This is a great thread. Thought I’d toss in our experience so far. Note that our D is now a junior and still in the wishful thinking phase (i.e. looking at extreme reaches), so we mainly use these opportunities to see different areas of the country. We’ve had a good time and usually fold in a concert or two while on the trips.
Northwestern - Way up. Toured in July while in Chicago for Lollapalooza. Loved it. Her current favorite. Of course, a tour during actual school time (winter) would probably move this way down the list. It has to be brutal for southerners like us. NW’s a far reach.
UChicago - Stayed the same. Went there while in Chicago. Really liked the people she talked to. Bad surrounding area. UChicago is an extreme reach.
Georgia Tech - Surprisingly up. Liked the island-in-an-urban-setting campus. This is one of our big in-state schools and a far reach.
NYU - Up. Loved it even though they visited last Thanksgiving and it was a little chilly. D thinks she wants to be in a big city. NYU is a target school for D.
Hopefully, we’ll start to visit more target schools. We plan on going to LA to see UCLA, USC, and some smaller colleges in that area. We drove around them in summer 2015 but didn’t officially tour them (we also drove up to SF to see the Stanford/UCB areas as well). D flip flops around on what she’d like to major in but I think is beginning to settle in on a BS in some field as opposed to a BA.
Recently completed a PNW swing with D2 who is a rising junior.
Moved up:
Whitman- she loved her visit. It is tough trying to gauge schools in the summer without students on campus but somehow they were able to convey (via tour and info session) a strong sense of what the community is like. Very close knit campus, authentic and intellectually curious students. Open, warm, friendly vibe. The location did not deter her though it is a bit remote as the larger region itself is remote. Walla Walla is a nice (large) town but it is a bit of a drive to get to the mountains let alone a big city. This is not a deal breaker for her though.
Lewis and Clark- she loved the campus and the location. Liked how it is in a suburban/residential area but has easy access to Portland. Though located in a metro region it didn’t feel like she was in a city. Neither of us got a strong sense for what community is like so will have to visit again when students are on campus. But for sure it will stay in the mix, she enjoyed her visit, liked the school a lot.
Puget Sound- she liked UPS. The campus is very impressive and the facilities are gorgeous. Strong academics in her areas of interest. If it stays on her list she’ll definitely visit again with students on campus.
Stayed the same:
Willamette: had a good visit. She liked the school, but the location was not great for her. She would like a little more outdoorsy vibe, a school with a location a bit easier to access the back country. But in general did like the school, and its emphasis on community engagement. Pretty campus, we were impressed with the facilities.
Moved down:
UW- waaaay too big for her. Didn’t like the bustle of the city. She was definitely drawn to the quieter LACs.
Next up- will visit Colorado College, Claremonts, Chapman, Redlands this fall.
I haven’t seen Rhodes College mentioned in this thread yet. It moved WAY UP the list after a visit last week. D and I loved so much about it. Campus, Curriculum, the city, the people - the Q&As and tour was one of the best we have every attended. She is still uncertain about the size (2000 might be too small) but I think it is a perfect fit for her.
@HarvestMoon1 - Oops - I meant to post a link, but I guess I had forgotten to do so. The quotes came from the actual 2015 UC Audit Report, but there were a ton of articles about it in the LA Times, the Sacramento Bee, etc., etc. :
We just did a tour of upstate NY last week. It went like this:
Hamilton: Moved up on the list. D really liked the campus and the students/faculty who toured us around and answered questions. Had her first interview there, and it seemed to go well, from her perspective. We liked the town and surrounding area too.
RIT: Crossed off the list. What a disappointment-- D had been so interested in their programs. Should have just done a drive-by. Big parking lots, lots of concrete and red brick, very little green space. Resembled a huge industrial office park. The tour was uninspiring… guide was a rising sophomore and not very knowledgeable about the school’s facilities. The AO who ran the info session mentioned that his prior career was in sales, and it showed. It was like sitting through a rapid-fire nonstop infomercial for an hour. He didn’t mention WHY they also have 2 campuses in Croatia, but we did wonder about that!
URochester: Liked it very much, but it didn’t really move on her list. Pretty campus, mix of old and new buildings, nice dorms, was a fairly large group and so we did not see the facilities too closely. D liked the lack of gen ed requirements. Lots to do in the surrounding area and the school and city seem to have easy ways to get around via bus and shuttle. Liked the tunnels connecting the major buildings. Lots of admissions staff around to answer questions and just talk with.
Hobart/Wm Smith: moved up. D loved everything about it – the campus, the architecture, the faculty/student panels we attended, really nice dorms, the study abroad programs. She connected well with her interviewer. Gorgeous location on a beautiful lake.
We also made a side trip to Niagara Falls. That was fun. : )
Ohio State: Stayed about the same. Very nice, sort of typical B1G campus, in case you’ve seen others. A little more on the compact side than an MSU, and similarly sized, but more self-contained than a UMich (not integrated into the city). Lots of pretty red brick buildings. Pretty poor information session, including a lukewarm speech by the university president. Opted to self-tour. Great little retail strip right near the Union, including a music venue and various eateries (can you say Waffle House?). Very walkable campus. Great access to the capital city for internships and whatnot. Free parking, free pen.
