Still is - on the campus of the old Brooklyn Polytechnic Inst. in downtown Brooklyn/Metrotech.
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It’s a 15 min subway ride from Metrotech to NYU, and for many is a more liveable, slightly less congested place to attend school. I know a few NYU students who lived in Brooklyn because housing options were better.
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We visited Vassar College recently and had an utterly charming tour and info session, all student led. Didn’t see an admissions officer at all during the visit! Of note, Vassar is the only school we have visited recently that is still requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination and booster shots, plus masking indoors.
Vassar College–SAME (in the top three choices)
Our visit started with an info session delivered by two senior womens lacrosse athletes who were both STEM majors. They had both studied abroad, talked about how the open curriculum allowed them to take things like dance and foreign language, and spoke to the tight knit community feel within the housing system. They also highlighted research opportunities for humanities and creative arts (big draw for my kid) and detailed the supportive advising system.
After the info session we went on tour with two student guides who were active in theater groups and publications. One was a media studies major and one was an English major. Both were outgoing, charming and a little silly (in the best way).
Campus buildings are beautiful from the outside and a little scruffy in places on the inside. Students seemed quirky and creative, and my son counted 13 skateboards in use (highest tally yet on our visit tour). Students looked interesting, interested and happy.
The surrounding area is cute with a great coffee shop and a handful of restaurants.
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Finally visited Texas A&M today - Verdit is… Up. Thankfully there was no rain but just a bit too sunny.
We did two dorm tours (South Common and Hullabaloo", the admission presentation and the campus walking tour.
S24 really like their modular hall because its only two students with private bathroom. The rooms around South Common are not as new as those in Hullabaloo. The rooms in Hullabaloo have 10ft ceiling, and more like a hotel. While South Common have lower ceiling and the walls are… cinder blocks? All dorms have free laundary, learning center, game room, and community kitchens. Oh oh, Hullabaloo has a piano room!
We were told summer session already started, and we saw students walking around. But some of the dinning halls are closed(?). We gone into the food court down in MSC (Memorial Student Center), the Rev’s American grill is opened, so was the Chick Fil A and Panda Express. We picked Panda because I was so sleepy so I looked like a panda with dark rings around my eyes.
There is a Barnes & Noble in MSC as well. Of course there is a Starbuck in there so i got my coffee fix before we started to drive home.
The campus is huge! We drove over to visit the George HW Bush Presidental Library/Museum, and wandered around inside the Bush School of Govnt and Public Service. The library is a must visit. we watched a short film, then paid the entry fees and toured the museum. So much to see and read.
After the visit S24 said it has made him wanting to go into Poli Sci more.
One thing we noticed there were not that many trees. Too much concretes so it felt much hotter as concrete from buildings and the roads trap heat.
Forgot to mention our tour guide was ok. The 90 minutes tour didn’t really felt that long and we wished we could visit more places, but many of the schools are located in the West side and pretty spaced out between each buildings, that would be a really long walk for most people.
S24 tried to go see the Aggie Ring Statue, but we drove passed it lol. Next time!
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D24 and I had previously seen (details listed somewhere above):
Lehigh (up), American (up, campus feels like a bubble in a nice residential area), Elon (up, gorgeous campus happy kids, fantastic marketing and by far the best tour), Santa Clara (up, pristine and happy. Its like a movie set).
Didn’t vibe with UW (too big), Villanova (felt generally unwanted, and culture too cutthroat), UVM (sadly didn’t seem well kept, and overcrowded. I wanted to love it), GW (too urban) or Bucknell (too remote).
Visited univ Denver last week (up). Campus footprint felt bigger than expected, lots of green space. Not much car traffic on campus which we liked. Very well kept. Decent tour, happy kids. Flexibility in curriculum due to quarter system. Big emphasis on outdoors and wellness. Huge study abroad emphasis. Some gorgeous new buildings - Dimond dorm and the big food hall were really impressive. Quiet even though it’s only ten or so minutes via light rail from busier parts of the city. Strip of cute places to eat within a block of campus. No need for a car. Seems to be a hidden gem that deserves better national recognition
As you can tell my kid seems to gravitate to the cocoon-like, pretty, green, private school campuses with 5000-8000 or so undergrads.
Have Syracuse planned this summer, then hopefully we are done. Fingers crossed…at this point I’ve burned through a lot of frequent flier miles!
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Thanks for the info about DU, not often seen here. We are visiting DU (and CU Boulder and Colorado College) in a couple weeks, looking forward to them all, we are from the PNW too.
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Dm me if you want details!
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Love reading about your tour of Denver. My S24 also likes the type of schools you describe (Wake Forest has been his favorite tour) and Denver is one we are interested in but haven’t toured so your insight is very helpful!
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Dm if I can help!
Should also add about DU -politics on campus lean liberal, and they are definitely environmentally aware (as you’d expect from an outdoorsy population) but overall the kids didn’t feel quite as politically engaged as, say, UVM. Seems like more of a live and let live, ski a lot, get outside, be healthy mindset
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It came down to Syracuse and Lehigh for my daughter. Both are amazingly beautiful schools with awesome school spirit, sports, opportunities. She ultimately chose Syracuse because 1) they gave her a ridiculously good scholarship and 2) they have forensic science and Lehigh does not, which is her chosen major. You cannot go wrong with either school. My husband is a Lehigh grad and absolutely LOVED his time there. Amazing alumni network. You will love Syracuse. We are so excited my daughter will be there this fall.
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Great to hear! Lehigh has become a tough admit but we are hopeful. Best of luck to yours!
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My D23 is headed to Elon this fall, and we plan to visit U Denver over March break next year with S25. I have heard great things! My kids also want the 5-10K student body, and enclosed pretty campus. S25 loves to ski/snowboard and wants to be outside as much as possible, so I am thinking this could be a good fit!
