<p>Check out college board. Go to college search, enter school names that you & child are interested in. You can review size of college, cost, application fee amount, High School GPA average & SAT averages of admitted students etc. I would suggest checking on 4 year graduation rate. I think this is very important…BTW, UCONN is a great school in CT.
Good Luck.</p>
<p>For pre-tour research, you may want to try the following:</p>
<p>a. Run net price calculators on each school’s web site. If unaffordable with just need-based financial aid, then the student knows that she needs to get merit scholarships as well as admission in order to attend. If completely unaffordable, it may not be worth the visit (which risks the student falling in love with it as a “dream school” even though there is no way to go there).</p>
<p>b. Check the web pages of departments with majors that the student may be interested in to ensure that they have good degree programs in those majors. (For certain majors, consider major-specific accreditation – e.g. ABET for engineering, AACSB for business, ACS for chemistry.) Of course, a 14 year old may not have much idea on this front, so you may want to just make a note on whether each school has a broad range of subjects, or is specialized to be strong in particular areas but only suitable for breadth courses in others.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of your wonderful insight/advice. The trip was great… we went with one of her afterschool programs… its a yearly bus trip. </p>
<p>We stopped @ Princeton first, NOTHING bad to say… the campus was gorgeous… puts Yale’s to shame… maybe I feel this way b/c I have lived in New Haven all my life? We arrived late d/t traffic and missed the information session…but we heard it was great. We did a small tour with a freshman… she was bubbly/sweet… waited for our large group to catch up… but again, she was a freshman and not able to answer some of our questions. I am sure she will be ourstanding in a few years.</p>
<p>The campus was very Ralph Lauren/Long Champe–ish–
Little diversity from what I could see… but still beautiful And if my dd14 decided to apply, I wouldn’t mind it in the least. GREAT food… she wasn’t sure if she would fit in there…</p>
<p>One thing that really made me feel good about the place were posters of John Carlos all over campus… he was apparently on a speaking tour… and Pton was one of his stops… I so wanted to swipe a poster…but I behaved myself!!</p>
<p>Our next stop was Haverford… it was small, quaint, very vanilla… which again, is ok… we only visited the admissions building… which had a cool skee ball table room on the 2nd floor I believe… our information session was great. Our tour guide, who was born/raised in NYC was wonderful… he said that his experience @ Haverford was amazing and just what he was looking for! He even takes classes at another school… (I can’t remember now, sorry)</p>
<p>The next day we went to Villanova… this place had NO personality… it was big, lots of activity… but it just didn’t inmpress me… it lacked flavor/sabor! We did a pretty extensive tour… had lunch… which was horrible… a bunch of poorly built, mass produced food…</p>
<p>Seton Hall was smaller… our first stop on the tour was the gym… SHOCKER right?? lol as they are a D1 school. That left a bad taste in my mouth. I haven’t been to college, and can’t say with 100% certainty, but my feeling is that D1 schools put the majority of their $ into their athletics dept? Even the science building, which is “new” was not impressive. Most new buildings, anywhere you go… are quite nice… this, was as if they cut corners or something… again, can’t put my finger on it… </p>
<p>We had an extensive tour here as well…no dorm visit… but they didn’t look too good from the outside…</p>
<p>They will have a Dunkin Donuts and a Chipoltle soon… we didn’t eat at this school… but the tour guide said it was very good.</p>
<p>Last stop… UPENN. again, whats not to love? Locust walk was full of hustle/bustle… energy. It was electric! The were anti abortion folks out, voter registration tables, lively human rights discussions gong on… so much to fill the senses! We did a self tour and b/c the size of our group, not able to go into any of the buildings… but it really spoke to my dd14! </p>
<p>I hope this helps… again, THANK YOU!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The Ivy League (which includes two of your visited schools) is an NCAA Division I sports conference.</p>
<p>OK, I didn’t know that they were also D1 schools… but they are clearly putting their $ into other things!!!</p>
