Thanks @Dustyfeathers but I get the original thread and have already contributed. It is this secondary theme of considering the crossing off of elite schools as pretentious that I’m not quite understanding…
@Dustyfeathers , let’s say it put a caution flag on Georgetown. He liked the surrounding community and the campus fine. But as he saw more schools and became more cognitive of not wanting an overly preppy vibe, it moved down the list to the point that he didn’t even apply in the end. I doubt that was the only factor in his decision – he was culling the list and it just didn’t make the final cut (probably the separate non-Common App didn’t help either).
I have been hesitant to do a big post on our ups-and-downs because there were so many, it’s been over 2 years for some and my memory is imperfect, in most cases his tour experience was neutral and didn’t really inform his decision, and as I noted in an earlier post I found it surprising how his initial tour impressions was such a poor predictor of what made his short list in the end anyway.
So with those caveats, sure, here’s a few (not comprehensive) impressions:
MOVED DOWN
RUTGERS. The whole family toured. It’s our state college so a popular local choice, the cheapest option (excluding as we later discovered the great merit scholarships some schools offered), it’s pretty close and a lot of our neighbors are faculty there. My wife and I grew up in California so we had never been there… The whole family couldn’t stand it. Immediately moved to the bottom of the list and never recovered. My S didn’t even apply despite it being at the very least the go-to safety for almost all of his friends (for the reasons above). For anyone who hasn’t seen it, the “campus” is spread out over several areas that aren’t contiguously connected and require a bus along a highway to get from one part to another. The oldest part doesn’t feel like a college campus at all and is just a collection of buildings in downtown New Brunswick, which is not a particularly attractive (or safe) place. There is one part that feels like a classic campus to me and a couple other newer campuses (far from the class one) that might be nice if they were part of the main campus but felt disconnected and desolate by themselves. It’s the only tour we took (of over 20) where they did the tour from coach buses and only stopped for a field trip on foot at the dorms.
DICKINSON. It was okay, but we didn’t love how the campus was bisected by so many public streets which undermined the true “campus” feel. You expect that from an urban college, but not a suburban LAC. Not to say it doesn’t somewhat exist at many – Williams for example – but here it seemed to just blend into the city grid in many places. He was neutral on it overall until we visited Franklin & Marshall later that day and it had a more traditional campus feel. So F&M moved ahead of it and eventually Dickinson fell off the list.
F&M. Speaking of which… F&M stayed on the safety list, but once he toured Lafayette it moved down to last place. The latter was just a prettier campus and area. F&M had perhaps some of our favorite campus food BTW.
CORNELL. This one surprised me and is really esoteric to my S (and others like him). I loved the campus. For my S it was far too big. And the food we had on campus was uninspired (in general it seemed, with a few key expectations, the safeties had better food than the more selective schools). Anyway, based only on student population size he took it off the list. It was helpful in reinforcing his decision to mostly focus on smaller LAC’s though.
WESLEYAN. Per a previous post, this one kept moving around the list. On paper it’s the perfect fit for him. He didn’t like the campus much and really didn’t like the surrounding area. Later it moved almost to the top of the list despite all that, but lost out due to the student culture/vibe.
VASSAR. Another near perfect fit for my S on paper. My wife and D loved it. Our S just didn’t connect with it visually, he really didn’t like the surrounding area we drove through to get to it and back. It stayed on the relatively short list after acceptances but never made it closer than maybe fifth place for him.
MOVED UP
WILLIAM & MARY. He applied sight unseen with only minor interest, mostly to hedge his bets against only applying to small LAC’s. After he got in we toured and it moved way up the list despite a strong list of accepted LAC’s. We all loved the campus and surrounding area. And he liked the “nerdy” vibe of the students he interacted with. It made the top 3-4 in the end.
DAVIDSON. Another school he applied unseen based on the recommendation of his counselor and some previous students who went and loved it. He went to accepted student day mostly to confirm he was going to take it off his list but liked it so much that it briefly moved up. Nice campus, nice (albeit little) village town, nice weather, good vibe, etc. In the end the memory of the 9 hour drive home made it hard to compete with comparable quality LAC’s closer.
MIDDLEBURY. He was worried it was too “preppy” but when we toured it was incredibly beautiful, to all of us anyway, he liked that it was rural VT and the tour guide seemed very down to earth and not preppy or jocky, etc. Moved back down after he did an accepted student overnight and encountered all the preppy/jock/drinking culture that he had initially been concerned about. Personally I really liked it (having sat in on parent events at the accepted student event) for two days. And I really liked their MiddCORE leadership program and J-term.
There are more so perhaps I’ll do a sequel sometime but that’s all I had time for now…
@citivas So which school did your son end up selecting?
Bowdoin.
Hopefully students touring Ivys are also touring other schools. What sounds pretentious is someone “announcing” they they are going on a ivy tour. Blech.
That said, when we toured NE schools during older s’s spring break, we kept running into the same students and families who were visiting many of the same schools, though not necessarily in the same order. It was fun to compare notes about schools and share thoughts about schools one of us had seen and the other was heading to.
