<p>KaMaMom - We got a big shiny booklet today, too, but it was from Rochester Institute of Technology instead. Looked interesting! Did any of you U of R parents check out RIT while you were in the area? </p>
<p>I’m all ears for any other things you veterans will do different since you’ve been through this before! :)</p>
<p>Classof2015, I’d love to hear your thoughts about Lafayette too. We’re planning on going in April.</p>
<p>My D has a long ski week (Thursday through the following week-end) so I’m typing from a hotel right now–4 schools down and 2 more to go. We had a 3rd but, after seeing Union College today, she has decided that, while she wants ‘smallish’, 2000 is too small so off goes the 1600 student school we were going to visit Friday.</p>
<p>Hey 5boys! How is your adventurer doing these days?</p>
<p>We only looked at Univ of Rochester because we were going to look at RIT. I understand people love it, he was totally turned off by it - said it looked like a russian gulag - not a pretty, traditional campus - in fact it’s been voted many times as one of the ugliest. But for some it’s a great fit. Very tech heavy, and they have a very large population of deaf students so if learning sign language is of any interest - that would be the place to go. </p>
<p>We looked at Lafayette - S liked it, it’s a pretty school, but too small for him and he got really turned off by the lax-bro- ness of it. However, a very pretty tour guide, and he stayed glued to her side the entire time.</p>
<p>It’s the joys you’ll discover when you go looking at schools - you’ll think on paper things look ideal, then something turns them off you’d never have anticipated.</p>
<p>By no means am I saying your kids wouldn’t love those schools, my sons reactions on tours was quite interesting.</p>
<p>I am quite familiar with U of R and RIT and have worked there/done activities on there. KaKaMom, I also know quite a few kids in the BS/MD program at U of R. It’s a fantastic program. </p>
<p>The kids that I know who are in it were really good students academically, had shadowing experience, did research/labwork, leadership and just great people. It’s a tough program but your daughter should give it a shot if she’s interested. U of R has a lovely campus and the URMC/Strong Memorial/the Children’s Hospital is very close by. I don’t like the area it’s located in that much- it’s basically in the city but they’re making a big effort to improve it. It’s also great for physics with the laser lab. I don’t know how great it is for engineering. I would love to return and work on the faculty here 
. </p>
<p>RIT is good for engineering, materials science, compsci, gaming and definitely imaging science. It’s Bio program is so-so, but I think they are working on bringing more Biotechnology. The co-op program is excellent. There’s not much general school spirit, except for ice-hockey. Their library is nice but I cannot say I love the cafeteria food. They don’t, again have much of a “college town”/street. They are trying to develop it somewhat with a Barnes and Nobles and some food places which are pretty nice but sparsely occupied. However, if you go just down the street somewhat, there’s a mall and lots of shopping places. National Institute for the Deaf is here, as eyemamom noted and it’s great if you’re hearing impaired. </p>
<p>Hope that helps! :)</p>
<p>joining all you involved '14 parents! Like many of you guys my S2 and I are planning a college tour of Northeast colleges, from sunny Florida over his spring break end of March.</p>
<p>S1 graduated college in May ‘12, and is happily employed, while D1 graduates college this May, engaged in finishing her senior thesis and seeking opportunities post college. Little more aware, and fortunate my S2 also has learned a bit too about the process and what he wants in a college…he’s interested in biology/neuroscience, and seeking a medium size university in an urban or suburban setting. Looking forward to traveling the road with all of you…got so much from CC on parents’ of '08/'12 and '09/'13!</p>
<p>Visiting colleges the first week of school? Question to all of you experienced college shoppers: Any reason not to tour a school during the first week of classes? We’ve toured a few colleges in the summer, but it’s hard to get a feel for the real vibe of the school (classes, professors, cafeteria, etc.) Schools in Seattle start after Labor Day and D is interested in some schools in NY and MA that start Aug 26th+/-. Because she’s going to Spain with her HS for spring break, we won’t be able to visit colleges that are in session until late Aug.
