<p>In response to driving in the “pretty” entrance …at one school we toured last spring we missed the turn at the main entrance so we drove around a little and went in a back way which was…a cemetary. Not a small plot like at UNC-CH , but a pretty large one. I thought it was kind of funny.</p>
<p>Also, the school that my d loved most before the trip went off the list after the trip. Another she didn’t even want to consider, but was on our way so we stopped, is now on. Glad we made the trip!!</p>
<p>Hopkins is lovely, but it requires coming in from the north end of Baltimore (Charles /St. Paul Street, if you’re interested) to get a good impression.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how the school handles the approach from the south.</p>
<p>Ah, the “pretty” entrance. Junior year I took D1 on the California road trip, while my husband did the fly and public transportation east coast swing. With me we stayed in middle of the road hotels. On the east coast my husband went for four to five star accomodations. No surprise she came home leaning toward the east coast.</p>
<p>When it came time to actually sign up for schools she was accepted at my daughter narrowed it down to two, NYU and UCLA. My husband was sick, and couldn’t travel. Daughter and I were heading off to New York by ourselves. I had been to NY exactly once, for three days. That time we stayed at the Trump International. (On Columbus Circle.) We decided to stay there again as at least I could find the subway from there, and knew the general vicinity. Well, daughter was enamored with the hotel, which obviously was not where she would live for four years, but you know how impressions are. I really wanted her closer to home. So to give UCLA a fair shake, we needed to find another five star hotel. For UCLA accepted student day we stayed at the Hotel Bel Air. She picked UCLA. Yeah, sometimes impressions are everything. And any school looks better after a night on 1000 count sheets.</p>
<p>That is too funny - “daughter was enamored with the hotel, which obviously was not where she would live for four years” - I never thought that the choice of hotel could be an influencing factor when choosing a school. </p>
<p>In your case, the “pretty entrance” was really the pretty “Inn trance”.</p>
<p>Stanford doesn’t really have an entrance, it has a circular road that you can get to from a number of different entry points. Then you drive around in circles endlessly until you finally find what you’re looking for. In the meantime you’ve passed the hospital, various research buildings, dorms, etc., none of which look very welcoming. If you luck out and drive down University Avenue towards the quad, just try to see it through the traffic! I speak as someone who spent the first 20-some years of her life in the vicinity.</p>
<p>Great thread! Here is my story so far.
Our older D attends a good state college, her pretty much one and only choice, and is very happy with it. The younger expressed interest in a small school on the West coast, so last spring we went on a LAC tour of the West. She liked a couple of places, hated a couple, and fell in love with one. This summer, she went to a camp on the East coast, and decided that she should give the East a serious look. Well, she found a couple of no-school days in her fall schedule that, combined with the weekend in the middle, would give us a decent time window to visit several colleges. She called and scheduled some interviews, and I started planning our trip. You know, tickets, car, hotels all that mundane stuff that costs money. She was so excited that she called her boyfriend and told him about the upcoming trip. BF got upset because he had planned a special surprise date for them to go on the same weekend! I talked to the kid (nice young man), and turns out, he bought some crazily expensive tickets to some ballet or opera for them to go to! A lot of flipped burgers worth! May be his entire savings were put into this! I felt so sorry for the kid, I had to re-do the entire itinerary! Luckily, I had not bought the airfare - that would have been expensive to change! So, now instead of the grand tour of the East, we will be flying red-eye, visiting a couple of places and going back the next evening. D has to deal with rescheduling her interviews with some local alumni, since Im not going to spend money on another grand tour like that! H “had no comment”.</p>
<p>There is a huge heliport at Stanford on top of the hospital that can land 3 or 4 choppers simultaneously. And they do have medical helicopters taking off and landing from there 24 hours a day.</p>
<p>The official entrance to Stanford is up University to Palm. Years ago, when University Ave was not a bumper to bumper grind that was the fastest way from the 101 freeway. Now I’d guess more people come up from the 280 freeway, and come in on Junipero Serra to find the campus loop road somewhere. It makes it obvious why one nickname for Stanford is “The Farm.”</p>