<p>Sometimes it the Information Session that is a turn-off, not the tour:</p>
<p>Georgetown: D1 decided not to apply after sitting through a session where they made it sound like you were lucky to even consider going to this school. (how many we reject, no merit aid,etc) Well, excuuuuuse us!</p>
<p>"Georgetown: D1 decided not to apply after sitting through a session where they made it sound like you were lucky to even consider going to this school. (how many we reject, no merit aid,etc) Well, excuuuuuse us!"</p>
<p>Yes, we got the same impression at Duke. The thing is, we didn't get that at Princeton, Penn, or Yale. While the very highly-sought schools should let prospectives know their chances, it can be done in a manner that does not drip with such arrogant indifference.</p>
<p>--K9Leader</p>
<p>BU: I thought I wouldn't like it too much because of its location: along the busiest street in Boston. When I visited, I liked it.</p>
<p>I visited Columbia and it wasn't right for me.</p>
<p>First, the informational session I attended only had two families...including mine.</p>
<p>The speaker was very polite, but statements such as "we have an air of intelligence here" (regarding the political and "scholarly" conversations that students typically engage in) really were a turn-off. Also, the school is very liberal arts, in my opinion, because there is a strong base curriculum for all students, no matter what subject field they go into (probably great for undecided students, but I know exactly what subject area I want to major in)</p>
<p>Don't get me wrong, the campus is beautiful. But the people seemed very to themselves. And to illustrate this, one of the major dorm buildings was singles (again, maybe great for some people, not for me).</p>
<p>The opposite is true for NYU...I thought I would dislike it. I visited it in the same day, and I thought that being in the city, I would want more of a campus feel. However, I really loved it! Everyone seemed friendly, and despite the integration of the university into NYC, there still was a sense of community. I'm still undecided on what my overall top-choice is, but NYU went from the bottom of my list to the top.</p>
<p>If you're unsure about either of these two universities, I think it would be very wise to visit them; at least for me, my views totally changed!</p>
<p>Definitely! </p>
<p>I was convinced that Carleton would be the perfect place for me. Alas, I like campuses where people smile. and chat. and have FUN. I've heard from others that my visit day was unusually horrible, but I've never met so many downtrodden people anywhere.</p>
<p>And, I went to go visit the little, unknown campus of St. Olaf College down the street because I cut short my visit to Carleton and fell in love! I'm not christian, or athletic, or extremely musical, but it was MY place.</p>
<p>I also visited Macalester that visit, and I have never met anyone who was so blatently rude to me. I spent overnights at 6 + colleges, and every other host was gracious and tried to make me comfortable. Not so here...</p>
<p>Georgetown - really preppy, a lot of boarding school people (one girl didn't even get into USC but got in here...how does that make any sense? east coast connections, i guess), small campus, bad campus food, awesome local atmosphere</p>
<p>Northwestern - perfect location (suburban, adjacent to a lake), VERY heterogeneous student body, not much community, nice facilities, large campus, great local atmosphere</p>
<p>Notre Dame - worst location imaginable for a college, yet most beautiful campus i have ever seen, strong sense of community, the advisors i talked to made me feel like they really care about individual students and will do everything possible to enable each and every student's success, also BEST facilities of any school.</p>
<p>before I visited:
1. Northwestern
2. Georgetown
3. ND</p>
<p>after I visited:
1. ND
2. Northwestern
3. Georgetown</p>
<p>D disliked Brown and Penn. One wasn't urban enough. The other was too urban. Go figure.</p>
<p>Also, both Ds visited Emory and disliked it. They said they wouldn't mind having a medical center on their campus, but they didn't want a campus IN a medical center.</p>
<p>Before my daughter visited:
1. Macalester
2. Carleton.</p>
<p>After her visit:
1. Carleton
2. Macalester</p>
<p>Schools I Visited:</p>
<p>Notre Dame: It sounded perfect on paper for me (big on athletics, near but not in Michigan, great academics), but the campus was too suburban for me. Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful, but I wanted a more crowded urban feeling in a campus.</p>
<p>University of Chicago: I heard plenty of rumors about how nerdy it was, but I had to check it out for myself. Everyone was right... WAY too nerdy. It was a Friday tour and the only things to do later that night were watch indie films and whatnot. NOT for me.</p>
<p>Northwestern: For whatever reason, I didn't think I would like it all too much. It sounded like a match on paper, but I had doubts. Even though it had a pretty suburban campus feel, I still liked it alot. It's proximity to the city and the diversity of the students helped pull it to my #2 choice.</p>
<p>DePaul: There was always something I really liked about DePaul. But when I went there I fell in love with that school. The overcrowded feeling that someone complained about (around post 5-15ish) was exactly what I was looking for. Although the academics are not as high as the others, the location, majors (planning on Actuarial Science concentration with business-related double major), athletics (Womens' Track & Field possibility), and merit scholarship opportunities more than make up for any pitfalls. Sounds like I will be a Blue Devil come Fall 2009!</p>
<p>I visited Virginia Tech after I accepted! and I still changed my mind.</p>
