Prolonged/detauled discussions about one particular school are best off moving to the forum for that particular college. Otherwise the main point of the thread tends to get lost in the shuffle.
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Please see the subject line. This is a thread for sharing potential applicants’ reactions after touring or a similar interaction, full stop.
Signed, someone who’s run afoul of that sometimes but should have known better
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Not part of the regular tour. Just ask - they will happily set it up.
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Thank you so much, @2Devils! We are going to tour JHU in April and I appreciate your details, looking forward to hearing about your Chicago tours as well. Can you please share a bit more about of your D’s arts EC impressions at JHU? What is the scene like there for it?
Both tourguides mentioned friends in performing groups they would go see; one was in a group her self; they pointed out the spaces for performance and they mentioned options for music lessons or even a combined degree with JH’s Peabody school(not on the main /Homewood campus)—just seemed to know and care a lot about arts which is great for us!
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Thank you so much, @2Devils!
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JHU moved up our D’s list as well. We did the drive south for UVA, Georgetown (went way down, interestingly), Richmond, et al and JHU was our first stop. Height of pandemic, so it was DEAD on campus, but we were surprised. Really a gorgeous, contained space. No, the surrounding community isn’t all that great, but you’re five minutes from the inner harbor and very convenient to a lot of things.
She ended up not applying, primarily because she liked how the curriculum at others schools fit her better, but it went from being “absolutely not” to “this is nice”. You mention WashU- that was the school she most compared it to.
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What was her take on Georgetown? We visited Georgetown, George Washington, and Johns Hopkins over Presidents Day weekend and my daughter really liked what she saw at Georgetown. Loved the architecture and the surrounding small-town feel, yet with easy access to the big city. The students seemed pretty content. We’re close to Villanova and I saw a lot of similarities (both good and bad). In contrast, she apologized to me for wasting $80 on the application fee after the tour and interactions at George Washington. Just not a great fit. Many of the upperclassmen seemed as if they were rationalizing their choices. Probably great for select majors but not for hers. She liked the Johns Hopkins campus a lot but Baltimore simply isn’t her preference. We’re a northeast family and very familiar with all of the cities in the corridor. Wish we could have made it down to UVA but ran out of time. I’ve heard good things.
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First, UVA is stunning. If she likes architecture and surrounding towns, UVA will likely appeal. The grounds are simply amazing and Charlottesville is great.
Our D didn’t like Georgetown. She couldn’t put her finger on it. Had a friend of hers who is a student tour her, and that friend loves it.
A friend of my wife’s has a son who plays MLB, and we went down to Baltimore in 2019 to see him play. Stayed near the ballpark, and walked around the inner harbor for lunch on a beautiful summer’s day. D was with us, and she has a really good impression of THAT Bmore, not the reputational one. But yeah…it’s not most people’s cup of tea.
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I have compiled our impressions from visits for my older daughter and also for my current junior in one post for those interested (posted in pieces before). Note on the bottom includes Georgetown which my d just graduated from and loved.
Current junior, so far:
Swarthmore - off the list, though perhaps more due to her preexisting view of it as being overly intense than anything we saw on the visit. Gorgeous campus, convenient to Philly. D didn’t like the honors program which she thought created pressure and two tiers of students within a very small school. Just generally didn’t vibe there.
UPenn - way up - our first larger school and first urban school. Did seem a bit impersonal and more sink or swim then the LACs we have been visiting (tour guide mentioned connecting with his advisor once per term by email) but she was very energized by all the amazing facilities, kids that she found very smart but more down to earth than those at other Ivies she visited and really like the campus within the city. Of course getting in, especially without playing the ED card, is another story… still opens up other bigger and urban schools as possibilities.
UC Santa Cruz. Off the list. Probably not a fair visit as we self toured over winter break when almost no students were on campus so very difficult to get any vibe. The location is beyond gorgeous- you literally walk through groves of redwood trees with occasional distant views of the Pacific. On the other hand a very spread out campus - students bike or shuttle between the buildings - very different from bucolic New England campuses we have been visiting and the wear and tear also makes it clear that this isn’t a school with a gazillion dollar endowment like the New England privates.
