<p>fireflyscout, I hear you. We were zooming D all over the place three years ago, thinking the gas prices were highway robbery then.</p>
<p>Is RPI his favorite so far? </p>
<p>Beer pong/beirut is kind of sort of like quarters, only with a larger playing surface - you can't play sitting down - and obvs a ping-pong ball rather than a quarter. And I'm with you, historymom: Forewarned is forearmed, and explanations are not endorsements. Though they may indicate historical experience. Maybe.</p>
<p>HMW - at the moment the plan is to visit Brandeis and Clark U in Worcester MA in the fall. several other Eastern schools have been on and off her list (Sarah Lawrence, Bard,...) so who knows what the final itinerary will look like.</p>
<p>ChiSquare - Middlebury and Amherst would be reachs for my D as well, so it's a good thing they don't meet her "in or near a big city" criteria. besides Middlebury broke my heart when they waitlisted me many years ago :(</p>
<p>I hope your and your D have a great trip - Vermont is breathtakingly beautiful in the summer.</p>
<p>Thanks, PRJ! I also dreamed of going to Middlebury as a teen. But I didn't get up enough nerve to even try to get in! I hope D doesn't get her heart too set on any one college. I keep trying to counteract that tendency (in her and myself).</p>
<p>History Mom -- Thanks, yes my daughter is confident...not overly confident...but fortunately doesn't have her hopes pinned on just one reach school. We also have the benefit of knowing which schools my older daughter was accepted to. My younger daughter has slightly better grades and scores so we have a benchmark to compare to with my older daughter.</p>
<p>As for college visits -- I've visited Hamilton and it's a beautiful campus on a hill. We had some visits scheduled in Fall 2005 in upstate New York and visited Rensselaer (RPI) and Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). We stopped in at Hamilton to visit a friend of my daughters who was a freshman at the time. My daughter's friend has loved attending Hamilton and will be a senior next year. My daughter did not like Hamilton but she was looking at engineering/computer science schools and Hamilton, of course, is a Liberal Colleges. My younger daughter is also a science/math type of kid but would like to expand her visit to some smaller liberal arts types schools. </p>
<p>Other schools I've visited are -- Penn State (where my older daughter attends), University of Connecticut and Boston College. In the next few weeks we'll visit Stony Brook and Fordham.</p>
<p>Our next college visit andour last overnight trip pre-applications is to Southern California next month. We will be visiting:</p>
<p>Scripps: I LOVE it. I think it is custom made for one of my DDs but it is a reach. I don't want either girl to fall in love with it for that reason. They will be attending soccer camp and staying at Claremont McKenna so I think they will get a fairly good idea of the layout of campus as well as food service at CMC.</p>
<p>Occidental: This is my parents alma mater and for that reason I think I was resistant to the idea of it. Once it was reccomended enough times I suggested it to the girls and they are up for the tour. Since then I have fallen for it for the same reasons I fell for Scripps sans the all women aspect. Not that the two schools are the same, just that both seem to be great places for one of my Ds in particular to grow.</p>
<p>Loyola Marymount: Again on paper this school looks like a great place. I know a boy who is going to be attending there next fall and I talked about it at length w/ his mom over the weekend. It's quite a bit bigger than the other schools so we'll see how that goes over. Also it sounds like LA culture may be pretty dominant which would be a big change for my Northern California girls who prefer horses and barns to shoes and malls but we'll see.</p>
<p>maybe University of Redlands: DH is opposed so is happy that if we visit it will be in mid July when the air and heat are supposed to be approaching their worst. The area around the school as well as the climate/air quality concern him. The chance of good merit money is attractive but the girls may be turned off by our visit too.</p>
<p>Any remaining OOS visits will take place after admission. Then I forsee a possible whirlwind spring break trip to CO, MT and TX. Hard to believe that in less than a year this madness will all be over and we'll be posting on the "What to take to college" and "How do I adjust?" threads.</p>
<p>Should we list where-all we've visited? Why not. With D and S1 (and of course S2, in a stroller the first time and on his trusty scooter for the second round): Williams, Vassar, Wesleyan, Middlebury, Tufts, Harvard, Oberlin, St. Mary's/MD, Swarthmore, UPenn, Bates, Haverford, Conn College, Amherst. (For anybody whose jaw is dropping, more than half of these are easy drives from our house - or from a visit to D in college.) </p>
<p>Then there are the schools where one or the other has had an event or game or something, and we've toured less officially: Brown, Muhlenberg, Dickinson, F&M, Hopkins. </p>
<p>historymom, re your H and his feelings abt Redlands, there are schools on this visit list where my H worked very hard to make sure the only time he was "free" to come along involved nasty, unappealing weather. . . .</p>
<p>H & Fang Jr visited Pomona and Pitzer at New Years. Fang Jr said Pitzer looks like a bad science fiction movie set. Of Pomona, he says "You think it's not LA, but then you walk five blocks and hit the freeway." He hates LA. Cross those two off the list.</p>
<p>In the spring, we visited Beloit, Grinnell, Carleton and Macalester. He fell in love with Beloit. I was all set for him to like Grinnell, but he couldn't stand the location-- cornfields for hours in every direction. He liked Carleton (too bad it's very reachy for him). </p>
