Parents of the HS Class of 2025

Parents Forum Class of 20xx Community
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Are you comfortable revealing WHERE in Manhattan the summer intensive is - so one can gauge distances to be gapped?

My feeling is that you’re in NYC anyway - so you might as well attend the info session, as long as your daughter doesn’t feel you’re infringing on her process/experiences. You might learn about some angles of the college (favorable or unfavorable in your mind, that you can report to your daughter to see how she feels about those).

Then use “Find Your Phone” or similar tool so that your daughter might catch up with you along the way. Make sure she brings a copy of whatever paper she needs for campus access - although she will likely have to wait outside whatever building you are at the time so you/the guide can “fetch” her.

Since the “Barnumbia” campus is so completely unique both from NYU and from Fordham, I think she would definitely benefit from laying eyes on it in person, eventually crossing the street to the main university campus (as she would many times while student at Columbia University, for academics, certain libraries, certain dining halls, gym, hanging out with CC friends, certain clubs, etc.).
Later stroll down (south) on Broadway, possibly catching a bite, while (unknowingly) passing some of the apartment buildings where some floors are actually “dorms” for sophomore and later years.

This way, she will get an impression how this “feels” to her, vs. other campuses she’s seen.

PS: You’re saying you’re taking the train from NJ? So if she’s interested enough, she could decide it’s worth taking the train herself for the full info session/tour some other week/month?

And/or, if very interested, she could arrange permission with her high school to sample one or two days of real classes of her choice at Barnard while college is in session.

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@kirroyalemum , I will check out the High Line and Tenement Museum! And good food is always a plus. I’ve heard of the Top of the Rock, but know nothing about it. Don’t tempt me with bookstores–that’s why I’m going to the library!

@DigitalDad , Thanks for chiming in! She’ll be just off the Christopher St station on PATH. From what I can tell, that looks like Greenwich Village or West Village. We haven’t talked about these tours yet, since she is nearly impossible to get ahold of at her present intensive, so I’ll have to scope her out to see how she feels about me going. I like that perspective. And since I don’t know the Barnumbia campus, it’s good to know about crossing streets and the like. I know she prefers a campus, so we’re not looking at NYU (or BU), but I’m curious to see if Barnard feels different, bc my understanding is it is a more defined campus.

I wasn’t clear about the NJ part. We don’t live on the East Coast; we’re staying with friends in NJ to avoid the hotel costs in NYC–hence the train. So it’s either next week or fly back another time. That’s sort of why I’m signing her up without fully getting her buy-in. This look is more to rule out types of campuses and to get a feel for different schools; I mean, if she likes either school, fantastic. But she’s my non-brand driven kid and I think she’s going to have a harder time ruling out than ruling in.

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Yes, it is and absolutely will feel completely different from NYU or BU. Naturally, not the rural campus feel of course, but as much as a definite campus feel as one can get in Manhattan :wink: . Even with Broadway running across it – up there, Bdwy feels more like a regular “street”, with a green island between directions. Depending on the day, there might even be “Farmer’s Market” trucks parked along Broadway.

I think walking Columbia University (incl. Barnard) will help with at least either ruling it either in, or out.

Depending where she actually has to go from Christopher street, there are Subway stations at Houston, Christopher and 14th street for the northbound RED (1) train, which will take her directly to Barnard at 116th street in about 25 minutes. Weekday afternoons, trains run every 6 minutes.

If she’s closer to Washington Sq & 6th Ave, or 14th St. & 8th Ave, then the BLUE (6) train would take her to Cathedral Pkwy or even 116th Street (bottom of Morningside Park) – but the uphill walk from there to Barnard will probably be as least as long as walking to a #1 subway station in the village – making the #1 train the preferred option. (Unless you spring for a cab; which is not guaranteed to be any quicker.)

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What are your interests?
There is of course the Met where you can spend days, but the nice thing is, you pick whatever area of interest (musical instruments, fashions, pharaos,…) and make “that” your visit for as long as you care.

But there are also museums that deal with the history of the city of New York, if someone enjoys history. Along that line, yes, the Tenement Museum offers a number of different tours inside more than one building.

A hidden, little gem is to sign up for a tour of this private museum:

You can easily cover it in an hour, even after your daughter gets out of her program.

Since you love books - visit the Jefferson Market Library in the village, just for the building itself, since you happen to be in the neighborhood anyway.

Given that you’ve done the Smithsonians, you might be less motivated for the iconic Museum of Natl. History.

Of course, if you happen to be in Midtown anyway for either the Met or other Museums, then (an extended) walk into Central Park, up to Belvedere Castle gives you an unexpected view of NYC.

There is an aircraft carrier and submarine – if that kind of technology interests you.

