@2muchquan – thanks so much for reporting back so much about your college visits - certainly lots of good info & sounds very successful in terms of your major objectives. I too wanted my son to get more involved & slowly he is - even asked a few direct questions at our last info session and really wanted to sit in on a few classes to which he liked. It is a process - thankfully we did not have much rain or heat in out Feb south tour. Going to Carnegie Mellon at the end of April - fingers crossed it will get warmer there.
@VANURSEPRAC…there was another parent brought up a very good point about Texas Tech. The 3.5 GPA that the student must meet. I need to see if that is per semester or per year. I think my S will do okay with his grades in college however I don’t want the set him up to possibly fail. My D went to UTA for nursing and her GPA went from 3.38 to 4.0 each semester depending on the teachers and classes.
My S ton us tonight he has Texas A&M, Texas Tech, UNT, OU and possibly OSU. He is thinking Electrical Engineering with a minor in math. His release is playing the trumpet so he would like to play in the marching band but that will not stop him from attending a college. Right now we are keeping our eyes open and waiting for NMSF numbers to come out. We have UIL academics competition until the end of this year then we are going to start traveling to all the colleges.
@CA1543 , We just had a mini snowstorm around 6:30pm tonight. Make sure that you check weather forecast 
@Tgirlfriend , yep that 3.5 is something to really consider for an engineering major. But at least I could afford great tutoring for a full ride
Sorry my trip reports are so late. We toured Stanford Monday and UC Berkeley Tuesday, but I’ve been busy preparing to put my dad’s house on the market since.
**Stanford: **
Total lottery school of course. One of Stanford’s school newspapers had this year’s 4.69% admission rate on the cover page. Our info session wasn’t that great; the adcom mixed up little facts like whether the SAT has a science section, had a bad answer about how advising works, and confused people about the difference between need-blind admissions and need-based vs. merit-based aid. Otherwise, it provided the general required info.
Our tour, on the other hand, was good. The campus was packed with high school students on spring break, so our tour was large. I was worried when our tour guide didn’t have a microphone, but she could really project. (Drama major and director of an upcoming Rent production.) I could hear her fine from 30-40 feet away despite nearby construction. The tour covered the central area of campus, but we didn’t go inside any buildings or dorms. She did a good job of covering the main topics. DS liked that you can easily take classes from any department and have more flexibility than at the UCs. She had a much better answer about how advising works and talked about the pros of the quarter system, which DS hasn’t tried yet, since our community college has semesters.
Lots of things sounded great, but DS doesn’t want to even hope for it too much. If people have specific questions, let me know.
Lots of bikes on campus, but the bike paths aren’t as differentiated from the walking paths as we are used to at UCSB. DC21 skateboarded around and hung out using the WiFi.
We didn’t think much of lunch at the food court, but I’m sure there are better places to eat on campus.
DS had an appointment with the Undergrad Student Services person in the Physics department. She talked with him about the various different curriculum plans for physics, applied physics, engineering physics, and specializations like astrophysics. She said the physics major can be completed in 3 to 3.5 years if you come in with some math credits and start on physics right away. So, there is time to double major or do study abroad. It’s rare to have that time in physics, because the required course list is long and mostly a locked-in sequence. She had him also talk with the Undergrad Lab Supervisor, who was an enthusiastic and sociable person. DS liked what he heard about Undergrad Research. It took about 40-60 minutes altogether.
We also visited the Memorial Church and Hoover Tower on our own. They were tuning the pipe organ in the church, and that was interesting to watch/hear.
**UC Berkeley: **
Good info session, but surprising how many times the adcom mentioned “that other Pac-12 school in the Bay Area; the one that starts with S.” Stanford didn’t mention Berkeley at all or much about sports.
