So much for trying to plan visits. I set up a college tour for a Saturday when my s23 had nothing on the calendar. Wrong! He texts me today he has a rugby game that Saturday. Fingers crossed that the times might work out as the college and the game are only 15 minutes from each other!
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@stencils - I am sure Stony Brook is great if you live there/know it well. But my dad and I visited years ago, the campus and the town, and we joked ever afterward about āthe unfriendly village of Stony Brookā - we just had the weirdest day there, everyone was so unfriendly. D23 also wants an urban campus-we looked at Drexel which was pretty great and will go back to Philly to look at Temple. I might give her a nudge to check out CUNY Brooklyn. I am not sure if itās real or hype but they look like they are beefing up their residential options.
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If your kid wants an urban campus, and found Drexel good in that regard, then yes, Temple may approach perfection. (From college tours last summer my D23 discovered she didnāt want an urban campusāand while Drexel was kind of a borderline case for her, Temple was right out.)
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Yes, I thought Drexel was surprisingly nice! A friend told me they ruled it out because of the neighborhood and I am not sure what they saw that we didnāt mind? My husband and I both worked in NYC for years (not now with Corona, we are all at home) and as a family we spend a lot of time in NYC and Brooklyn. So maybe we are just used to much worse, lol. I thought Drexel seemed pretty green and clean. My friendās daughter is at Temple now, and we will go visit her. I hear itās grittier. She would really like to check out some schools in Boston, Iām hoping we can get up there before schools end but am not sure it will happen.
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Here are the guidelines. There are timeframes, and you have to work with a certifying organization which could be the org you volunteered for or your school, but they must be approved to give the award.
https://presidentialserviceawards.gov/eligibility#volunteers
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Hi @Poochie21 ā The Stony Brook neighborhood seemed very high-end New England to me. We didnāt have any interactions with the locals. The tour guides were quite friendly, but perhaps not representative! It was just really odd how empty a campus of 17,000 undergrads felt on a mid-day monday. My S23 said the quads reminded him of museum courtyards. Well groomed, quiet, and not particularly ācollege like.ā It was an odd description, but I can see where it came from.
Both my older Ds love Temple. Older D17 graduated in May 2021 as an EE and still lives in Philly and works in center city now. My D20 is finishing her sophomore year in CS next week. Templeās North Philly neighborhood is an interesting mix of high poverty areas with an uptick of issues in the last year (mostly north/west of campus), and very fast gentrification in the last 6 years (mostly south/east of campus). There has been some concern voiced by parents in both the Temple Parents FB group and current parents in the forum here about the uptick in crime in the areas around campus. The campus itself is beautiful, well lit, well patrolled, and in my opinion completely safe. Would I wander alone 6 blocks east or north alone after dark? Of course not, thatās just street sense. The campus itself is built into the Philly street grid, but is more connected/cohesive/contiguous than Drexel. For someone seeking an urban campus, thereās a real sense of a ācampusā while still being very integrated into the city. The Broad St subway line has a stop right on campus, and my daughters take the subway all the time. If you have any questions, please feel free to DM me as well.
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Did your D end up applying to any of the engineering camps? I just found out that my S didnāt get a spot at EPIC at Cal Poly, and we are still waiting to hear about the one at UIUC. I just signed him up for the one at U Kansas, but there wasnāt much description of the program. Heās really wanting to do one to help him determine whether engineering is the right choice for him.
Sorry if this is a repeat topic (thereās 2700+ posts in this thread, I havenāt had them all).
We have twins HS class of 2023 that are only interested in ONE common school. So we are attempting to visit 13 colleges this summer. Only one is driving distance. Ugh, the prices of flights is killing me. But what is worse is that colleges take forever to post their summer tour schedules. We finally went ahead and booked our trips to find they are not aligning with tours that are now being posted (and many are still outstanding.)
Is it even worth visiting a campus in summer for a self-guided tour? No students, no vibe, nothing. Are there ways to make it more worthwhile? Or just skip it (and forgo the potential ED application. Not applying ED sight unseen.) In the past when tours booked up too fast, we have hired students to tour us around and that has been great, but I donāt expect many to be around in summertime.
Some schools have even said they only post dates a month in advance. Easy to drive in with that kind of notice, but if you have to fly, waiting is gonna cost you $900 per ticket one way instead of $250.
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I think it depends on the school and if they have an active summer session. If you can hit the end or beginning of term that would be better from a vibe perspective.
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college terms end before our HS ends and start after our HS begins again so hitting in term wonāt happen. I know we wonāt get the vibe from a ton of students around I am just wondering if anyone has positive experiences getting anything at all from a self guided tour versus a guided tour/info session.
We toured a few colleges last summer - and tbh it didnāt add much value. Hard to feel the vibe on a (nearly) empty campus, and without an official tour we couldnāt get inside any buildings. We might still have been ok with this but then in fall we got a chance to take some actual tours and realized it made a big difference.
So do the guided tours as far as possible - you may need to take a day off in fall if necessary although several schools do offer weekend tours.
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Thanks. We are looking for ways to rearrange our flights to get a real tour at one of the top choice schools. We have thought about fall tours. I guess if we flew in on a Sunday we could do a Monday tour and fly home that night. Very hard to quickly get to east coast schools from the west coast. But we might have to figure it out.
Do your students have a fall break? If so, I would try and go then. For schools that are closer than the opposite coast, perhaps if there are professional development days that their school is closed, you could go then. And any remaining schools could be visited once admission decisions come out.
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I know, right?
As someone in a location where itās a plane flight to get pretty much anywhere and with four kids, this is one of my great annual frustrations.
(And for those who say you canāt get much from a summer tour, Iāll just say I donāt get that idea. Itās not like the facilities and campus layout changes with the seasons, you know?)
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Are any of the schools on the list on quarters? That may create a window.
Even if school isnāt in session, there may still be official visits. If you can do those, I think you can still get something out of the visit. If you do a self guided, you probably wonāt be able to get in to see any of the buildings or facilities.
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No fall break. No teacher workday in the fall. Used to have one but itās gone next year. We will figure it out. Somehow.
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Did countless tours with the first, a healthy number with the second and so far (and likely) zero for the third. He is actively opposed to touring any schools before he applies and claims he is unlikely to after acceptances (we likely will push back on the latter). He begrudgingly has agreed to do a few scheduled virtual tours this summer to matches or safeties that track demonstrated interest, but only because they track that. Most of the reaches donāt track.
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re: engineering camp from above:
we have an email in to KU about it - have a small timing issue! but thatās the one she wants to attend. we toured KU engineering in early April and she liked it. they did say - a month ago- it was filling quickly - like 130/200 spots were full then. so Iām glad to hear you got in. we probably will be very soon. and thatās why she wants to do it - to see if she really wants to go into engineering.
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We wont be visiting any colleges that require a flight before applying. My kid is quite frankly too busy.
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We have one summer visit / tour / flight planned: Dalhousie in Halifax Nova Scotia. S23ās really excited to go ā and Mom and Dad are just happy to have an excuse to return to Halifax for a mini-vacation. Mercifully, Dalhousie just published the summer tour schedule and sign-up so we were able to get cheap flights and know we have a formal tour scheduled.
Iām sitting right now on Templeās campus in Philly. Lots of happy near-grads having pictures taken in front of iconic campus spots today with cap and gown, and sometimes a champagne bottle 
. Graduation ceremonies are Wed-Fri this week. Iām in an on-campus hotel room while I wait for D20 to finish exams tomorrow so we can finish packing up her apartment to move back home for the summer.
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