<p>Villanova is a highly desired school in my son’s crowd. There is overlap among the three schools among kids applying from his high school, but it’s 'nova that gets the attention. Merit aid possibilities for the strongest kids, and according to those who go there, lots happening on campus. Nice area of Philly, and a great school all around. Didn’t hear anything about the food. </p>
<p>Haverford is one of the nation’s top LACs and is a great example of all that is wonderful in that sort of school. No merit aid there, but excellent financial aid, and no big deal sports teams from what I can see. A great advantage is that they do share resources with Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore, also excellent schools.</p>
<p>Seton Hall would be the safety school in the mix. 'Nova is no safety these days. I know too many kids who were turned down by the Haverford type schools also turned down there. Seton Hall has been very generous with merit awards is what I have heard. I don’t know much about the school but it does show up on a lot of lists at my son’s school.</p>
<p>It is hard to find a state flagship other than Alaska that is not in NCAA Division I for sports.</p>
<p>Private schools in NCAA Division I for sports include American, Boston College, Boston University, Bucknell, Drexel, Duke, Georgetown, Holy Cross, the Ivy League, Lehigh, Miami, Notre Dame, Rice, Stanford, Tulane, USC, Vanderbilt, Villanova.</p>
<p>Small schools are more likely to be in NCAA Division III, like the Amherst, Caltech, the Claremont colleges, Grinnell, Haverford, Oberlin, Swarthmore, Williams. But some larger schools like MIT and UC Santa Cruz are also in NCAA Division III.</p>
<p>NewHaven - that other school the Haverford tour guide was speaking of was Bryn Mawr, an all girls school. Haverford and BM share curriculums. Students also can take classes at Swarthmore and Penn, but fewer students do that.</p>
<p>Princeton and Penn are both really nice, but Princeton is in a way nicer area, unless you like cities, in which case Penn is better. It’s sort of like Yale - you don’t want to go too far away from campus, or you might end up in a questionable neighborhood. Depends on what she’s looking for - if she likes the excitement of city-life, Penn is a great place. I would say Princeton is a little more conservative probably. Penn has a great archaeology museum if you’re into that sort of thing too. </p>
<p>I’ve only seen Villanova from the street, and I thought it was pretty, but I don’t know much about it other than it’s a good school.</p>
<p>We felt the same way you did about Villanova… just seemed uninteresting, though it was very dead when we visited (on a Saturday), so that made it a lot less appealing. We counted very few students walking around that day. </p>
<p>I would be cautious to make that generalization about D1 schools. Seton Hall is the exception, not the rule. Princeton, villanova, and upenn are all also division 1 schools. All of the Ivy League schools are Division 1 as well, and also many prestigious others: Stanford, Bucknell, Northwestern, Richmond, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, Davidson, Notre Dame, Duke, Holy Cross Rice, Berkeley, USC, UCLA, UVA, UMich, UNC, Lehigh, BC, William and Mary, Colgate, etc. Obviously, many of these schools will have a larger athletic presence than others (Duke, Notre Dame, UNC, and such), while schools like William and Mary, BC, Bucknell, Vandy, and more will have a lesser presence, despite still being Division 1.</p>
<p>NewHavenCTMom,
We visited many of the same schools a couple years ago and had many of the same reactions. It’s all subjective, but if is matters, your kid seems to have the same taste as we and our D did. She also loved Princeton and UPenn. Swarthmore also ended up a contender. She decided not to apply to Yale or Columbia after visits, but she did love Amherst, Wesleyan, and Vassar, if you want to look at a few more similar options. Oh, and she also liked Middlebury, but we felt it was too far from airports…but had she been accepted we would have supported her.</p>
<p>@MEGAN12-- We live in one of those questionable neighborhoods…</p>
<p>And the irony is that the last big case, in which a Yalie was murdered was killed by her co worker… a gentleman from a “nice/suburban neighborhood” so to speak. </p>
<p>@Mrscollege-- We visited Wesleyan last Veteran’s Day… she went kicking/screaming as she has no interest in staying in CT for college… but she ended up falling in love with it.
We will visit Amherst, Vassar and others late in the summer when the students are on campus.</p>
<p>As far as my observation about Seton Hall… there is no way that this school can be compared to Ivy League schools… they are in different statispheres academically… so the argument that they(ivies) are D1 are kind of moot… its like comparing shopping trips to Bloomingdales and Walmart… they both retail stores but vastly different in the quality.</p>