For people applying to UCs next year, Berkeley doesn’t yet know whether they will be asking for letters of recommendation next fall. It was a random pilot program this year, and the other UCs don’t want to be forced into reading LoRs. Berkeley’s Faculty Senate pressured admissions to use LoRs this year. I asked the adcom after the info session how valuable she had found LoRs to be. She said she felt that most recommenders had used sort of a form letter and changed the student name. But, she reads Sacramento and parts of California north of that, so rural, not high-achieving schools. CA teachers and GCs may not be good at writing LORs because of a lack of practice at schools where few students apply beyond the UC system.
Also, she talked about the new UC essays and said the adcom staff is excited to have different topics to read after the same ones for 10+ years.
The tour was good. Also mostly outside. We went into the biology building, but mainly to see dinosaur models. I hung out in the nearby town some summers back in the '80s, but never went into the campus much beyond Sproul Plaza, so it was nice to see there’s a nice looking campus. The town has gone downhill I think at least on the South end of campus. There were some students protesting on both sides of the Palestinian issue and mentions of the Free Speech movement on the tour, so those tied the campus to some of its history.
DS had a visit with the Student Services person in the Physics department also, but it was a fairly short meeting. She gave him copies of the degree plans and talked a bit about some course renumbering they are doing. She asked a few questions about his current coursework. He asked about also taking CS courses. She suggested he talk with someone in CS and mentioned that if you double-major, you get an extra semester to complete everything. Unfortunately, the easiest way to get into CS classes at Cal is to be a CS major or double-major.
DS decided not to do the dorm tour we’d scheduled. He was hungry and figured he’d look at the dorms next year if it ends up being one of his top choices out of places he’s admitted. Dorms are not guaranteed beyond freshman year.
There are about 25 physics majors per year at Stanford and 300+ per year at Berkeley. Berkeley probably moved down a notch or two for DS because of its large size, impersonal feeling, and difficulty of getting classes outside the major if they are in impacted departments.
@SincererLove – A dusting of snow here this morning in Northeast today & 35-50mph winds. Spring where did you go? Come back!!
Does anyone have any suggestions for looking at student reviews, or how ‘happy’ students are at their school? I’ve looked at Niche (can I say that?), Reddit a bit, Yik Yak (for a good laugh), but really that’s about it. Found a new one that I see is getting filtered out by CC (if you Google “College Search, Stats, and Reviews” you will find it, probably the #1 result). The reviews are all anonymous, so probably won’t put a lot of stock in them, but they are interesting.
I’m most likely forgetting other ones I’ve used. Any other suggestions?
@Ynotgo, great trip reports. That’s such a good idea that your S considered the size of the physics programs since that could very much influence fit for many kids (including mine).
@2muchquan, I’ve been asking myself the same questions, as we will surely not be able to visit every school on D’s list! A lot of smaller schools don’t have much presence on CC (last post March 2009!) There are the traditional guide books. We have Fiske and Insider’s Guide out from the library right now. I’ve also looked at Niche and the filtered one. Hadn’t considered Reddit – good idea. One thing I do is look at schools where D11 and her friends have gone and compare their impressions with the various reviews. Or even D17’s and my impressions on visits. I also pay attention to whether the different review sites/books seem to agree with each other. I’ll be glad to see other suggestions as well.
@Ynotgo – you could have written our Stanford-Berkeley report.
Stanford info session was very underwhelming, but tour was very well done. I noticed the skateboards and bikes when driving to campus the night before our info session. (My son met up with a current student to chat.) It appears that the students ‘commute’ via board. Large, beautiful campus. Apparently students rarely attend early AM classes b/c they are all taped. Son sat in on a couple and there were not many other students in class.
Berkeley—didn’t think much of info session or tour…or the construction. Son tried to attend a math lecture but could not find a seat—on a Friday afternoon, no less. Instead, we were lucky to be able to talk to a very friendly CS PHD who works in some capacity advising the U/G CS majors. I worried about ability to enroll in desired CS classes. As an OOS payer, I don’t want my son having to attend U/G for more than four years.