Wesleyan - Way up. D loved the open curriculum, the clever housing system, the progressive vibe that seemed to be lived and not just for show (everyone introduced themselves with their pronouns, lots of focus on social issues, etc) and the kids who seems very bright and intellectually curious and interesting without being over intense or overly single academically minded — everyone seems in a lot of interesting activities and time for fun. The negatives are that the presentation was completely non-STEM focused (with bizarre comments like - ‘woo hoo you never have to take math again!” And similar even from AO. She did the tour with a guide who was a math/earth sciences double major who alleviated her concern that it wasn’t a place for stem kids to some extent but not fully. The other negative is the location - truly in the middle of nowhere and the town is not at all interesting other for a very small and pretty standard strip of studenty coffee shops and similar. Overall she will apply and thinks she could be happy there both academically and socially.
Princeton - off the list - tour left d somewhat cold - lots of talk about how many Nobels the faculty members, strong feeling of privilege - despite the fact that our actual guide was a first gen kid from economic hardship situation! It is obviously an amazing school but d doesn’t need more super reaches, she will take a moonshot on some but nothing about this visit changed her mind that it wouldn’t be Princeton.
Haverford - off the list - d has generally liked the small quirky schools but this just seemed too small and too quirky. It is almost the size of a large high school, and d found our tour guide to have a “weird vibe” (?). She did like the social activist energy and the ability to participate in research. But ultimately think she wants something at least somewhat bigger.
Amherst - shot up, really loved it. The info session was a snooze but she loved the tour and the tour guide (crazy how much that matters) who was a double major in a science and humanities which is something d may be interested in. She also got the vibe of friendly and engaged and enthusiastic students that worked hard but also enjoy themselves and have time to do various activities, social stuff etc which is what she is looking for. The two concerns of course are the insane difficulty of getting in and that most students were pretty conventional in presentation - my d is significantly edgier in appearance and doesn’t want to be viewed as “out there”.
Mount Holyoke - off the list - perhaps this is unfair as we self toured which is very different from having a student guide and the campus is very beautiful and serene but for whatever reason the campus seemed very dead - we saw very few students around (on a beautiful Saturday afternoon) and the ones we saw (though dressed like my d - lol) seemed kind of glum and unfriendly. In any case between that and the fact that d is having second thoughts about applying to women’s colleges, MH is off the list
If we are also retelling tours in past year, here is a summary of a mid Atlantic/Boston tour we did with an extremely picky science-focused older daughter a few years ago:
Princeton - got ruled out, the wealthy suburban setting reminded her too much of home, it was miserably rainy, and the senior year and junior year thesis requirements stressed her out just hearing about them - she is a stem kid and wanted to avoid more writing (she wouldn’t have gotten in anyway);
Boston College - way up, she liked the setting and the kids, liked the science presentations, liked the location.
Tufts - hated it for no good reason, I really liked it. Something about the setting and she thought the kids all seemed defensive about not being in the Ivies (unlike BC where she thought the kids seemed like they wanted to be there).
UPenn - ruled out, liked the mix of kids and academic strength and amazing science offerings,but really didn’t like the urban setting
Swarthmore - didn’t like at all, too small, and reminded her very much of her high school in “overly intellectual/very competitive/too serious” vibe. I thought it was great, but there you go.
UVA - ruled out, put off by the vibe, seemed provincial (the tour guide seemed very surprised to have someone from New England on the tour), very white, and had weird traditions and adoration of the Founding fathers that rubbed her the wrong way.
Georgetown- loved everything about it, the perfect not too big and not too small size, the kids, the adorable and historic town, the nearness to DC, the excellent and extremely well funded but not insanely competitive science departments. Yep that is where she ended up and loved every minute…
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Interesting take on Tufts and Boston College since DS goes to Tufts and DD goes to BC. DS loves Tufts but he would be miserable at BC. DD loves BC, and while I don’t think she would be miserable at Tufts, BC is definitely a better fit for her.
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I meant to come back and read this article but it slipped my mind until just now! Thanks for sharing–now I’m very interested in seeing Spokane. Sounds like an interesting little city.
