East Coast tour.
Bryn Mawr:
We registered for the info session and tour in March. One week before the registered date, after all the trip plans were carefully made, they contacted and said, “Oh, that day is admitted student day so we won’t have the regular info session or campus tour. Please come on a different date.” NO!! We cannot come on the different date unless you pay our flight cancellation fee!! It was infuriating. We did visit and did the self-guided tour.
At the admission office, we told them we wanted to do the self-guided tour. Maybe because “interest was not considered”, they didn’t even take D’s name. They told us to take whatever maps and brochures we wanted and go ahead. There was this nice student who wanted to help us collecting the brochures but somehow she was stopped from helping us. I don’t know why. The admission looked snooty and not welcoming at all.
I scored one free postcard from admission office and one from the campus center. Postcard was 50 cents plus tax.
(It’s my self-created tradition to buy college postcards and send them to my mother and mother-in-law on the road)
We loved the campus anyways. It was quiet but Villanova and Haverford are one station away in each direction, so I guess it’s OK. The only thing my D hates is that the students have to pass the swimming test to graduate. She cannot swim…
Barnard:
Great tour and great info session. Info session was all about how to apply and what kind of person they were looking for. Good energy throughout. We wanted to see the dorm rooms but they didn’t show us. I think my D will ED here for sure.
No postcards. Well, they had Barnard greeting cards but I wanted postcards! Ended up picking up random NYC postcards for my mothers.
Wellesley:
We were too tired to do the 9am info session so we decided to tour at 11am. I assumed that the commuter trains run often. It turned out that the trains run only twice an hour so we arrived at the school too late to join the tour. We did self-guided tour. The buildings were gorgeous but sparce and there was no big green quad I expected. People were nice and friendly. I didn’t get any intense vibe but it was awfully quiet.
Too isolated for my D who loves people and busy streets. She said she’s not going to apply.
Good selection of postcards. That made me happy but they were expensive. $1.50 each. Oh, their bookstore was full of Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright books!!
Brandeis:
One and only co-ed university on this tour!
Boys’ presence made the atmosphere very different from women’s colleges. While resting on the green grass, we overheard the group of girls gossipping about other girls harshly. We moved to the student center and sat at the cafe. One boy was talking and laughing like Beavis and Butt-head. Oh dear.
Info session was good but they spent mostly on the history of Brandeis. Very different session from Barnard.
Tour guide was a vibrant woman who kept saying, “Sweeeet!!” The dorm we looked at had separate bathrooms for men and women which my D really liked.
It was like any other mainstream universities you see everywhere. Nothing stood out for me but my D liked it enough to keep in the list.
No school postcard. So I bought Harvard postcards when we visited there for fun afterwards. My mothers would be surprised! They were only 75 cents each!!
