Fiske is fantastic! My college counselor has had me use it for primary research on each school I’ve looked into. Very helpful perspectives in it!
2 Likes
That’s the problem with living in Nor Cal. The relevant colleges within driving distance from us are UCB, UC Davis, maybe UC Santa Cruz, Stanford, and maybe Santa Clara University. That’s it.
New England has a lot of drive-by opportunities to check colleges out. We have to make an organized itinerary that involves planes, trains and automobiles. Not that I am complaining. I am salivating at the prospect.
Yep, they plan the visits on Sundays so they can check out the eating. Has been a little tricky eating outside in the winter but they have been able to drive around and walk in some areas.
Don’t think we are going to make it to CA or the midwest for actual visits. Kid might just apply and if there’s an acceptance then check it out in person. I’d bet many are doing the same this round.
We are planning a long drive South. Will be fun. I hope it’s not August.
I think that makes sense. If you are going to go to Berkeley, UCLA or Stanford, you aren’t doing it for the food or how it looks. But there might be something that would cut them compared to other admits.
That’s how I am trying to figure out where to visit. If kiddo would apply regardless of what he sees on a trip - either because it is a safety, reach, or for whatever reason, the visit can wait. If the school will be an application wobbler, seeing it may help decide.
I don’t know about anyone else, but reaches are easy to find. Safeties and matches that tick enough boxes are tricky - especially if the student doesn’t want a big school. Smallish stem-y (but not engineering - think more pure math/physics) LAC schools that don’t have a big party/Greek scene is the sweet spot for us. There is a finite list. Most of them have acceptance rates below 20%. Have math geek, will travel.
4 Likes
That was doubly true this year. Fortunately D21 had seen a variety of types of campuses (big U, midsized U, LAC, women’s college), so even though she hadn’t been on an exact campus, she knew some things that were on the wishlist (around 2,000 students, agnostic about women’s college or coed, willing to do midsized but not large) to help make the list.
I think there are a few schools with a pretty distinct vibe that probably should be visited (Smith, Wesleyan, Oberlin, Reed, maybe Chicago & Cal Tech, I’m sure others), but most are not that quirky. So If you know you want a general type, it probably isn’t necessary to visit everywhere. It is ideal, but not necessary.
That is how we approached it once COVID hit. Y’all know I am a planner, so we did start early. But once the pandemic made it so difficult to see schools, we only made a point to see the “maybes”. An example of a school that fell off immediately was Johns Hopkins. DS got within a mile of the school and said “There is no way I am living here. I have other reaches”. And now, he has no regrets.
He still has two schools he’s applied to that we haven’t seen. We will have to wait for decisions, I think, to decide if it is worth going. One of them is across the Atlantic, so who knows if we will ever see it! 
1 Like
LOL, I told my son I wouldn’t visit if he went to Johns Hopkins!
3 Likes
I’m afraid to ask. What is wrong with Johns Hopkins?
The area surrounding campus is not the best.
1 Like
Ahh. Thanks.
1 Like
That’s putting it mildly. And the fact they cannot guarantee 4 year on campus housing – DS was like No freaking way.
I was trying to be diplomatic 
I thought the whole rental car was going to fall into a pothole when we were driving around. I was also not excited by the nearby hotel options, which is a factor for visits.
Prep school college counseling is such a time. I have researched 20 schools already, looking at 11 more these coming weeks. I’ve really liked schools like Rice, Carleton, Harvey Mudd, URochester, and UChicago. They were all recommended by my counselor; he definitely knows what I’m looking for in a school and what would fit well with me. When I told him about my distaste for Princeton after researching it, he nodded his head and agreed that I’d be miserable there. Prep school counseling is on another level than what I had back at my old public schools.
7 Likes
Love JHU and the surrounding areas. Felt totally safe in and around campus.
One side of campus is a wooded gorge and the other is bordered by museums.
Yes it’s an urban campus. That doesn’t inherently make a school unsafe.
5 Likes
sorry @momofboiler1, but I will respectfully disagree. THere are plenty of urban colleges that are situated much better than JHU. DS applied to three such places - heart of a city, but super nice and safe surrounding areas.
I am glad there are people who love JHU, but I agreed with DS and the minute he gave me the green light to keep driving, I hit the gas pedal and got out of there as fast as we could.
Different strokes for different folks.
If you look at the actual crime stats for JHU they are actually quite safe, both on and off campus.
Purdue, in the middle of nowhere, has DOUBLE the number of reported incidents per thousand students. (I use Purdue as an example because that’s where my D goes to school).
College factual is a good source of information, as well as a school’s own crime logs. Also note that many schools don’t do a good job of tracking crime stats but JHU is not one of them and has very detailed information available.
Safety is not the only factor of the JHU surrounding community. I can tell you my child would not have ever ventured off campus to ride his bike, go for a run, etc. On campus stats are also not the same as the adjacent neighborhood stats. Any good marketing person will know to ONLY include what happens on the campus property.
I can say with certainty (as I have visited, used to live in Baltimore and have several colleagues who still live in Baltimore) that the neighborhoods next to the JHU campus are NOT safe, ARE ridden with crime and are at best, dilapidated and undesirable.
1 Like
It wasn’t a safety issue, we just didn’t like the area. My son looked at other schools in urban areas that had better restaurants, hotels, amenities etc. surrounding the campus.
2 Likes
Every college has to submit a Clery report every year, that details on and off campus crime involving students. One must then adjust this data based for size of student body if they want to compare schools.
Here is the link to JHU’s Clery report:
Bottom line is what works for one student/family in terms of a school’s setting, won’t work for all. If you want a campus where you can go out for a five mile run, JHU might not be it.
2 Likes
You have a gift for understatement.
1 Like