She applied ED to Whitman, so she did not apply very many other places. When she toured, she felt at home. I think her list included Western Washington University, University of Puget Sound, and Eugene Lang.
She’s a humanities kid.
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Up: University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Future Gopher Friday sealed the deal, very well done. Tour guide said “You can make a large school feel small but can’t make a small school feel big.” That sold my son. That and he got direct admit to Carlson School of Management.
Up: St Olaf, he did not think it would be for him as it has reputation in our area as a “theater kid school”. But tour and meeting some students helped him realize that’s not entirely true. Decided he really did want large, Big 10 school but otherwise St Olaf was impressive. Super pretty campus.
Up: Indiana. Friendly, welcoming, pretty campus. No direct admit to Kelley though so decided on U of M instead. Had he been direct admit to Kelley… who knows? Lovely experience there though.
Down: Montana State. Lackluster tour, felt like the campus was underwhelming and lots of talk about housing shortages for students. Loved the actual town of Bozeman though.
Down: UW Madison. Felt like they gave aloof vibe. We don’t need to be wined and dined but felt like we were a bother. Huge turn off.
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Similar experience with Madison and U of MN. No one seems to talk about Minnesota, but it appears to be really well run and well funded, and is smack in the middle of a city that has all sorts of job opportunities and industry tie-ins.
W went to school in WI, and took some classes at Madison. She had a every reason to remember it fondly, but we found it overly obsessed with sports(and I like sports), traffic ridden, and a hodge podge architecturally. Our tour guide making “W” signs with his hands and going 'Whoo" was less than appealing, also.
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Absolutely! So impressed with University of Minnesota… great example of a school that my student wasn’t overly excited about at first but the visits and communication from the school when we had questions, outreach, etc bumped it to top of list. Also got same overly concentrated on sports vibe from Madison (and my son loves college sports) that seemed… bizarre? I know it’s a good school but just rubbed us the wrong way in person. University of Minnesota definitely deserves more attention! don’t hear much about it on here.
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Here’s an unusual one to add to the thread. We visited Hope College in Michigan last week. Kind of random for a PNW kid but she had a friend go there who loves it. She loved it. We’re not particularly religious but D23 seemed to like the culture. Holland, Michigan is a gorgeous town and everyone at the school was unbelievably nice. We were there for a big preview day but they knew our daughter’s name, what she was interested in studying, and paired her up on the tour with another student from the west coast. We were extremely impressed.
Off to Gonzaga this weekend and then a big Southeast college tour next week for spring break.
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I am so glad you mentioned Hope. I was thinking about taking D23 for a visit there since we have family in Michigan.
Would you mind sharing what the facilities are like (classrooms, hang out spaces, drums, dining halls, etc.)?
Did you get the feeling that the kids were more relaxed or stressed?
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Please update us about Gonzaga!
The word my daughter used for Hope was cozy. The facilities were pretty standard, the building that the preview day was held in was new and very nice, while some of the buildings were older. We didn’t go inside, but the new music and theater building looked beautiful. The dining hall and dorms were fine. It was nice to actually see dorms, since we haven’t at any other of the 3 schools we’ve seen, but they weren’t anything particularly special, both traditional style and suite-style. Most kids live on campus all four years but the juniors and seniors have the option to live in these cottage houses that the school owns which looked nice.
The kids seemed relaxed and extremely happy. If Hope had anything that made me pause, it was that it was a little “Christian Summer Camp,” hard to say that’s a bad thing but it’s just not a culture that I’m super familiar with. I think Hope is at the top of my daughter’s list right now.
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We just got back from Gonzaga! It’s a lovely school that was pretty much what we were expecting. Very similar to Creighton, not as Catholic. D23 goes to a Catholic High School and Gonzaga didn’t really feel Catholic at all. Facilities were a little older and Spokane isn’t great, but the kids were nice and my daughter liked the vibe.
The nursing and engineering programs got the most attention and then maybe business. D23 is interested more in Communications and Art and I found the Arts and Sciences meeting a little too focused on social justice and careers in nonprofits. I would have liked to have heard about other internships, career paths, etc. One of the presenters was a little overboard and had 4 majors, a minor, and was graduating in 3 years. I’m not sure why they chose her to speak, it stressed me out listening to her 
We also weren’t able to see the dorms, which was a bummer because they’re still pretty strict about Covid, still wearing masks etc.
I think I’m coming off more negatively than I mean to. My daughter liked the school, it’s familiar in a PNW kind of way and filled with kids that she understands. The professors seem to really care about the kids and if you like basketball (D23 does) it has a great school sports environment. I’m sure D23 will apply.
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Thank you so much for providing all that info!!!
Thanks for all the good info. We’ll visit during spring break. I wonder if it feels similar to Saint Louis University? My D didn’t care for SLU…
University of Richmond - Moves up. Attended their preview Richmond day, I’m a big fan of the more open house type visits as it gives a chance to interact with the students and professors. Beautiful campus, strong focus on undergraduate teaching. Great opportunities for research, students seemed very happy, got to eat in the dining hall.
William and Mary - Stayed same possibly slightly down, going in thought W&M might find its way to top 5. Academically its a great fit, our tour guide was very engaging and did a great job highlighting the great things about the school. But the campus felt very flat, it was a weekend tour so we didn’t see the campus with classes in session but it still lacked any buzz. Campus itself is beautiful although parts could use some TLC (My S23 said “I love history, just not sure that I want to live in it”). Great Country Ham Sandwich from the Cheese shop!
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This cracked me up. Exactly what my D told us last year.
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Down: Yale - the phony pseudo-Gothic architecture made to look old by burning hay bales along the sides of the buildings made my son want to retch.
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Tough crowd……
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We visited Whitman twice as my kids are multi-legacy including a major donor. It was a big no all around (3 kids). Great academics. Stunning campus. In the middle of nowhere. The “town” is ultra-sleepy shut down by 9pm and seems to target the middle aged wine drinker types, not college students. The nearest fun is Seattle or Portland and it’s a LONG drive to either one with nothing in between.
We wanted to like it.
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Feel free to start a thread on the merits of a remote campus BUT let’s get back to the point of this thread now.
NC State - off the list. We visited yesterday (flew down from MA just for the day). We might have hit it on a down day - it was really cold in the morning, overcast, and the women’s BB team lost to UConn the night before - but the campus just seemed quiet and glum. My daughter said “its just all bricks”, and other buildings just seemed kind of old. Students walked alone, heads down, AirPods in. No one (except an adult who worked in residence life) asked if they could help us as we stood looking lost with map in hand. Even in the student union and the dining hall, most kids sat or ate alone and looked so serious. It was just sooo quiet - we felt conspicuous just talking to each other. Glad we went though - definitely confirmed her top choices. One step closer to a decision!
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University of Florida dropped off the list. S23 said it looked like a swamp. He was not impressed at all with the surrounding area.
University of Central Florida made it onto the applying list. S23 was impressed by the honors college, grounds and surrounding area.
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