<p>My daughter objected to the fact that the girls she saw at Princeton were mostly wearing dresses. This is despite the fact that she herself wears dresses all the time.</p>
<p>I kind of think that Princeton is the Platonic version of a college campus. I could kick myself a million times for having visited it in 1980 during my own college search and rejecting it because it was “too rural.” Sigh. What a fool.</p>
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I think it’s Kenyon.</p>
<p>Ooh, that’s a nice choice too, Hunt. I seem to recall one of your kids went there for a summer program? I have upset my daughter greatly in telling her that Princeton (where her cousin goes) nudges out Wellesley on the pretty-campus scale.</p>
<p>We managed our whole Northeast college tour completely on public transit - flew in to Philly, train to NY, Providence, then Boston. Only school on her list we had minor trouble visiting by public transit was Tufts - I underestimated how far the campus was from the subway line and we almost missed the start of our tour. We traveled super light, so we could carry everything on us between hotels, and used luggage check at the train station when needed. DD and I had a blast, snuck in some super quick sight-seeing, and she gained some confidence in navigating east coast cities, where she will be returning this fall.</p>
<p>I have heard how beautiful Princeton’s campus is. But I didn’t know about the BLACK SQUIRRELS. I have only seen them one other time, somewhere in suburban Detroit. I would have applied there (or encouraged my kids to) had I known.</p>
<p>And no, I don’t care if this should be included in the “Stupidest Reason You Applied (or Didn’t) to a College” thread.</p>
<p>As someone who grew up only 15 minutes from Princeton, I can attest that it is one of the prettiest campuses you will ever see. It is stunning. </p>
<p>And as a native Northeasterner, and now that I live in the DC area, I am grateful that almost all of the schools that my son is looking at are within driving distance. What a pain to have to fly 3000 miles to visit colleges…</p>
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<p>Just for the record, Haverford College also has black squirrels. In fact, their sports teams are called the Black Squirrels (some of them, at any rate), after the actual black squirrels on campus.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s typical of CC threads to digress (still familiarizing myself), but find it interesting that this one’s been co-opted by Princeton-lovers beating the same lovely horse again and again. How about sticking to the OP’s original questions/ requests? Especially considering the labels “arrogant” and “bragging rights” and “top-heavy” were used to describe his/ her list/ trip. Is rattling off business trips and nostalgic college visits through P’ton and “so-and-so’s cousin attending this-or-that school” any less boastful or arrogant?</p>
<p>You think it’s arrogant to report that I drove a car through Princeton, New Jersey?</p>
<p>If op comes back with some details (stats. FA vs merit) , we could help more.</p>
<p>For example, Northeastern offers some good merit scholarships… and full tuition scholarships for NMF.</p>
<p>My yard has a black squirrel or two every summer. I would charge much less than Princeton or Haverford for anyone to come look at them. And I’m sure I could work out a reasonable payment plan in any case.</p>
<p>^I will be right over! </p>
<p>We occasionally have golden “blond” squirrels but they seem to know they are special and are generally huge jerks to the common brown ones.</p>
<p>I have never heard of a blond squirrel! You could def charge money for that. Are you sure it’s not a small golden labrador?</p>
<p>I think the OP is being pragmatic if he has decided that he will only go OOS if the school to which he is accepted is a highly selective, top of the lists school, like HPYM and other ivies, and that he has UCs and Cal States that he will choose if he does not get into any of them. </p>
<p>My nephews had similar strategy. They were shoo ins at their state schools at price tags of about $24K and under. The schools were good schools in terms of rep, ratings and recognition. No way they were going to go to, say, Lehigh or Hamilton, or Drexel for a cost much more than the state school costs, and highly unlikely to impossible that any such schools would cough up enough to bring the costs even close to the state schools (plus they were in the running for in state merit money to bring that cost down further). But when you are talking Harvard…well, that’s a whole other story. Parents would maybe dig down deep, take out loans to pay for Harvard, maybe even Wharton. So when there is a restricted time table, why bother looking at schools when the likelihood is not there that you will even consider it? There are advantages in writing essays and discussing a school, to have visited it rather than them all being a pig in the poke.</p>
<p>Now for kid who are considering the whole spectrum, it’s another story altogether. In such cases, the likelihood of BU or Tufts o NEU being a realistic choice are far higher than HPYM. So you want to focus on those likelihoods. I cringe at some of the tours that kids/families put together where they don’t bother to visit schools that they are going to add on as safeties and those are really the schools that are matches, and to just skip them, is really sending the wrong message. </p>
<p>Yet, I see this all of the time. I know a family who did this with 3 kids, before finally getting it, that it’s a better use of time to tour the schools that are likelihoods. It can put a pall on the actual choices when a family demonstrates with these tours that only the top schools are worth these sorts of visits. If you are going to skip a school, it’s better you skip H over Tufts. H is not going to care for an instant that you did not visit the school… Tufts, Holy Cross, Clark, just might take it into consideration.</p>
<p>To get back to the important topic, does anyone have a good recipe for Black Squirrel Soup?</p>
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<p>That may absolutely be pragmatic and smart; it’s probably a way of thinking that those of us non-Californians don’t immediately think about, because all of those UC-thises and CSU-thats schools are schools that don’t ring any bells with us. (Which is not to say that they might not be absolutely fine quality and good choices. It’s just that we don’t know them if we’re not Californians.)</p>
<p>My nephews are not from CA, and that is the strategy they used. Twins, one is staying instate as none of his lottery tickets came up. The other’s did, and so he is going OOS. The parents do not want to pay more than state u prices for anything other than the very top schools, and the schools had to pass muster with them as to whether they were worth the price or not. They are not eligible for financial aid either, and sizeable merit is tough to get. Both boys were good candidates for highly selective schools, and for some merit aid, but the likelihood of getting enough merit money to bring a full priced school down to what the state u prices are were very small. They did throw in some schools just to see, and the biggest award either got was in the $10K range, hardly a dent in the $60K+ price tags, and that school was easily deemed not comparable to the state flagship and not good deal either. Those things were very important to the family, namely the bill payer, so that’s the way the did things. </p>
<p>My BIL would have come up with money for MIT or HPY for certain. Anything else, ummm, don’t know even if up on the top 25 lists. Below those rankings, it was not even a consideration. Cost had to be below State unis.</p>
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<p>And that totally shows if you actually do take the tour. The official tour at Harvard blows. As for the OP, our family employed a similar strategy in reverse, visiting a number of highly selective Midwestern LACs but skipping over the potential matches/safeties. I can’t tell you if that was right or wrong, but I understand the thought process – particularly when “Plan B” is the UC system.</p>
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We had a very good tour at Harvard. The info session, not so much.</p>