RE: dorm tour. Older son never saw the dorms of the school where he applied ED. When I asked him if he would like to visit the school during April admit days so he could see the dorms, he responded: “I will see them in August. It’s not like anything is going to change.”
@snoozn Exactly. My D has followed up with 2 of our tour guides via email with questions, too. In addition to student feedback, I like to look at major awards by the department. I wish there was a simple way to search for publications. Some professors occasionally have personal pages listing this info (CVs).
I’ve enjoyed reading your trip reports @2muchquan. I even forwarded your report on U of SC to my daughter who is doing research there this summer. It’s nice to read about the lay of the land before you go.
@Ynotgo: I love touring California campuses just for the weather!
@CT1417 : I know this isn’t your first rodeo but a few factors that helped my physics major D make her decision were: class size, availability of professors, rigor, and the ability to move laterally or double major. She also talked to female students who had gone to different schools about the attitude of professors toward women in STEM. One school came off the list instantly. She preferred the smaller school - big fish/little pond scenario. But your son may like the big school feel.
Someone up thread asked about professors. Rate my professor is another site dd used. Also she just stopped people on tours and asked them questions about the food, classes and anything else that came to mind. Everyone seemed very candid. Another question she asked was, “why did you choose this school?” And “would you choose it again?”
@Agentninetynine – thanks. My son’s thought process is evolving as we visit more schools. He is interested in CS & Math, but the focus is on CS, as he thinks many schools have very solid math departments. He was originally determined to try to attend the ‘best’ CS school, but I think has come around a little to my way of thinking about the full college experience. He worked with a CS prof last summer and hopes to do the same this summer, but his focus may change in a couple of years, so he is now taking a step back and looking at the overall university, not just the CS dept.
I don’t think university size is as much of a determinant as CS dept size and depth.
A lot may change after we visit six more schools in April.
You guys are quiet!
OK, I don’t know if you know or care about this, but one more tool for your tool belt: Google Scholar
I just stumbled on this. You can use it to search for all sorts of publications (and other things) related to a professor or university. I’m still playing with it, but here is a Google Scholar search using “Harvard University”:
(if it doesn’t get filtered out) I’m using it to look up professors works. Kinda neat.
We are also back from our tips. We visited Pitt, where my son attends, Washington University in St. Louis, and St. Louis University. My D17 is interested in occupational therapy and we are on the merit money chase.
Sorry for the length, don’t know if it is helpful or harmful.
tl;dr version: visited all three schools, daughter liked them all.
Pitt:
We spent the weekend in Pittsburgh with my S14 and then attended an information session, campus tour, and honors college information session. Even though my S14 is about to complete his sophomore year, I can’t emphasize enough that the city of Pittsburgh is not what I thought it would be. The city has been completely transformed into a medical and technology center. The weather for everyday of the visit, except the official visit day was nice. We spent a beautiful Easter Sunday mostly outside. We also spent 90 minutes in an “escape room”, trying to break out of a jail by solving puzzles. If you think college search amplifies family dynamics, you should try an escape room.
The information session was pretty good; we didn’t learn too much since my son already attends. Pitt does offer merit aid, from $5000 per year all the way to a few full rides. Pitt is a “state affiliated” university, neither private nor fully public. Pitt has about 18 000 undergrads and 10 000 grad and professional students. Pitt’s version of why they are distinctive is that they are “an urban, medium sized R1 institution.” They really emphasize undergrad access to research. (But we all know many institutions do.) Pitt seems to rank higher in world rankings versus national rankings. The occupational therapy department is ranked 4th(tie).