<p>Visits by D (so far):</p>
<p>Brown ++. Loved everything about it, "just urban enough," impressed her as intellectual but low-key, open curriculum a big plus, lively college town feel.</p>
<p>Michigan +. One of the all-time great college towns and the library's open until 4 a.m. (D's a night-owl). Funny & sharp-witted tour guide also a plus. But D's skeptical because it's both Mom & Dad's alma mater.</p>
<p>Wellesley +/-. Beautiful campus & access to Boston, but suburban location is a negative. </p>
<p>Columbia +. NYC, need I say more? But some concerns the city would be too distracting.</p>
<p>Barnard -. Odd, since it's located just across the street, but it felt under-resourced, like a poor cousin piggybacking off Columbia. Still on the list, though.</p>
<p>Smith -. Beautiful campus designed by Frederick Law Olmstead (think Central Park) and Northampton's a lively little college town but D was turned off by Smith's vaunted residential house system which as described by her tour guide sounded like a bunch of college-sponsored sororities. Further digging on the web turned up a college document discussing this very problem: while most Smith women like the house system, a minority who for whatever reason don't thrive in the sorority-like atmosphere of the houses become social outcasts & absolutely hate it. Bingo, D's radar had picked up a potentially serious problem that would have been hard to spot without a visit. She doesn't have a hard time fitting in to groups but the forced bonhomie of a sorority or anything like one is not her cup of tea.</p>
<p>Williams -. Gorgeous campus but to D it felt a million miles from everywhere and not much of a college town feel.</p>
<p>This is all highly subjective and so far seems to lead to more negative judgments than positive ones, but maybe that's not so bad. College will be both work & home for 4 years, so you might as well make it a place that really excites you.</p>
<p>i instantaneously changed my mind about applying to haverford when we pulled up to it (it had originally been in my top five). it felt too manicured and preppy...and then the bland information session and constant discussion of the honor code sealed the deal.</p>
<p>also, bclintonk: i have three friends at smith and they all have the same feelings towards the housing system; they really hate it. i like smith as a school and really preferred their art history program to anywhere else i looked, so i did apply there, but frankly am glad i was accepted other places because the housing system makes me feel like i'd be uncomfortable there.</p>
<p>I had the opportunity to stay in a dorm with a friend at one potential school (that I won't mention) and I realized I completely hated it. It really wasn't for me. If you can actually stay overnight with a real student, you really get a good view of the school.</p>
<p>letmeinnow - can you share more about your visit? What is it that made you hate it so much? Quality of the dorms? Type of people?</p>
<p>College visits are essential if you ask me. As far as I am concerned, fit is unquestionably the most important criterion in selecting a college. I visited over 20 campuses and narrowed my list to just 11. One of my top choices did not make the cut, and one of the schools I was not really concidering became my first choice.</p>
<p>after all my visits, my first choice remained my first choice (and now i'm headed there in the fall! yay!). but my other choices got shifted around on my preference list quite a bit. i agree that campus visits are imperative.</p>
<p>
[quote]
D disliked Brown and Penn. One wasn't urban enough. The other was too urban. Go figure.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Oy vey. What on earth could be between them?</p>
<p>We had heard so many horror stories about the Milwaukee and the neighborhoods around Marquette -- I was ready to forbid D from going. We were more more pleasantly surprised -- campus is very nice, security programs are very good. A very nice school.</p>
<p>Last April my second D and I took a roadtrip during spring break to see some schools and sights on the east coast. We stopped at ND and spent a day in DC before going upstream to Swarthmore, P, NYC and Columbia, Brown and Amherst. We were accompanied by a Brazilian foreign exchange student who lived with us at the time, an addition that proved to be wonderful, since her appreciation of everywhere we went, including the cities, added so much to our trip. It seems like a lot of ground to cover, but we did it in a week and did not feel too hurried. We did not go to all the information sessions, since my D had educated herself pretty well on the hard facts before we left. She applied ED to Columbia and was accepted, so she did not submit applications to other schools on her radar. She was not committed to attending and "elite" school and certainly had a number of other, less reachy schools on her list. Brown was at the top of her list when we began. </p>
<p>I think getting an on-site impression was good for her, even if only meant that her choice was made as a result of both good research and her own personal experience. There are so many schools, public and private, that are good for our children that I think it means something when they start in the fall at a school they believed in, even if part of the basis was a single visit.</p>
<p>on my visits...</p>
<p>I expected to hate GWU and fell in love with it
I came to love Georgetown even more than before (if that's even possible)
I expected to love Duke and absolutely hated it, and
I really didn't like William and Mary.</p>
<p>(The biggest thing I learned on my trip was that I really want to go to an urban school, and neither Duke nor W&M is that. I visited those four, plus UPenn, UVA, Johns Hopkins and Brown.)</p>