<p>Megabus is a growing network that survives by not renting their own depot space, so their bus pickup/dropoff spots flicker in & out. My experience with them is limited but I find they’re highly prone to bus breakdowns, drunk drivers, and other non-optimal transit conditions. There’s a reason they’re cheap.</p>
<p>Because of the apparently increased odds of admission for SCEA and ED applicants, and possibly for EA applicants at some schools, our S would like to apply early somewhere if he can become comfortable about placing that one school above all others, but we believe that requires a visit pre-application not just to sample the campus culture but also to gain valuable information regarding the school’s immediate surroundings. We have managed to visit all but one of the schools that he might want to apply to early by making side trips on vacations in the Northeast and in California and by making a small car trip to Houston. We still need to design an enjoyable vacation that includes a side trip to the Hyde Park area in Chicago.</p>
<p>You go to the career center to get the information from the career center, not filtered through the tour guides. Of course, if the career center is short on specifics and data, then that still tells you something (unfavorable).</p>
<p>Oh God. Austinareadad, just say no to U of C. It’s fine for grad students – exemplary, maybe, since grad students are supposed to be miserable. But U of C’s not only wildly expensive but – there’s a reason why they call it the place where fun goes to die. The children there have no idea that there’s fun available in college. Direct eye contact scalds them. You can get a taste of all this online, you don’t have schlep all the way to Hyde Park for it. The kids are hyperselfaware and are fully aware of how miserable and socially deficient they are. One of the best stats I’ve heard about the place is that 99% of the students go on to grad school. That right there should tell you something’s wrong. These are people who have trouble functioning outside academia. If your boy’s like this, it won’t help to reinforce it.</p>
<p>Also, if you look at a map of the surrounding area, you’ll see more evidence of No Fun. There’s Jimmy’s Tap, where the drunks hang out, and…er…U of C profs whiteknuckling real estate values, and then Kenwood. A few restaurants. It’s Emphatically Not Built For a Good Time, nor for people who know how to be smart and have fun simultaneously. That said, I had the most mindblowing sex of my life on the U of C campus, but I was a grownup, not a student, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t allowed.</p>
<p>Look again when it’s time for grad school. Seriously, those are libraries to die for, and again, you can look them up online.</p>
<p>ucbalum, you’re misunderstanding how the modern university works. Every employee, without exception, is expected to be engaged in sales, PR, and prestige maintenance and building. The boot comes down swiftly on employees who are publicly critical in any way, and I can’t imagine how fast they’d be out the door if the said something less than glowing to a prospect.</p>
<p>When you go to the career office, you’re getting a sales job. The people you talk to will have received many emails detailing how they’re to engage with you, what the talking points are, and how to spin any weaknesses and deflect you to more glowy areas of performance.</p>
<p>Sure they may be trying sell the school. But a student should go there knowing the hard data that s/he wants (e.g. list of employers recruiting for the students prospective major, post-graduation outcome survey results) and ignore whatever sales job comes with it. Of course, if no hard data is offered, then that fact itself becomes useful data (a strike against the school, or at least its career center).</p>
<p>Of course, universities are not unique in selling themselves. Selling is common in all contexts of life, so knowing how to sift through sales jobs for useful information is presumably a life skill that parents and students should have experience with.</p>
<p>amyoldlady, thanks for the feedback. I have read negative accounts of U of C before, as well as positive ones, though I believe that was the strongest I have read yet. I provide what information I can to my S about schools he is interested in, negative and positive, so I will show him your comment. He does want to be surrounded by fellow nerds, male and female, but he is a somewhat sociable nerd (self-admitted) and would prefer the other nerds to be somewhat sociable as well.</p>
<p>College visits are absolutely worth it. I don’t think every school on person’s list should be visited, but definitely the top choices. I visited BU as early as my sophomore year because it’s close and I wanted to get the feel of an urban campus, and that was helpful because it helped me to figure out what kind of college I wanted to attend. Once I got closer to applications, I had a somewhat final list and planned to visit my top three choices over April break, since they are all pretty close to each other. I flew into Baltimore (wicked cheap, like $49 or something on a Southwest special), drove to UVA then back up to UMD and finally UDel. It was actually a lot of fun, too.</p>
<p>I disagree with amyoldlady, because looking online led me to believe I would like UDel the most, and I ended up not liking it at all and not even applying. As soon as I set foot on the Maryland campus, I fell in love. Online, I overlooked it, but when I left my visit, I couldn’t be more sure. Looking at pictures and searching the websites give you the feel of what TYPE of school it is, but every campus has a different atmosphere, and you can only understand that from an actual visit.</p>