<p>He’s following a red herring if he thinks that dorms should influence his decision. Every campus has a range of dorm accommodations. You may have seen the best (Wash U!) or the worst, or whatever was easiest to include on the tour. There’s really no consistency.</p>
<p>FWIW, my three sons have had the whole range of rooms: gorgeous freshman dorm followed by sophomore dorm that was torn down mid-year (!), great freshman room followed by sophomore room that was half the size, and freshman room that is nothing special and located next to a traffic crossing with a signal that beeps all day and all night. You never know what you’ll get.</p>
<p>For schools, have him look at Vanderbilt. It’s full of smart, athletic kids, and does give a lot of money to top students, as well as no-loan FA packages. Transportation to and from Nashville is cheap, and it’s a great city.</p>
<p>I see Alabama and Auburn at the top of your list. Are you Alabama residents?
From the list you posted those two will give you the best deal, most likely. It’s easy to make excuses but you should encourage him to learn to love them. who cares if you don’t tour a classroom? seen one seen 'em all.
Auburn has a great engineering program - both are good schools.</p>
<p>Our DD is enrolling at RPI (on a gap year right now) in Architecture, though she has considered engineering. Its a nice choice for a quirky, bright, tech oriented kid who wants a small school. It does have majors in a few liberal arts, but not really deep offerings - best for engineering, arch, science and business.</p>
<p>In addition to their regular merit aid, they have a couple of thousand $$ a year for NMF’s.</p>
<p>I did not quite understand this </p>
<p>“CaseDid not have a campus feel, freshman dorms were awful, weather was a negative, some nearby areas that probably should be avoided at night.”</p>
<p>It was one of three schools DD got into, so we checked it out even though she was leaning more to RPI and Lehigh. DD LIKED the campus feel. (I don’t recall if we even saw a dorm). Each to their own tastes though.</p>
<p>I understood the comment about Case not having a campus feel. There’s no doubt in my mind it provides a quality education, but the environs just weren’t to my D’s taste. But, they may very well to others’ tastes and that’s great.</p>
<p>Re:
</p>
<p>We had low expectations of dorms, coming from NU where honestly, I think some of them should just be razed (and H lived in a fraternity house), but the dorm we saw at Haverford was truly horrifying. It went well beyond boring cinderblock and sloppy teenage guys and it was hard not to have S’s impressions formed by it. It was a real shame – I wish I could have erased that part of it.</p>
<p>Throwing in another thought about the dorm situation. D stayed off-campus her freshman year. (I do realize some schools don’t allow that, but hers did). For a variety of reasons, we chose that option. And it’s worked out very well for her. She did realize it took more to get involved on campus, and she had to come in ready to make that effort … but living off-campus did open up a much bigger variety of housing options, and she’s been very happy. :)</p>
<p>Case wasn’t like Lehigh or Colgate, say, but then it wasn’t NYU either. I recall going to the engineering quad, and it felt very “quaddy”. The uncampus thing was I guess having Euclid cut it in half - a remnant of when Case Inst of Tech and Western Reserve Univ were seperate institutions, I guess. Somehow that didnt seem as offputting to us as the way I81 splits the campus at JMU (which we were visiting for a band trip, not a college tour.) </p>
<p>Of course Case ALSO has the negs of the surrounding parts of Cleveland (though there are some decent neighborhoods nearby as well). But then LOTS of urban schools have those issues.</p>
<p>@ OP
As others have suggested, Lafayette College, an LAC in Easton PA with around 2400 undergrads, may be a good option for you. Lafayette is one of the few LACs with an ABET accredited engineering program ( [Division</a> of Engineering: Engineering Majors](<a href=“http://engineering.lafayette.edu/majors/]Division”>http://engineering.lafayette.edu/majors/) ). They offer BS degrees in Chemical, Civil, Electrical/Computer, and Mechanical Engineering. Engineering majors make up around 30% of the student body.</p>
<p>Lafayette has a very generous merit scholarship program. Your stats would be competitive for a Marquis Scholarship. From the college’s website: “Marquis Scholars receive an annual minimum award of $20,000 ($80,000 over four years). Financial aid applicants who are designated as Marquis Scholars and whose financial need exceeds $20,000 will receive a scholarship up to demonstrated need minus a campus job ($2,000) and a loan, depending on family income (no loan for incomes under $50,000; a $3,500 loan per year for incomes between $50,000 and $100,000).” Link: [Lafayette</a> Scholarships Tuition & Aid Lafayette College](<a href=“http://finaid.lafayette.edu/financing-your-education/types-of-financial-aid/scholarships/]Lafayette”>http://finaid.lafayette.edu/financing-your-education/types-of-financial-aid/scholarships/)</p>
<p>I think the Case campus on the North side of Euclid is pretty. I like the way it sort of merges into Severance Hall, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Institute of Music. My D took bassoon lessons at CIM and behind the building, a fraternity house had a sand volleyball court set up. </p>
<p>The new dorms there are amazing, too, but I don’t think freshmen get into them. </p>
<p>The Case campus on the south side of campus looks like just a regular college, kind of average. The engineering quad is nice and green, Frisbee land. The area around University Hospitals doesn’t have much green space but most undergrads wouldn’t be there.</p>
<p>As with many other urban schools, you shouldn’t be strolling around in the neighborhoods off campus at night, even if you only go half a block from the edge of campus. </p>
<p>I really like Case. Did I mention that you can keep a bunny as a pet in your dorm room if it is ok with your roommate? Or that you can pick up a bag lunch with a swipe of your dorm cafeteria food service card if you are stuck over on the quad at lunch time? Or that washers, dryers, and shuttle buses are all tracked on line, so you can look to see when your clothes will be dry, if there is an empty dryer near by (or when one will open up), and whether you just missed a shuttle or one is just around the block? :D</p>