Pitt: Moved into contention. Did a great job with an open house despite a downpour. They must enlist 75+ students as Pitt Path Finders, or school ambassadors, to help get you where you want to go, and answer questions. They had a great info session to start the day. Our tour guide was great. The city is beautiful (IMO). The campus is broken up by several busy streets, which could be a big turnoff to some, but D likes the more urban campuses. Lots of school spirit. Free public transport. $25 season tickets for football. Schenley Park is a nice large green space (500 acres?) right off campus, kind of between Pitt and CMU. Free parking, free lunch, and free t-shirt, free pen.
@2muchquan , your posts always make me smile. A free pen! Who’da thunk it! I loved all the free goodies, some of which were more useful than others. The most generous was University of Rochester, which also gave us free lunch, tshirts, PENS, and super useful notepads, which I still use all the time.
Like @cameo43 , we think U Rochester is a great school. It actually moved into contention as a finalist after D returned for an accepted student visit. My D also loved the tunnel walkways and how they were basically utitlized as free form art canvases. Lots of very friendly staff and a charming professor who gave me a personal escort to help me find my kid. Rochester itself has a lot going on and has a good art scene, music, restaurants, and so on. Wonderful school, even though my D chose elsewhere.
This is slightly off topic, but what I have noticed this summer having just visited 5 schools in 3 days is how seldom schools offer any type of refreshments to prospective students and parents who visit the information sessions. We had a very good experience last summer when U Richmond had good quality coffee and pastries on hand which was much appreciated as we had to leave DC at 6:30 am to get down there in time for the morning info session.
This summer however we had to endure 2 hour+ drives in 90 degree weather to get from a morning session at one school to an afternoon session at the other school. In each case there were no refreshments or even water on offer. In fact at one of the schools my son had an interview after the info session and tour. As we had another 2 hour drive after the interview, I really needed a coffee to wake up after two tours that day. I asked somebody in the admissions office where I could purchase a coffee on campus (as no free refreshments had been offered). As the Starbucks was closed for the summer, I was advised to drive off campus to a nearby mall. I decided to just stop on the way to the next town after the interview ended and get a coffee then.
In summary, maybe I am a bit spoiled and I know that coffee and other drinks cost money, but I was raised to always offer my guests a drink. Also, in very hot weather I would rather have a bottle of water or a soft drink rather than a free pen and a glossy magazine that does not contain any information that one cannot get from the website.
That is odd, @londondad , because I can’t recall a single college where you couldn’t get your own hot drink from the dispenser that can usually be found just near the waiting area of every admissions office. Sometimes I would have to walk around and look for it, as it was often off the side, around a corner, or a short way down a hall. And water is always available. But I agree that it leaves a bad impression if you aren’t able to get the simplest of drinks at an AO.
Water bottles are, of course, everywhere. The most interesting was Alabama, which had more custom water bottle labels (here’s one branded University of Alabama! here’s one branded Honors College! here’s one branded Residence Life! and so on) than one could really imagine. To give this an on-topic ending, my oldest goes back and forth on whether the incessant branding there felt positive or negative to her.
Out of 5 college visits in hot, early August, only 2 provided water bottles. In the others, you had to search out the water fountains which were often difficult to locate. The one that bothered me was my son’s interview. There were at least 5 other parents who were waiting alongside me while the kids had their one hour interviews. If they could not arrange for a pot of coffee they at least could have offered us some water.
I always stop and get my coffee on the way to the info session. I have been to so many I need it to get through them at this point.
Last week I was with my S on the way to yet another school. We were about a 1 or 2 miles from the campus in what I thought was a sketchy part of town, but not overly alarming to me. I pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store to grab coffee and my S said “Mom, you aren’t seriously going to get out of the car are you?” I knew that school was coming off the list.
St. Olaf wins on the food/drink front of all the LACs we visited. Tons of snacks and drinks including one of those glass front coolers with a range of cold beverages and and one of those glass topped freezers stocked with different ice cream treats. Just a small part of the warm hospitality shown to visitors at the school. And we had one of the best, most intelligent, and articulate tour guides there.
For our college road trips, we did make it a habit of bringing a cooler stocked with water, other drinks and healthy snacks. It saved a lot of time as we were trying to squeeze in a lot and it was better to do tours without a hangry teenager.
We had a school fall off of the list before it ever had a chance to make the list-we were at a family party a few weeks ago and D17’s 2 uncles both have advanced degrees from George Washington U. They were asking D about her list of colleges, and then went on to regale her with the most heinous horror stories about their experiences at GW, then asked her why GW wasn’t on the list.
She shot me the most hilarious side-eye expression of “aw hell no” when the uncles said “you should get her to apply there, it’s an awesome school”. B-)
To stay tight on topic, Northeastern moved way up her list when she visited this summer. Mother Nature ordered some seriously good weather for late July in Boston that week. Olin also moved up the list despite Needham being “full of old people” lol.
So far no visits have caused a school to drop off the list, but it’s mostly because those schools drop off before she visits.
ETA: I take that back. She’s visited our in-state flagship UGA several times for robotics tournaments and has crossed all in-state schools off the list. Part of this is a desire to leave the south (we’re yankee transplants even though she was born here), and part of it is a desire not to go to college with the kids she went to high school with. (I should add a disclaimer that I love the state of Georgia).