Would love to hear pros/cons of touring in late summer. Thanks!</p>
<p>re: visiting colleges during first week of classes
Confirm that info sessions and tours are available. Also, if your D is interested in sitting in on any classes, confirm that she can. When DS’12 was visiting colleges, I recall that some colleges do not allow class observations at the beginning of the semester.</p>
<p>lindz126 … my daughter and your son seem to be looking at the same major (bio/neuro) as well as the same area of the country over spring break. </p>
<p>We’ll be doing U of Rochester, Cornell, Penn, Johns Hopkins, Brown & Williams College. Go big or go home, right?</p>
<p>Yes, lots of pie-in-the-sky schools … but somebody’s gotta get in, right? ;)</p>
<p>KaMaMom–we also have some overlap with colleges, Penn and Brown. These are of course reach schools, my son is considering one as early decision. My son is also looking at Tufts, Brandeis, and for fun we’ll visit Harvard, hey, we’ll be there anyway ;)</p>
<p>We looked at UNC Chapel Hill, and Duke while visiting big bro who lives there. He’s ruled out his brother and sister’s respective colleges…</p>
<p>he’ll also apply to UF and a couple of other safeties</p>
<p>Welcome, lindz!!</p>
<p>ecouter - thanks for the info on U of R & RIT! I’m always interested in others opinions of schools!</p>
<p>I’m feeling a bit more like I belong here now (my brain is gearing up for my '14)! </p>
<p>5boys - it’s good to see another familiar face from '16 (college '16)! I think of you every time I return home and see St Lawrence U…</p>
<p>RIT vs UR? We didn’t compare. My guy is into neuro/brain & cognitive and pre-med - not RIT specialties. He has gone to their campus a couple of times for concerts. His only comment? It’s big. Sign language is also popular at UR as Rochester, itself, attracts a sizable hearing impaired population. They don’t have the School for the Deaf as RIT does, but their ASL club is out and about in local public schools. My guy enjoys it (and is taking beginner classes at the same time). A fellow worker at school’s son graduated from RIT in either IT or CS (I can’t remember which). He loved it and easily got a job upon graduation. His co-op experience definitely helped. That’s the extent of my ability to compare the two. </p>
<p>For those looking at the neuro route, don’t forget to include Pitt even if just as a safety. It ended up being my guy’s second choice. (He preferred UR’s campus and extensive research opps.) Pitt is very well regarded in neuro (check out some previous threads on Pitt), offers nice merit aid for top scorers (if that applies), and has oodles of hospitals on or very near campus making the pre-med part easy. It’s also easier to get in than the top names… just in case.</p>
<p>Otherwise, my guy liked WUSTL, considered Case (they’re more cognitive and too city for him), Vandy (too Greek for him), Johns Hopkins (too city), and Emory (he didn’t have SAT 2 tests and they were his only school that required them, so he dropped them from consideration).</p>
<p>We did not look at any school that didn’t offer merit aid, so skipped all Ivies. He briefly considered LACs (and visited some like Furman, almost visited Lafayette), but read too much about how research is extremely important for neuro to advance and since he isn’t sure if he wants pre-med or research, he opted for the research school (with a hospital on site) option. He has no regrets. He knew his path from his first visit to research schools. When you visit schools, your kids should get a feel for what they prefer - then for us, finances also played a big role.</p>
<p>As for my '14 - totally, totally different stats, schools, and interests… so it’s almost like we’re starting over. He knows he wants a small southern school - probably Christian as he wants to take Bible classes in addition to his Bio/Botany. My knowledge of southern schools is limited and extremely limited when it comes to southern Christian schools. I also wonder if they’ll offer the in depth Bio/Botany that he wants. I’m encouraging him to consider secular schools too, but what do we parents know? Right now I have a glimmer of hope as he attended an SAT prep hour at school yesterday and came home excited that he had the top score on a Reading practice test. Of course, the top score was just 600 (typical for our school), but it’s a start from which he can hopefully improve. He’s at least trying to improve… (Oldest and middle were much higher in stats - I homeschooled them for high school and we did more than the public school - so I’m having to get used to lower scores with regards to the college search.)</p>
<p>Oh, we ended up visiting schools the first week they were open (Alabama, Furman). They both had tours, etc, so we didn’t feel left out, but there were no classes to sit in on. (Alabama was a safety school for my guy due to his stats and their great finances, but they don’t have neuro nor as much research, etc.)</p>
