For those considering weather. Was looking thru some university social media pages. Had to laugh seeing the photo of the person in Minnesota with shorts on walking to class. Meanwhile others in the photo have on long winter coats. (It’s been in the single digits to teens with negative wind chill). Cold weather is all relative. 
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Speaking of weather: When I was an undergrad at Maryland, I had a campus job in an office where one other student was working. She was from the state of Maryland, but had gone to Clemson freshman year before transferring to Maryland for sophomore year.
Having grown up with occasional snow and cold weather, she said that one of her filters was that if she was sent a brochure from a college and there were any pictures with snow in it, she threw it away and crossed that college off her list.
Not saying for certain that she hated what little snow we got at Maryland, but she did transfer back to Clemson after sophomore year.
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I love all the summer plans and updates!
I cannot find any college that is doing visits in person!?!
The long list (ballet plus science/engineering) includes Half the ivies , Indiana, Butler, Wake, JHU, CMU, WashU, Emory, MIT, UofR, Stanford, UChicago…none have tours. ughh. I think it will have to wait.
IF anyone has insight on any of these let me know. Wake is doing some tours but not for 10th as far as I know.
(I know the list is reach-heavy but this is not our first rodeo, and the kid is in line with those in the school who have a very good shot at at least half of these–4 of these are likelies, for sure).
Summer plans: BostonBallet, ABT and a program in France IF Covid allows that one to happen.
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Too funny! D19 refused to consider any college in a state that didn’t get snow. That eliminated a large chunk of the country including CA.
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So this got me to go through my daughter’s longlist (which isn’t all that long, since she’s after a less-common major, and is made up of every college offering it that has over 3k students, has a reasonable endowment, and gets enough sunlight in winter)—but since it hasn’t been whittled down yet by strength of program or location (except the sunlight thing), I figure it’s a good overview. These were really quick checks and so some might be wrong, but here’s more or less the breakdown:
Not doing visits (or can’t tell): Berklee, Cal Poly Pomona, Cal State Northridge, City College (New York), Clemson, Colorado Boulder, Colorado Denver, Denver, Drexel, Florida International, Florida State, George Mason, Georgetown, Georgia State, Georgia Tech (will restart July), Hampton, Long Island, Loyola Marymount, Maryland Baltimore County, Miami (Florida), New York University, Northeastern, Northern Arizona, San Diego State, Tufts, Virginia Tech
Doing visits: Alabama Birmingham, American, Appalachian State, Arizona State, Belmont, Butler, Elon, Florida Atlantic, Johns Hopkins, Loyola New Orleans, Louisiana Tech, Memphis, Middle Tennessee, Missouri State, North Carolina Wilmington, North Florida, Northern Kentucky, Oklahoma State, Old Dominion, Providence, Rowan, Samford, Seton Hall, Southern California, Southern Illinois Carbondale, Southern Mississippi, Temple, Texas State, Troy, Wichita State
Also, Villanova isn’t currently offering tours, but will be restarting them in less than a month.
So basically, the coasts are a mixed bag but mostly not doing tours, while inland they’re mostly doing tours (except, oddly, for Colorado).
(Of course, most of those that are offering tours were emphatic about not requiring an appointment and limiting the number of individuals in a tour group, of course.)
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quite impressed your daughter knows what area she wants to pursue!
Thank you so much, @dfbdfb ! this is so helpful
What makes you think Villanova will be doing tours in less than a month?
Because they say they will on their website.
(Looking closer, it’s ambiguous, because one spot makes it look like the beginning of March, but another says just “in March”. Less than two months, though, either way.)
I’m not sure where you’re looking but the statement below is displayed on the admission site. It says to check back in March, not that tours will resume. My cousin is a junior and they are on a campus wide lockdown for 2 weeks. I’m an admitted student and there is no hope for an onsite accepted students day. I asked this question during a zoom with admissions.
CAMPUS VISITS SUSPENDED
For the health and safety of our campus community, we respectfully ask that visitors please do not come to campus at this time, including for self-guided tours.
