terms of stats, schools, and what makes things go up and down.
Up
Western Washington University. I hesitate to say it is up as it was expected to be a hit but it did exceed expectations. Stunning campus with beautiful outdoor sculptures throughout campus, impressive variety of dorms, solid unique programs in S17’s area of interest that have been hard to find elsewhere plus a strong music program he could be part of without majoring in it. Impressive guides all around. Very PNW, genuine, eclectic with a strong music scene. Nestled into the woods with a view of the sound it felt smaller than it actually is which sat well with S. No greek was also a plus. A safety that moved up to a top spot.
University of Puget Sound. An outlier for program fit but decided to visit to see how an LAC felt to S17. Absolutely stunning campus despite a grey drizzly day, impressive academics, wonderful tour guides, also very genuine and PNW (Patagonia campus logo gear on our guides). A flexibility in the curriculum that we hadn’t expected combined with the music options moved this CTCL campus not only onto the list, but up near/at the top. The college controlled/owned on campus greek system did not dampen the love for the school which was fascinating to me. S loved the size and we will be expanding the LAC search as a result if we can find program and financial fits.
@LuckyCharms913 Have you checked out Marist? We really loved the tour and grounds of that school. The academics seem great too. You should check it out for your D.
Also, Bryant University in RI seems to be very highly regarded and has medium selectivity. I haven’t visited but several acquaintances love it there.
“My point is it’s presumptuous to cross off schools you’re probably going to be declined from. But it’s also my opinion that unless you’re a “Malia Obama” (a rock star lock for any college you want), touring elite colleges before acceptance is a silly and most pretentious exercise.”
We know a family who went by that philosophy for their first one to go to college. The daughter got amazing results. Accepted at 6 top universities and LACS. And then they had what they called " the worst month of our lives where only good things happened." Trying to visit all those schools, finish up HS and AP studying, attend final tournaments etc from April 1 ( when results were in) til May 1 ( decision day)nearly caused the poor kid a nervous breakdown. With the second they made several pre acceptance visits.
“Its presumptuous to cross off schools you’re probably going to be declined from.” Why? We won’t hurt their feelings, I’m sure. Crossing them off means they won’t get our $75 application and the opportunity to reject them. It means that even if we were accepted, we may reject them.
Every family is different. We wanted to make sure that every college on her list was a place she could see herself, and it seemed hard to do that if she hadn’t seen the place. We toured over 2 years (started during jr year) and kept it pretty casual - there were lots of places that we just walked around a campus to get a general feel (esp early in the process) and then moved on to more in depth visits as she narrowed down what she was looking for in a university. I found touring particularly important for the high reach (Under 10%) schools - we wanted her essays etc to speak to genuine interest, not seem like she was throwing applications at the prestige wall to see what would stick.
@OldFashioned1 I would respectfully disagree. We found it very useful to tour college before – and in one of my kid’s case she felt comfortable applying ED to her top choice because we had made these visits. Many of my kids friends had similar experiences (including many who applied to and were accepted EA/ED at elite schools such as Yale, Cornell, Columbia, MIT, Caltech etc) in terms of visits being important in the process. It is critical to not just visit the elite schools (which I agree are pretty much a crapshoot for any unhooked applicant) but to visit a range of reach, match, and safety schools to determine which might be good fits.
Admittedly, my view is tempered by the fact that I live on the east coast and many of these schools are in driving distance – agree that if money/time is an issue it may not worth investing in visiting schools that are longshots even if that means not applying ED – but in that case it would still be worthwhile to research options over internet, college guide books, local interview etc.