<p>collage1 and CT1417 – I’ll be taking extra good notes when I see Lafayette tomorrow :)</p>
<p>Creekland – interesting that you visited Furman. We drove by it – S had found it on his own – but didn’t tour. I tried to ask around and one dad on another tour said it was more “southern-centric” and conservative. Any other insight from your visit?</p>
<p>Ordered another SAT prep book (500 SAT words and how to remember them). We should all have a big virtual bonfire when this is over and burn all those books!</p>
<p>We visited Furman recently. My impression is that it is easier to get in, but rigorous once you are there. It used to be a christian college, but now it is not and they even drove us past their zen garden. You even get to tour on a golf cart and the campus is certainly very spread out. Pretty much everyone lives on campus all 4 years. The fresh/soph dorms rival the worst dorms I’ve seen, the jr/sr apartments are amongst the nicest I’ve seen. The overall campus is one of the prettiest I’ve seen.</p>
<p>They are working at getting greek life more active, and hubby saw one sorority had 150 members! </p>
<p>The kids we know who are attending absolutely love it. One is a kid who attended boarding school, and are country club members with all the stereotypical attributes you’d think. The other is this rocker public school kid who has also found his niche. </p>
<p>It ended up seeming too quiet and too remote for my d. She’s a VERY energetic involved extrovert and this particular tour showed us she’s more a big school, lots of spirit kind of place.</p>
<p>lindz … Duke was originally on the list. But it’s so far south and DD really wanted to look at Hopkins, so off it went. </p>
<p>Is anyone familar w/ Natural Helpers? DD made it in this semester and we went last night for the parent meeting. I’ve heard such GREAT things - albeit very vague things as people like to keep it so secretive. Her retreat is in two weeks - I’m so excited for her.</p>
<p>Can I also just say I’m so overwhelmed by the knowledge of college here? It’s all like a big jigsaw puzzle right now - and I’m so impressed by the parents who can spout off several different schools (some/most I’ve never heard of!) as suggestions depending on the different wants/needs.</p>
<p>Most of the kids from DD’s school end of going to state schools. A handful do go to places like Brown, Notre Dame, Yale … but for the most part, the question on where are you going to college is usually answered by roughly 2-3 names.</p>
<p>thanks eyemamom – that is really helpful. I think S likes it because of location and acceptance rate, but hasn’t considered it on any other level.</p>
<p>I want to echo KaMaMom’s voice of gratitude for all the knowledge here! And a shout out to eyemamom and CT1417 for their help on driving through the NE. I have a feeling that many of us are going to cross paths on our spring break tour at several schools. I’ve been struggling with putting the tour together–trying to balance safety and reach schools. I wish DD was more interested in LAC’s because I feel like we are missing so many great schools! I just can’t get her to look at anything under 3,000 students. I’m trying really hard not to set her up for disappointment or deluding myself that she is a shoe-in at any of the “pie-in-the-sky schools.” But KaMaMom is right–someone has to get in! We’ll look at Boston U, Boston College and Northeastern when we’re in Boston (probably walk across Harvard Yard) and our other visits will be Penn, Princeton, Yale and Brown. One of my best friends lives in Princeton so we’ve got a home base. Another friend has two sons at Yale who have offered to immerse her in Yale culture (including an overnight at the girls’ suite at one of the residential halls). Hard to say no to that. I know I’ll feel much better once we know her Feb. ACT score. Like many of you, she has other schools in other parts of the country that will be good safeties so I suppose we can look at this trip in a different light. The next three weeks will be busy–DD has mock trial regionals the first week of March and is hoping her team will go to State. She’s also one of the leads in a student-written production so she’ll be balancing her time between the two activities. I have a feeling I will be tiptoeing around the house again. It’s jsut so stressful! But there is light at the end of the junior year tunnel. Since we haven’t looked at any schools since last summer (we did the midwest tour–U of Chicago, Northwestern, WUSTL, Macalester, Loyola-CHI and Carleton), I think we’re both ready to get her list finalized.</p>
