D23 and I felt exactly the same about both campuses (toured both this summer). She ended up crossing Lehigh off the list, and kept Lafayette. I will be surprised if D23 ends up there because of how small the school is, but we both liked it very much.
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Lehigh - we share every single one of your concerns about the school and the area. It remains on her list but has fallen a bit. We also drove by Muhlenberg - nice little campus, not a huge school. Some kids can find their people there.
We were campused-out by the time we considered driving by Lafayette. Although we heard nice things from people about the school & especially the small (but strong) network, we just drove home.
Re disliking Bethlehem, I’m thinking you might have only seen south Bethlehem, which is the grittier working-class neighborhood where Lehigh is. If you google “historic Bethlehem PA” and go to images, you’ll see a completely different small city, on the other side of the Lehigh River, with gorgeous mansions and brick sidewalks and a great shopping district. Settled by Moravians; lots of original structures and traditions there.
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We visited UT (Austin) a little while ago. My kids are already familiar with UT from sports camps etc, but this was our first tour and info session.
The tour seemed disjointed. I don’t know if it is just because UT is so big, but it felt like we just saw random buildings without much context. We’d walk in one building and pop out somewhere else, so it was hard to get an overview of the campus. It seemed like people who had never been there before would not have gotten a great sense of campus.
Again, we were all familiar with UT, and the kids left the tour saying they liked it, but I thought the tour did not do a good job of presenting the school. It is a great school for the right student, but it is a huge (population and area) urban campus. We did get to see a sample dorm room.
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I’ve observed two different “styles” schools have for giving tours. One is an entirely student-led tour of the campus, answering questions along the way. The other combines this with an info session led by an admissions officer (plus students) during which we are shown power points, pictures of dorms, given facts and figures, and the admissions process is discussed. I definitely prefer the latter. When families often travel a long way to see schools, it’s nice when they give more information and make it worth the while.
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Last fall we visited Northeastern and BU on the same day. Northeastern’s tour and info session focused on all the great things about being a student at Northeastern. BU’s spent the whole time telling us what they looked for in an applicant and the very high bar they set for admission. Northeastern moved way up. BU was crossed off.
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I don’t know why more schools don’t realize this. Families - including prospective students - want that info session. It made a big difference for us when my D was looking.
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Every school should have a good hype video to start off the info session. Catch the kids’ interest early.
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Every school we toured allowed you to sign up for a tour and an info session. There was redundancy, but if we attended both, the high points were all hit.
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We didn’t love our Tufts tour, but, to their credit, the school led off the day with a 20-25 min info session, led by a high-energy admissions officer.
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We used a free Saturday to tour a nearby urban campus with our HS junior, as part of his exploratory approach to building his list: Clark University. Previously we visited Bard and Marist (those reviews are upthread).
Clark was appealing because of its small class size, strength in social sciences and arts, and proximity to snowboarding/outdoor adventure. It is located in Worcester, MA which has a reputation for being a bit on the gritty side, but which we were pleasantly surprised by. The strip of markets and restaurants right off campus (Main St) is replete with global cuisine reflective of the different immigrant communities who make the Woo home. This was a big plus for my foodie kid. There are art galleries, a minor league baseball stadium, museums and other cultural attractions.
The visit started with an info session that highlighted the unique aspects of the curriculum: First Year Intensive courses, Program of liberal Studies (where students must fulfill distribution requirements across 9 areas of Critical Thinking and Perspective Courses: Verbal Expression, Formal Analysis, Aesthetic, Language and Culture, Diversity and Inclusion, Natural Scientific, Global Comparative, Values, Historical), and Problems of Practice Courses (these courses get students out into the community putting theoretical content knowledge into practice). They also talked about the 5th year tuition-free master’s programs which are very appealing!
After the info session we went on a tour led by a sophomore history major. She was a little on the quiet side, but clearly loved her experiences at Clark and spoke enthusiastically about the classroom culture and her professors. Campus has a nice big green space, and a mixture of traditional New England brick old-timey buildings and some more modern architecture. A new building to house the Center for Media Arts, Computing and Design is underway with an anticipated completion of Fall 2023.
The first-year dorm building we visited was standard cement block with long flavorless hallways separated by gender identity. There is a dorm for female and non-binary identifying students, and a few mixed class year dorms as well. Some juniors and seniors choose to live off-campus in apartments. Housing is not guaranteed for all four years but students who want to remain on campus usually have an easy time doing so.
The dining hall is big and open, with a bit of an industrial feel. The tour guide said food was fresh and plentiful, if not always amazingly delicious. There are two coffee shops on campus, and a pub-style performance space.