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@CA2MA You may also want to schedule a trip to UC Boulder. Absolutely stunning views and a lively campus. I know a larger student body, but we also did the Denver/Boulder tours. You may want to visit both schools for comparison.
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Today we visited Connecticut College, and it STAYED THE SAME–on the list, but not near the top. I think it could have moved up substantially, had the tour guide been better and campus been full of students. We will likely revisit come Fall.
(Kid is a rising senior, artsy, humanities focused, likes small LAC vibes with open curriculum, strong advising programs, good food, rock-climbing and outdoors opportunities.)
Connecticut College has so much going for it on paper that matches my kid’s desired criteria. Unfortunately, our tour guide today did not do a great job highlighting even the most basic facts about the curriculum, advising structure and club options. Further, she was terrified of insects and stopped the tour every time a whizzing bug came within a few feet of her person. It was…distracting to say the least!
Pros–campus is very pretty, with lots of traditional gray stone buildings and expansive green spaces. There is a huge arboretum on campus that has a cabin students can “sign out” in order to camp in . There is a TON of construction going on right now, mostly upgrades to dorms and dorm bathrooms. Students get a LOT of support and a lot of curricular freedom to explore interests. In addition to majors/minors, students can follow an established interdisciplinary “pathway” that allows them to explore a topic or theme (like food, or creativity) as it relates to diverse disciplines. There is also the option to join an institute (the college’s version of an Honors College) that provides opportunities to do research, write a capstone and be involved in community work in a specific area of interdisciplinary study (ex: environment and sustainability, or gender and sexuality).
Cons: The biggest con was the tour itself, which was underwhelming
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We just returned from a 2 night/3 day trip to Colorado to tour 3 colleges with D24. She has been thinking small LACs are the best fit for her, but isn’t 100% sure, so wanted to check out small, medium, and large sized options, with focus on almost-sure admits but threw in a reach as well.
University of Denver - UP
We knew almost nothing about this school but arrived in Denver Monday afternoon so signed up for an info session and tour to use our time in Denver efficiently. Flight delay made us miss the info session, but we managed to make it to the tour. We loved the guide, a smart, funny and very involved senior from SoCal. Campus is nice-looking, enclosed yet in the city (not right downtown but near light rail which can get you downtown in 15 minutes). Lots of good things about the school including nicer dorms, LLCs, athletic facilities and robust alpine club/outdoor opportunities, lots of majors and easy to change majors while exploring (important to D24). We were pleasantly surprised, lots to like here, and she’s added to her list of safeties, likes that she’d get merit aid, might apply. Would need to be there when students are there to determine vibe to know more.
Colorado College -UP
By far the favorite on this trip and maybe overall of any place we’ve visited. She kind of fell in love with CC’s beautiful campus and unique block plan and can really see herself here. Expensive, so expensive. We would get no aid here and of course there’s no merit aid as a highly sought after LAC with a great reputation, unique location and academic niche. A high reach due to extremely low admit rates, but according to SCOIR, kids from her school with her stats have been admitted in years past (although tougher admit in recent years, like most highly selective schools). Might apply EA, doesn’t want to commit to ED for now, but who knows, things may change.
CU Boulder - DOWN
Beautiful campus, fun place, incredible recreational athletic facility and lots to choose from academically. This place feels like a private school, facilities are new, nice and spotless (we joked that the high OOS tuition helped run the school). I can see it being a great fit for some kids, but felt a little big, and maybe impersonal to D24. She is currently undecided in major, but program in Exploratory Studies felt a little non-rigorous to her, and vibe a little “bro-culture,” but we probably shouldn’t judge since not many students were around. I think the party-school reputation, even though perhaps no longer accurate, is not to her liking. I think overall a fine place, but not necessarily better than other options she has that might be a better fit, especially since she’s thinking she prefers small (which became more clear after this visit).
On a side note, air travel is insane this summer. We all dislike it so much that it might sway her to focus primarily on schools within driving distance of home. But it was fun to be in Denver when the Nuggets won the NBA championship, that is sure a city that loves their pro sports teams! 
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S23 will be attending Colorado State. DIA is one of those airports were PRe-check saves a lot of time and hassle. Both CSU and CU have good shuttle service to campus, not sure about CC.
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Thanks, I’ve heard good things about CSU but we ran out of time to visit, might investigate online. We had no problem at DIA (we have TSA pre check and it was smooth sailing at security) except for hectic gate situation. We fly out of SEA and it’s chaos every single time, sometimes even with pre-check. Not sure why. Good to know about shuttles, too, thanks.
We are on our way home from a fabulous 8 day trip to South Dakota. What a beautiful state! We also just completed S25’s first college visit to South Dakota School of Mines & Technology. I had zero expectations going in as there was no way in my mind I was going to encourage my son to go to schools 17 hours away from home. My husband organized the visit because his company hires engineers out of the school. Well, we were all blown away. The chair of the metallurgical engineering department spent a solid two hours with our family. He showed my son all of the cutting edge equipment they use, allowed my son to do some experiments with him, and introduced us to a number of faculty members. They also shared outcomes of their graduates and some of the top firms that compete to hire interns and grads from SDSMT. We were all so impressed and my son said the school is definitely on his list. It doesn’t hurt that their OOS tuition is ridiculously low and S25 would qualify for good merit aid based on his grades/PSAT that he has so far. The experience reinforced how important fit will be for my son. Glad we have a potential school on the list that I think would be a great option for his quirky personality and could lead to great career options for him. I just wanted to add this review, since SDSMT isn’t one that I’ve seen mentioned here before.
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D24 said today that Univ of New Mexico is low on the priority list now “because the general area around campus is really dark at night and kind of scary.”