We hope to resume student-led campus tours this spring. Please check back in March for updated details.
I guess I took that as more hopeful than it was.
Like I said, creating those lists was just a quick runthrough, trying to look at a lot of colleges in as short a time as possible. The Villanova item saying there’d be tours in early March was on an admissions blog post, so sure, that information may well be outdated, but whatevs. (And I separated Villanova out mainly because I wasn’t sure which list to put it in, given what I read last night.)
But I do stand by the general observation that there’s a coastal vs inland difference in whether tours are being held right now or not. A lot of non-coastal colleges are very clearly holding them, no ambiguity whatsoever.
For our S23 we are going to start doing a weekly virtual session with 1-2 colleges just to get him to start thinking about what his likes/dislikes are. Then if things start opening up in late spring we’ll try for a couple of day trips if we can squeeze them in.
I did one to pass along some great advise I got from my D19’s guidance counselor when she was in High School. We were starting Junior year and my D did not want to even talk about college, the whole thought was completely stressing her out. When we met with her counselor she said “These kids have spent the past two years just get comfortable with High School and we are already trying to kick them out the door, it’s easy to get caught up in what other parents are doing, but she’ll be ready when she is ready”
Fast forward, we spent Junior year talking about what her interests were, but never visited or really even spoke about specific colleges. For the summer before senior year, she took a 2 week course that got her to compete her common app and essay. In the mean time we had taken her criteria and interests and developed a list of potential schools that would be a fit. She still was a little overwhelmed with narrowing things down so we just had her applying to a few schools that we though might be a good fit and said lets apply to anything that you are remotely interested in (and some you’re not) and we can wait to see where you are accepted before making any visits. Then right before Christmas she get’s her first acceptance in the mail, and from there it was like a switch was flipped. And as she got in different acceptances we started going to visits and accepted student days, and was able to narrow it down to about 4 schools that she thought could be a good fit. The stress over the final selection is another story itself I’ll save that for another post down the road.
In the end she applied to 22 schools was accepted at 18, accepted for the spring at 1, accepted for the following year at 1 , waitlisted at 1 and rejected at 1. We visited 15 schools over about a 6 week time period and came down to the last day before her ultimate decision. When we talked about the whole crazy process after the decision she said she was stressed about not getting in anywhere!
High School should be a great time for these kids don’t forget to enjoy the journey and recognize that everyone has their own path. I do look forward to sharing in everyones journey over the next 2 1/2 years
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And now, nearly two years late,* D23 has her learners permit!
*In Alaska, kids can get their learners on their 14th(!) birthday.
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Twins got their learners permit in July (15 and 9 month) and stopped driving completely in October. I have no idea when they’ll actually get a license.
My twins turn 16 on 5/25 and are counting down the days until they get their licenses!!! They just look for excuses to get behind the wheel and log drive time lol
D23 got her license a few weeks ago and has driven almost nowhere because of the never-ending snow (she isn’t super comfy in bad weather which we are totally A-Ok with right now).
My youngest got her braces off so no more ortho bills! That is my greatest win thus far this month, lol.
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Hello everyone,
Just curious if any of you have children attending/attended/interested in the following schools:
Temple University
University of Dayton
University of Pittsburgh
Thoughts, insights, etc
Thanks in advance
I think Temple will end up on my sons list but we had no experience with the school.
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They are video recording the school musical this week. Really sad I don’t get to see it in person but they are limiting it to senior parents only. While it’s super cruddy, I know it’s a blessing our district even let them put on a musical at all.
This year it’s Les Miserables and my son was cast as Prouvaire. A small part but he does have some speaking lines and sings a line or two solo then another few bars as a duet. The main characters are so talented I wish they had more audience to share their gifts with.
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@nidaco - My Niece is currently a Senior out at Pitt and loves it. Great location, easy access to the downtown area, beautiful campus. Students all seem to be very involved
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