There is no greek life at Clark, so clubs make up a lot of the social scene. With over 130 clubs there are options for every interest. My son liked the idea of the outdoor adventure club which goes hiking, climbing, skiing/snowboarding, as well as works at local farms. There are intramural sports as well as club level sports that play other colleges/universities. D3 Varsity teams compete in the NEWMAC conference, and the athletic center houses an indoor pool as well as fitness center and indoor courts and track.
My son liked that almost every building on campus seemed climable (he is a rock-climber and views the world…differently), and that campus also seemed very skate-able. He noted that all the students we met were friendly and had “good shoes” (Vans, Converse, Docs being the majority of brands on display).
My impression of Clark students was that they are smart, engaged in the community, skew liberal, and are more on the quirky than preppy side. Compared to our other campus visits Clark did not seems as heady and intellectual as Bard but was also not as “pre-professional program” focused as Marist. It was a nice middle ground for students who want to think deeply about things but who also value the opportunity to be out in the field practicing what they learn.
Based on our visit Clark earned a spot on my son’s list and opened his eyes to the value of an urban campus.
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I did the same combo and we did like Northeastern better, but BU’s presentation and details on what they were looking for I found very helpful. I wish more presentations went into that detail!
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I thought my DD would love these schools but they moved down or off the list after our visit. These are all great schools but this was her take…
William & Mary - She said it smelled (?) and reminded her of “an old Disney cruise” (We haven’t been on a Disney cruise in over 12 years so I’m not sure what she is referencing mentally).
Elon - She said it architecturally looked like a southern school but the student body and tour guide gave her a northeastern vibe. Also, the tour guide at one point during our tour said…“all students at some point in their freshman year get overwhelmed and end up in a ball in their room crying and contemplating ending their life”…freaked my daughter out.
Vandy - She said it gave her “creepy vampire horror movie vibes”. Pretty sure it was the Spanish moss but she said it was more than the moss.
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Yikes! That tour guide should have been reported.
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Visited Syracuse University with our D23 4 weeks ago. It wasn’t really on her radar, but she wants to study forensic science, and they have the Forensic and National Security Science Institute, so she wanted to visit (we live about 2.5 hours away and I am an alum of the College of Law).
SHE LOVED IT! It has moved way up on her list. Even though I spent 3 years there, I never really explored campus much outside of the law school. Campus is absolutely stunning. Students seemed extremely outgoing and happy, and it helped that it was game day so campus was hopping. The new forensic science building where she’d take most classes was incredible. She has an interview in a few weeks and I do think she will get in (4.0 unweighted, 1530 SAT).
Really hoping for some merit, as its price tag is ridiculous. But her other choices are as well - we will make it work. Just want her to be happy!
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I won’t say we completely crossed Michigan State off of our list, but it definitely moved down after the admitted students tour. Guide rushed us through everything and basically admitted the only reason she was attending was because she was going for free. Didn’t offer a lot of information other than ticket info for athletics and the library… very lackluster.
On the flip side Indiana University moved way up after campus tour there despite the unseasonably cold weather and snow. Went very in depth on programs, activities, student support. Offered a plethora of information without being overwhelmed. Campus is incredibly beautiful and everyone we ran into was very kind. We’ve been on 5-6 campus tours and this was easily the most organized/informative other than a full day open house we attended at another school.
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Is there actually Spanish moss at Vanderbilt? That would be out of its natural range. Plant nerd here. It’s usually more coastal and further south. We don’t have it in my part of NC, but there is some at the coast.
There was tons of Spanish Moss in Savannah when we went to visit SCAD. Savannah was gorgeous. SCAD wasn’t what my kids were looking for but I was impressed by it in a weird way. SCAD is super focused on getting their kids jobs in the arts after school. I guess with that price tag they want to appeal to parents who are wondering what their kid is going to do with an art degree. Chopped up campus with buildings all over the city, but very nice facilities and impressive. I felt like if you went there you were going to learn a lot and work really hard. Didn’t seem like there was going to be a lot of room for exploration so you should know your path going in. My kids wrote it off pretty quickly, but my D22 has a friend there now who seems to like it.
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WUT
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Hmm. I will have to relook at my photos. Maybe not. I enjoyed the info session and walk and I thought my daughter was as well. We usually don’t discuss our thoughts of the tours while on the tour and wait till we are off campus. So, when I was trying to figure out why she got the impression I thought maybe Spanish moss gave her that impression but she did say it wasn’t Spanish moss it was something else.
That’s interesting about SCAD because I wanted to visit but we weren’t able to make the trip. And, I know my DD likes a campus feel. We have a friend whose daughter is at SCAD and she has been selling her art since her freshman year so SCAD must be doing well on preparing students.
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Please move on from Spanish moss! Thank you!
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