<p>He was delighted with class he visited at Macalester, and appreciated that the professor put him in touch with a student studying econ, an interest of his. Macalester is reputed to be a very liberal place, which would suit him. Plus the food is fantastic, an important consideration for a junior foodie.</p>
<p>In September, we'll visit Bowdoin and Bates. Sometime in the fall, he'll try to manage a quick trip to Kalamazoo. He may apply sight unseen to Lawrence and/or Oberlin, though he has no interest in music.</p>
<p>Cardinal Fang, S1 finally ruled Lawrence out on strikes: Too cold, too far, and trimesters.</p>
<p>Just explaining, not endorsing! I think Lawrence looks absolutely wonderful. </p>
<p>I will note that with one of D's dearest h.s. friends attending a trimester school, we're hearing a lot about what's difficult/annoying about trimesters, and not a lot about the pros.</p>
<p>Cardinal Fang...we must have been following in your footsteps! We also visited the same Iowa, Wisconsin and MN LACs! Due to her soccer verbal she will still be OOS but at a small public that caught her eye. I loved Carleton and actually Luther...cool cadaver lab and new science building under construction!</p>
<p>Anyone visiting Hamilton should drive south 10 miles to see Colgate (in Hamilton , NY by the way which is not Clinton where Hamilton College is...got that) Hamilton is a wonderful school. Colgate is also. Hamilton D III athletics, Colgate D I but a LAC with 2800 students. If you can handle the rural setting, perhaps one of the most beautiful campus anywhere.</p>
<p>are trimesters the same as quarters w/ three in the reg acdemic year and a summer one for those interested?</p>
<p>Harriet thanks for sharing that about your DH. Mine went to school about 4 hours from home, never lived in the dorms etc so he bases a lot of his opinions about colleges on what he knows/believes to be true about the community.</p>
<p>Where we have visited officially:</p>
<p>Santa Clara, CSU Monterey Bay, Saint Mary's of CA, Cal Poly SLO, Willamette, Linfield, U of Portland and Pacific University (not U of the Pacific).</p>
<p>unofficial: Sonoma State, UC Santa Cruz (my alma mater), UC Davis, CSU Chico and Sacramento State</p>
<p>Trimesters are the same as quarters.</p>
<p>We're homeschoolers, so Fang Jr's "high school" is actually community college. As it happens, his community college is on the quarter system. His last day of classes was today; his exams are this Thursday and Friday. So he knows exactly what the quarter/trimester system is, and it suits him. He does better with fewer classes. The one class at a time system would work for him too, but both Cornell College and Colorado College are located in places he has ruled out.</p>
<p>As to "too cold," hmm. Fang Jr's a California boy applying to schools in Maine, Wisconsin and Minnesota. He thinks he'll be fine with the cold. He figures he'll manage, and after all, plenty of other California kids seem to.</p>
<p>Isn't it funny how definite our kids likes and dislikes are?</p>
<p>historymom, Cardinal Fang, and NorthMinnesota - we are all traveling a similar path! we've been to Pitzer - D loved it. of course, she was most taken with the freshman dorms surrounding the POOL! for a kid from the midwest, it doesn't get much better than that :) like Fang Jr., i was also unimpressed by the rest of the facilities, but D looked right past them, to the students, the art work, the emphasis on community service, etc.</p>
<p>i regret that we didn't take the opportunity to visit Scripps - at the time she had no interest in an all women school, but that seems to have changed, at least in the case of Scripps. so we will make a return trip at some point, and add Occidental to that trip.</p>
<p>we've also visited Oberlin, Macalester, and Grinnell (my alma mater). she loved Oberlin and Maclester. we visited Grinnell on a rainy day, she met "weird kids" and it's in the middle of nowhere, so it is officially off the list.</p>
<p>With D, I toured: Southwestern University, Tulane, Davidson, William & Mary, Williams, Skidmore, Hamilton, Allegheny, Centre, Sewanee, Rhodes, Macalester, and Carleton. Drove by Emory and Vassar. On her own, she saw Texas and Texas A&M. She chose Carleton.</p>
<p>I love driving around the country!</p>
<p>Funny what makes the school "acceptable" ! No communal bathrooms, just private ones in each room, moved a school straight to the top for my quiet and modest scholar! Carleton was looking good to her until a second visit to watch a soccer game on a beautiful fall weekend. Everything was perfect until she walked around and explored during halftime and saw the period clad costumes and sword slashing antics of a Dungeons and dragons type group engaged in role playing in one of the gyms. That was it...said it wasn't the place for her and we could never get her to budge. I loved Carleton.</p>
<p>We didn't see any live action D&D at Carleton, but I just told my son about it and his eyes lit up. He couldn't care less about sharing a bathroom, but as far as he's concerned, the more D&D the better. I hope his recommenders write fabulous recommendations; maybe he could get in.</p>
<p>Good for Fang Jr!!! I love Northfield, too! The Jesse James Festival is always fun and the outdoors art show is always lovely. Sending good thoughts his way!!! And make sure you stop for a beer and burger at the Rube!</p>
<p>North Minn: The students that turned your D off to Carleton may have been members of the SCA, Society for Crative Anachonism. they have Medieval festivals and tournaments and jousts and things. Had a roommate for a short time who was into it. </p>
<p>The bathrooms at CSU Monterey Bay are in the huge rooms . D likes that but I bet when she see's Scripps she'll really flip. Trinity U's are great too, all rooms share a bath with just one other set of roommates and at Trinity and I think Scripps...there is a cleaning service! How cool is that?</p>
<p>Like Harriet's son, Fang Jr is not at all disturbed about the sex ratio at small LACs ;)</p>
<p>Has Fang Jr. looked at Swarthmore? I'm getting this feeling he'd like the Pterodactyl Hunt. :D</p>