@jym626 – When we toured Colby and Bates within a few days of each other my son and I encountered one kid (on both tours) who really stuck out. We (unfairly) nicknamed him Cro-Magnon Man, as he was a big hulking guy who appeared to be the first generation in his family to walk fully erect. In the Q & A at the end of the second tour he asked a question about how prestigious it was to be a football player at the school. Our sterotyping was thus confirmed. Unlike you guys, we didn’t compare notes with this family.
I always find it interesting when kids cross schools off their lists because of other kids on the tour, kids who don’t actually attend the school they’re touring, and may in fact have no chance of being admitted. I think it’s fair to judge a school by the behavior of current students but if we eliminated every school with an obnoxious kid or parent on the tours we attended my kid would still be searching for a college.
There was one particularly noxious and entitled kid from a certain prep school (was wearing the sweatshirt, so the school name became our nickname for him) who was clearly on the same college loop as we were on spring break. We found ourselves watching to see when he would next yawn, roll his eyes or pull out his phone to text. He was so above it all and I can’t help but believe he telegraphed that attitude to the admissions staff he encountered.
Another mother-daughter pair we encountered repeatedly was delightful. We ended up eating dinner at the same restaurant and chatted through most of the meal. The daughter was intelligent, engaging, and humble despite being a recruited athlete.
I don’t know where either kid ended up but it wasn’t at the school where my daughter landed.
I too have wondered where some of those kids who we crossed college tour paths with ended up. We enjoyed them!
Its funny how you see the same families at many of the same schools. Of course, if someone is driving to ME and looking at LACs, they will probably look at Bates, Bowdoin, and Colby even if only interested in one or two of them. Same with the Amherst, Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Hampshire schools. We also traveled to PA and, although more spread out, we saw the same families over three days at Bucknell, Gettysburg and Dickinson and NY for Ithaca, Cornell, Union and Skidmore. A few times we even ended up at the same hotels/restaurants as those we saw on tours and we’d strike up a conversation 
^^^ We did Cornell, Colgate and Hamilton all in one day and ran into some of the same people at each. Same with Haverford and Swarthmore one day. I’m sure Lafayette and Lehigh get a lot of that too.
I have to say that I was (unjustly, no doubt) majorly put off Vassar by a dad-mom-daughter trio who were all wearing superbly clean and pressed clothes by expensive designers, accented with subtle but at the same time obviously expensive watches and jewelry. They oozed money, and I found myself disliking the college for no good reason. D liked it though. At Lafayette, (D didn’t like it) I found myself disliking it because one girl on the tour was wearing those dumb Hunter boots. I know, totally judging. But if those types of kids are looking at those schools, it can’t help but make you wonder about the kids going there. So is that any worse than dismissing a school because of its hills? Maybe, maybe not. No good answer, but if a kid is dismissing a college due to other kids on the tour, no doubt they would have dismissed it for some other silly reason.
P.S. Quite possible someone dismissed some colleges because of me. I tend to be the embarassing parent asking lots of questions:-)
Ironic, since Vassar is known to be amongst the most financially generous of schools.
^That’s so funny…I was put off by the lack of appropriate dress when visiting Vassar. Everyone (the students there) looked sloppy, like they had just fallen out of bed. I think I even made a comment about the booming business for oversized yoga pants in one of my posts detailing visits we made, now nearly two years ago. I don’t remember how the touring students were dressed though.
We were a bit perplexed at some of the schools with kids already wearing college sweatshirts that looked brand new. Did people buy them in hopes of being accepted in the future? This happened a lot at the elite schools we visited; ie, visiting Amherst and someone is wearing Yale, visiting Cornell and someone is wearing Harvard. Too funny. We saved our $50 spend until the decision was made.
Son plans to go into computer science. Our tours showed us that he pretty much liked all the schools, all of which felt quite different from one another. We toured Dartmouth, Tufts, UPenn, WPI, Drexel, Brown and Cornell. The only school he could not see himself attending was Cornell (his first choice before the tours). He didn’t like the feel of the campus and the tour guide was uninspiring. I do think tour guides do have an impact because the tour guides at all the other schools seemed to be bursting with love and enthusiasm for their colleges.
Haha @NEPatsGirl ! We never bought a single tshirt anywhere. In fact, when D retuned from her soon-to-be college, I was annoyed she didn’t buy a T-shirt while there, because I figured she would like it and I didn’t want to pay for shipping. Guess what? I had to pay for shipping ~X(
P.S. @gardenstategal , they did at least send a free bumper sticker! Hardly free though, right?
The only place I bought a tshirt was Harvey Mudd. Always loved that school and figured that anyone who knew the school and commented on the tshirt (I wear it to the gym sometimes) was someone I’d get along with!
Hunter boots are very practical.
Because athletes are always rude and stupid?
^No! The point was that she was an accomplished athlete being courted by coaches at the schools we were visiting but despite her very good odds of admission was quite humble about her chances. Chop the part after the comma off from the rest of the sentence. As the parent of a kid who was being recruited by schools I would never disparage scholar-athletes.
We missed the Yale video when we went to the IS/CT. It was too hot inside that room so we waited outside. I remember hearing the singing. So we watched it last night and the Harvard parody. Good stuff - now my youngest(11) vows to ask at every information session what year each school was founded.