Yes, I would recommend that 9/11 Museum, and site, and from there you could stroll to Battery Park City and walk along the waterfront.

You could do an NBC studio tour, and/or the “behind the scenes” tour of Radio City Music Hall (which coincidentally is where Barnard students graduate).

If you don’t mind going all the way to Ft. Washington:

for yet another unexpected angle of Manhattan.

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@DigitalDad , Thank you for all of this! Clearly you know the area well and I am grateful for your expertise. Again, this is super helpful.

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I think it’s a bit weird, but I have done it. :grinning:

We did a tour of U of Puget Sound, and she was visiting a class during the info session, so I went alone. I did talk to them to let them know why I was there alone, although it probably wasn’t necessary.

I do think that overall the info sessions kind of all blend into each other, and 90% of most of them are identical, at least within school type. I mostly went because I was specifically interested in their scholarship process, which I knew they would cover. I did get a few interesting tidbits out of it, although honestly going mostly helped me kill time until we reunited for the tour.

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Also depending on your timing, Bagels on the Square is kind of a cool West Village place imho. It was maybe a 15 minute walk from my old place when I lived in NYC, and should be near where you are. My wife and I would sometimes go on Saturdays (although it’s NYC so any day works), grab a bagel and a schmear, and then walk across the street to find a bench and just eat our bagel and people watch. I did the same with D25 when we had a day to kill in NYC, it was midweek and the same vibe, just less crowded.

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We just returned to NJ from a week in Portland, OR. I could not get my D25 or husband to even drive by a college. We were in N Portland visiting shops/cafes and it was only 10 minutes to drive past UofPort but not interested. Forget my secret ambitions to go up to UofPugetSound. One positive outcome is by the end of the week my D has agreed that she really likes NW Portland and would prefer living close with easy access. She was fortunate to meet a Reed student at a concert and they chatted for a while - not about college directly but about the young ladys general life in Portland and music. We lucked out with the weather, only on our way to the airport home it was hazy from a wildfire. I promised D we would come back my dad isn’t doing great and we spent most of the week getting him situated. She is sad but glad to have the time with him she did.

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I want to move to Oregon! I visited University of Oregon by myself this summer and liked it.

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It’s just so beautiful in Oregon with big trees and giant mountains you can see from anywhere on a clear day, even a cloudy day sometimes you can still see 1. My (not so) secret hope is my D goes to school out west and decides to stay so I have to move back. It’s just so expensive for housing compared to the region of NJ I live in not to mention my field pays less. Do you think you’ll apply to UofO? It’s not going to be in budget for us but maybe some of the private schools can come down enough.

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It’s on D25’s list but I think she might want a LAC.

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hi all - have a kid who just graduated, my last of 4! – and just popping in to say
“set up those college related email accounts!” if you haven’t already.

we are closing out my daughter’s - she has 4169 unread emails just from colleges. I’m so thankful they did not plug up her normal email account or her HS account. She’d be missing the real emails! :slight_smile:

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It also helps to unsubscribe and/or tell your kid not to check the College Search Service box when they take any standardized texts.

Another tip is to create smart mailboxes for each of the schools they actually care about to prevent emails to get lost in the shuffle.

Finally, emails get automatically forwarded to my account so I can alert them when anything important comes in.

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unsubscribing! yes!!!

and jr year - when kids sign up at school for psat - watch that email address and subscriptions. (our daughter didnt! )

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Depends on the kid—my C17 enjoyed the feeling of “collecting” colleges. (Though she then also unsubscribed from the ones she wasn’t interested in.)

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Last fall, when S25 took the PSAT, he put MY email address down. I am still unsubscribing. Also his College Board email is mine at the moment. Kind of glad, he got an offer from them for free 8 session peer tutoring for the August SAT that he would not have mentioned to me but I registered him for :joy:

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Thank you! Just did this today.

D25 and my husband are going to PNW to visit family. They are going to stop in Seattle and visit UW. I am worried because D25’s GPA is like 3.7 and I don’t want her to get attached to such a competitive school. She’s also toured UC Davis (through her school, and she just told us she was going–we didn’t arrange it), but this feels different because we have no local connection. The acceptance rate for our high school to UW is 52%. I hope I’m overthinking. But if anyone has anything else to recommend for UW, I’m all ears.

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oh now I need to ask D25 if she got an offer like that for the Aug. SAT.

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This summer is flying by. D25 is back from Italy but already has some school club meetings today and next week. She also has a job interview this week. She leaves town again next Saturday for her week long mission trip.

She has one more book left for her summer reading and needs to get back into SAT studying. She’s had almost 2 weeks off of that.

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The peer tutoring offer is cool. D25 got an offer to take a practice online SAT I’m guessing to help test the new format, but she had to respond and then see if she is chosen.

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