<p>We are actually avoiding the Ivies for DS. First, I think he’s a marginal candidate at best when compared to the overall applicant pool. Second, so many truly amazing kids from his school apply to the Ivies that standing out would be a very daunting task. I just looked up the stats for Class of 2012 from his school, and there were 735 applicants to the Ivies, with 121 acceptances and that acceptance rate is actually a down year for his school. Throw in Stanford and MIT and the numbers go up to 923 applicants with 154 acceptances. </p>
<p>So we are focusing primarily on schools that don’t get such numbers in hopes that he will not be one in the crowd from his school. The exceptions are Northwestern where he is a legacy (though I don’t think that will count for much since we do not have a building named after us ha ha) and schools where he could be an athletic recruit. </p>
<p>This whole process is so nerve-wracking. I don’t know about the rest of you but I applied to three schools and didn’t put anywhere near as much thought as this. DH only applied to two schools (state school and Northwestern) and chose NU because they were so generous with their financial aid that his only debt after graduation was one $2500 loan.</p>
<p>Furman - I think I’d describe it as a country club feel. It’s gorgeous - well designed and kept (grounds) and the people there were all friendly when we were there - from the office staff to the dining hall staff. We didn’t get to tour on a golf cart nor did we get to see in the dorms (a red flag usually), but again, we were there right as students had also just arrived. Classes hadn’t started yet. The students we met seemed to have good school spirit and loved it there. They also told us they thought the classes were rigorous. However, educationally it seemed a step down from the research schools as far as neuro was concerned - their dept was quite small. Research isn’t encouraged for freshmen and is mostly over summers (both typical of many LACs).</p>
<p>Nonetheless, my guy applied and was accepted. Financially they were, by far, the worst for my high stats kid. Any thought he had of going there was killed when we saw what they offered, but I think, considering his major and plans for his life, that he shouldn’t have gone there anyway. If he were interested in other things, it would be different.</p>
<p>I would call them southern in hospitality and charm. I would not call them conservative, except in comparison to the very liberal schools. There were all sorts of offerings we saw on campus.</p>
<p>Overall, I consider them a good school, but not the right school for my guys (esp with the finances). They may be the right school for anyone who can comfortably do full pay and wants more of the true liberal arts vs research.</p>
<p>My college “knowledge” comes from having an oldest who wanted business/international development in a Christian LAC (Covenant) - also looked at a couple other Christian schools and some secular, middle (at URochester) who had us checking out pre-med and neuro schools, all secular except Baylor, AND from working in our local high school + talking with oodles of high school seniors and graduates over the past 13 years. Our high school rarely sends students to top colleges, but provides a wealth of knowledge for schools near here (PA/MD).</p>
<p>Note… none of that is southern and Bio/Botany… so I’ll be learning about more schools over the next 6 months. I wish I could say we’re ready to finalize our list, but instead, youngest hasn’t really begun making one yet. He’s traveled to oodles of schools with his brothers, but, other than absolutely loving Furman’s gardens and landscaping, he hasn’t found anything that says “him” yet. His scores right now are in line with our school’s grads, but wanting a southern location means I need to find out about smaller schools a decent distance from us. I’m VERY thankful when others share knowledge of schools. Besides my own, sometimes I’m also in position to recommend places to students at school.</p>
<p>Funny about touring schools…I often looked around and wondered who in the room of parents–were also CC parents I “knew” online.</p>
<p>One parent and I crossed paths at K1’s U…in admissions…we knew from CC we’d be there and “met”…I whispered her screen name and she turned around.
Have been friends now for almost 3 yrs</p>
<p>Kees4me: We visited schools during their first week of classes and it was fine. We listened at the door of several classes, but ds didn’t ask to sit in on any full classes. One school wouldn’t show us any dorms because it was the first week (seems like they’d be looking their best then, but I think they hadn’t had a chance to arrange with students who would be willing to show their room.)</p>
<p>The upside of visiting then is that virtually everyone on campus is excited and happy. Plus the weather is usually great.</p>
<p>Visiting schools almost always involves compromise on some level. Your schedule, your kid’s activities, the college’s schedule, cost, weather, time, etc. Just pick what works the best for your family and go with it!</p>