Our tour guide was a fortunate match because she was involved in Best Buddies, an activity my daughter wishes to continue in college. We saw a dorm room in the Towers; it is the least glamorous of all the dorms, but in fairness, it has the most freshman beds. The rooms their are quite small and “pie slice” shaped, but the students still seem happy there. The honors dorm was part of an upper campus tour we didn’t take. (But S14 lived in the honors dorm so we were already familiar)
Pitt’s honors college is different from most. They consider it a “delivery model”. They believe that the best students want to take more challenging / more in-depth courses and the best professors want to teach them. The job of the honors college is to put them together. As such, there is no “membership” in the honors college, there is “eligibility” to register to for honors courses and to apply for honors housing. On the plus side, no one is really in an honors course if they don’t want to be. On the down side, you really are not incented to stretch as far in other honors courses that you might not think you would like, but you really would.
We then drove to St. Louis to visit Washington University and St. Louis University.
Wash U:
We attended an information session and tour at Wash U. The information session was good with two of the best presenters that we have seen. Washington U has about 8000 undergrads and 7 000 professional students. The campus is pretty well contained in a nice area of St. Louis right next to Forest Park, a park 500 acres larger than central park in NY. The university is wealthy and it shows with a beautiful campus. In the information session, Washington U says they are distinctive because nearly everyone double majors or pursues a minor. Although very selective, they argue that the culture in collaborative not competitive. They offer a few very competitive scholarships up to full tuition.
On the tour, we visited a dorm and it was truly a palace. The room was larger than any we have seen. The mattresses are Tempurpedic. The food looked really good and the campus is easily walkable. Wash U’s occupational therapy program is tied for #1. In rankings, Wash U is usually ranked higher domestically than internationally.
We ended the tour and ducked into a local coffee shop to wait out a quick thunderstorm.
SLU:
After the rainstorm, we attended a SLU information session and tour. I was favorably impressed and liked it more than I expected. There is a moderate building boom going on with two new dorms being constructed, one to open Fall of 2016 and one to open Fall of 2017. The campus is moderately sized and reasonably well contained in the city. The information session was good and our tour guide was quite good. SLU argues that they are distinctive because of their Jesuit heritage and emphasis on service. They track service hours and claim to “third” with #1 and #2 schools being many times larger. They have a core curriculum, as I believe all Jesuit schools do.
D17 and I both agreed on our impression: SLU was both nicer and more Catholic than we expected. Although the student population is currently 51/49 Non-Catholic/Catholic, there is a definite emphasis on the Roman Catholic side here. Our tour guide was from a local Catholic high school and that may have contributed to our feelings.
Google Scholar is a very useful site. We used it 5 years back for middle school robotics (FLL) project 
@Dave_N …thanks so much for these reviews! We toured Pitt and Wash U sends all the mail and email so I have always been curious.
Question about Pitt that D didn’t ask: is their a guaranteed OT program? I saw it on their website but the link didn’t work. D goes back and forth between bioengineering and OT. She loved Pitt for all the reasons you described: medium size, urban setting. We saw a dorm room at Nordenburg (the new dorm in the heart of the campus) and it was pretty standard, nothing to write home about.
I appreciate all the visit reports. Thanks to everyone for sharing your impressions.
I am trying not to feel stressed about the whole search process but it’s not working!
Edit: should be “there”… Should never post on CC until after the morning cup of coffee!!
I enjoy reading the reports, too.
@WhereIsMyKindle I refuse to get stressed. I can’t control what I can’t control. I can’t change what I can’t change. We can only make the best decisions we can with the information we have available.
Fwiw, I am 100% unconvinced that where they go to school makes that big of a difference in the long run as long as the school provides decent opportunities to excel, intern, and find jobs. Seriously, I think most of the fit and connection stuff is more hyperbole than reality. (Definitely a minority view on CC. But our adult children seem to succeed I spite of CC’s prevailing wisdom. )
@carachel2 I hate the way that CC doesn’t let you edit. I am usually multi-tasking when I post and my posts are full of mistakes. Sometimes they are pretty bad and I would edit if I could. I have gotten to the point that I just do t care anymore bc it is either post and have mistakes or. To post bc I am rarely able to post with complete attention and time to proofread.