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Bringing up two GREAT points here… Tour guide and weather while visiting. Oh, how much those matter. The first you can barely control, the second only if you’re super flexible and can afford to burn $ at times.
There are often tours where they split up the info session to walk the tour with various guides. We sometimes cheat on these, or try to. At Ross with our older S, we were selected to tour with one guide but I 100% knew he wasn’t going to click based on the guides one minute speech during the info session. Another was funny and engaging, and we simply chose to walk with him. At Vanderbilt, they had us split into five groups by where we were sitting. Again, “book by its cover” decision that the assigned guide was not going to click with D. Chose another, lol.
We toured Northwestern in the middle of August, 83*, then hit a Cubs game with older S. I mean…if S DIDN’T love NW I would’ve been shocked. Then toured it in summer with D, but it was cloudy and rainy. The fact she still loved it was definitely telling.
To me, the urban campuses can often take a bad weather day and brush it off. But any type of rural or suburban campus, and cold or rainy weather REALLY impacts a student’s feel.
Great points!
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On Wesleyan, we visited last summer and interestingly got an all-STEM student guide line-up which was working on research with profs over the summer. D24 who is not STEM-inclined was a bit concerned, except that when the guides asked the crowd in a large full auditorium if anyone was interested in STEM not a single hand went up. Our sense was that this would be a terrific place for STEM with lots of research in addition to the fine and liberal arts, especially if progressively minded. Stayed on her list.
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Nope! Not for our D who applied to schools in all types of climates but really preferred warmer. We hit Colgate in late March for an admitted student event and it was 15 degrees, cloudy and super windy. It’s the most remote campus we ever visited and, even with the cold spring weather, it ended up her first choice. Sometimes everything falls into place except the weather!
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I thought it important that my California girl visit Chicago in winter to see if she truly knew what she was getting into! It was 11 degrees, sunny and windy, on the day we toured DePaul. When we went out at night, we were FREEZING. She got a taste of it though, and hasn’t eliminated DePaul.
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The same thing happened with my U Rochester boy. He almost didn’t apply there due to “winter.” He changed his mind almost at the last possible minute (for EA I think), and later than a deadline I had set to not be rushed. We visited after applying and, of course, we had huge snowflakes to deal with, plus it was cold and windy. Nonetheless, he fell in love meeting the students there/spending the night with them and when their financial package came back the best for him, beating U Alabama (don’t recall exactly how much because they weren’t a contender over Pitt) and Pitt (only by 1K for Pitt) he was thrilled. Now he calls it his “best decision I almost never made.”
I’ve often wondered how many cut it due to winter and how popular the school would be if it were located elsewhere.
ETA: I should add that it moved up for him because they weren’t focused on sports (Pitt and UA most definitely were) and ALL the students he came into contact with freely talked about their research while at a dance (or some sort of music) campus club. There was also a hand made sign in the dorm saying, “We’re not nerds. We’re intellectual bad—es!” He had found his people. He didn’t want to leave to finish high school. If we could have dropped him off then, he’d have been thrilled.
He had other schools in contention. Case Western (too urban), Furman (too expensive and not sure he really wanted an LAC even if they were financially similar), Baylor (too far away to really consider TBH), WUSTL (waitlisted, but not sure it would have won out at the end), Emory (cut when they required SAT II tests from homeschoolers, but not regular students who applied - he had very high stats and AP scores already and was miffed - didn’t want to visit even when we were in Atlanta). This was all back in 2012, so not necessarily recent info, esp with SAT II tests.
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This is very helpful to me. Thank you!
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This happens at many schools esp if you are Junior/Senior and well into your major.
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Georgia Tech went down. The students all looked so serious and stressed. Not one person offered to help when we looked lost. The tour did not include going into any buildings or sample dorm set ups. I thought it would be my first choice.
Ohio went down because it is just not walkable. BU went down because there is no campus feel.
Purdue went way up. Tour guides were awesome and so enthusiastic. They were excited to show off their school. Students were smiling and chatting while walking to their classes. Every time we looked looked lost, a student offered to help us. There was just such an upbeat vibe.
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