Agree! I have a journalism degree and remember my training very well. In fact, my daughter is writing a fairly controversial feature for her school paper right now, and I have urged her to go after a balanced set of interviews and perspectives. What’s interesting is that it’s not always the journalist who fails to report fairly. It is also increasingly difficult to find independent sources.
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We didn’t cross off any college in particular, but after spending some time in rural Michigan my daughter (senior) said she doesn’t want to spend 4 years in a rural location in any state.
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Let’s move past debating politics/values/identity unless the sentence contains, “My kid crossed XYZ college off because of politics/values/identity.”
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I wouldn’t be so pessimistic. 
they will find their way. I believe in a pendulum on these kinds of things… sometimes people need to swing far in one direction before they settle somewhere in the middle.
College has traditionally been a time of self-examination and exploration. Stretching oneself at that age is inherently a good thing. Kids from rural, religious or simply conservative backgrounds could well benefit from exposing themselves to different ideas and backgrounds. That was what I experienced once upon a time, very much against the wishes of my own family but very much to my own benefit. The same could be said for kids from an opposite cultural or political background, with the difference that universities are generally little enclaves congenial to those values within states or regions that are otherwise conservative. It wouldn’t be at all hard for a northern kid going to school in Texas to find kindred political spirits. What would be even better for such a kid is getting to know kids of an opposite persuasion and discovering that there are many sides to lots of issues. Even if in the end you hew to the perspective that you came to college with you will find that perspective newly invigorated and made stronger by having been subjected to interrogation, both your own and that of others, than if it had remained cloistered, assumed as a given, and kept out of the battle. Milton said that much better than me a long time ago. One’s journey into knowledge of self and world does not end in high school.
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In an effort to get us back on track I will share a college my son crossed off after visiting.
We went to see Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for Game Design.
We ditched mid-tour when he clearly was not interested and we had a long drive ahead. When we got in the car and asked him he told us he did not like that the Game design major was in the basement of the building. My husband and I thought this was hilarious as there are many gamers across the country at home in their basement. My son did not think this was funny.
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Thank you
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(My son plays in the basement.)
My son has only half jokingly said he will pick the college with the best dating prospects. It’s funny what kids will notice about a school.
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When S looked at schools, he paid a lot of attention to the libraries on campus, and whether there were nearby small, independent bookstores. He’s in DC now and every other week he sends me a picture of a new bookstore he’s discovered and the book(s) he’s purchased. And yes, he has sent me pix of little study areas he has scouted out in the campus libraries and says “check out my office”. I love it.
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My kid asked about libraries and book stores on her visits, too!
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I mean, when you consider that selective colleges use sometimes arbitrary issues to whittle down their applicant pools to the ones that they offer admission to (yes folks, that’s what “holistic admissions” ultimately means), then it seems only correct that potential applicants have the right to use sometimes arbitrary issues to whittle down their lists of colleges to the ones they apply to.
ETA: Which is the utility of this thread—it gives some insight into the issues various kids care about, none of which are ultimately of any more or less import than any others, just as a selective college deciding between two applicants because one is an excellent oboist and the other is an excellent soccer midfielder is ultimately not a judgment about which of those attributes is more important.
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My daughter is the same, they are kindred spirits! On every tour she paid special attention to the libraries, which during the pandemic we mostly only saw from the outside. At the school she chose, she said if she had been able to see the inside of one of the libraries, she would have chosen it on the spot. Of all the things she saw and did after arriving on campus, the only video she sent was a pan view of the beautiful library interior and it is the only building she wanted to show us on parents’ weekend. It’s also where she spends all her time studying.
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I have been wondering if libraries are dinosaurs - who really needs them when you can research almost anything online? Then my daughter came along, whose happy place is a bookstore and who also thinks the most important college search criteria is the library (Trinity College Dublin is high on her list). She is two years younger than one brother, whose happy place is on top of a mountain, and 4 years younger than another brother, whose happy place is a soup dumpling restaurant with an all-you-can-eat plan. Kids keep it interesting, don’t they?
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It’s exciting to see kids identify what is meaningful to them.
(Icing on the cake when you happen to cherish those things too!)
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I love hearing kids express joy towards finding their “thing”. Libraries and bookstores can be so fulfilling….and beautiful. I’m glad your D found a place of happiness. It’s comforting as a parent to see them smile with delight. 
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My D is also looking at schools with GD, and I find the basement thing hilarious! Any other impressions of RPI? A couple of weekends ago I met a graudate who confirmed what we keep hearing: that it’s a pretty serious bunch of kids and there’s not much social life. My D is highly introverted, but she does like to have a small group of friends for raucous gaming and was thinking it might be too hard to find there. Right now we don’t have plans to visit. What did you and your spouse think compared to other GD schools you’ve seen?
I think she could find some there, but I would look at WPI and RIT. Both of their GD programs seem better funded. WPI has a really positive vibe and knows their students. RIT is investing a lot in media and GD. I could not sell him on either after he was sold on a school with limited other majors of interest to him - and we knew it was not a great fit for him. He could not see it.
He ended up wanting a different major freshman year and transferred. Sometimes you have to let them learn and grow.
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Anyone who can compare vibe and campus of ASU vs. U of Arizona?
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My D22 took Rice off her list for just those reasons.
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