Planning tour of (mostly) women's colleges, suggestions welcome

Looks like you have a great plan! Been off the thread for a couple of days but my suggestion was gong to be to check with the schools for tour availability as that changed our plans a few times on our trips…but you got that! Now I am just going to cross my fingers that you have great weather. We are buried under a snowstorm today and school already cancelled for tomorrow!

The OP wrote,
“I’ve read many times on CC that the last campus on a long string of tours suffers by comparison, just because the kid is worn out.”

Not always. One trip took us, in order, to Binghamton, Cornell, Colgate, Hamilton, Middlebury, and Williams. Son chose Williams.

“at Harvard and Princeton, you’re not going to see much in terms of building interiors”

That’s right. Unless you have a friend to bring you into their spaces, you’ll mostly be standing out in the cold.

@TheGreyKing On our 7 day 8 college tour of the Midwest my D’s favorite was the last one on the last day Oberlin. It was the only one she liked. I was so exhausted I barely remember anything from that day except that success finally happened.

When we toured colleges, we never did more than one school per day, and S always did the info session and the tour and went to a class if that was possible. (Sometimes it wasn’t.) Although I laid out an agenda that took you to a lot of schools, that isn’t what I would actually recommend. :slight_smile:

All of the schools you are visiting are physically attractive in one way or another. The outlier is Barnard, because the location is VERY urban in a way the others are not. She may love it, she may be overwhelmed by it.

My S was overwhelmed by it when he visited Columbia, and decided not to apply. But he happily went there for journalism school not that many years later, and loved it. :slight_smile:

Actually, my daughter thought the most beautiful campus she visited was Columbia — not a college she intented to apply to, but it was obviously a point in Barnard’s favor. Especially since she probably ended up spending more time overall on the Columbia side of the street. My daughter made her aesthetic judgments based on architecture, not vegetation. :slight_smile:

So beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For a kid who lkes city life,“physically attractive” has a very different meaning.

I meant to indicate that Barnard/Columbia is also physically attractive, simply in a more urban way than the others.

For the record, S detested Princeton. :smiley:

And my daughter though Smith was awful and old looking, but loved the Air Force Academy because all the buildings are neat and uniformed. To each her own.

Yes-- my daughter hated Goucher because it had “too many trees” and because the buildings “all looked alike.”.And she fell in love with NYU, which of course has no campus at all in the traditional sense.I just kind of went with the flow.

I’d note that some of my daughter’s concerns were practical. She knew it could get cold and snowy on the east coast, so when she would visit a campus and see wide open green space she’d envision herself trudging to class through snow and rain. Barnard had underground tunnels. They were invisible from the surface and ugly on the inside, given that they were long windowless corridors… but they definitely were warm and dry. (That was 10 years ago though… I have no idea what the current tunnel situation is at Barnard. Probably a good question to ask during a campus info session or tour).

differing opinion … don’t focus so much on early trips before acceptances. what’s not to like about all these top schools? focus on 3-4 favorites after D gets admissions (and you know you can afford them) and visit with overnights on admitted students days.

Simply undescoring –

Smith – pretty campus with very pristine white-clapboard buildings (in general). Basically looks like a country club. Some find that attractive. Some find that stultifying – to have everything so manicured. Smith: more overtly political. Some find that attractive, some find that (in my child’s estimation) “mean. I mean I know they mean well but it just looks mean to me.” Smith is IN Northampton, which is a plus for many. 5-college consortium

Mt. H – pretty campus with brownstone Gothic buildings – absolutely gorgeous. Still has large swaths of woods and a wild-looking set of lakes with a goose called Jorge. It’s very pretty and the sciences are quite good–they’ve put in new facilities. Special facilities for nurturing leadership in its students. The feel of the campus is homey and non-competitive among the students. I would describe the students as more quietly ambitious, gracious rather than overtly so. 5-college consortium. Also Mt. H has horses.

Wellesley – pretty campus, guarantees that everyone who is accepted will get the FA they need to attend, MIT cross reg. Self-described overachievers go here. Has the go-forward competitiveness of Smith, but without the overt politics. Overall impressive school in all ways, but it’s up to individual taste the atmosphere of competitiveness among the students.

Barnard – modern-looking campus as it’s made use of small space in it’s compact campus. Several bldgs are being rebuilt or have recently been built so expect to see more glassy and/or poured concrete structures among the older facilities. How it separates identities from Columbia seems mysterious to me as it’s one of the four undergraduate colleges of Columbia U. The other womens’s schools seem to have distinct identities and no sense of being off to the side, but it’s an excellent school and in NYC–a big plus. Nearby parks offer woods and access to the water.

Vassar – relatively arty and self-assured students who set out to create art (theater and dance and music). Science facilities are excellent. Georgeous campus that has the wildness of Mt. H and the structure of some of the other women’s-schools (yes I know it’s coed for for this discussion . . .) A commuter train (metro north) makes access to NYC an easy trip of 90 minutes and some students were working in the arts in NYC already. If your daughter wants an all-women’s campus, there is one all-women dorm (Strong) but the classes and feel of campus is definitely co-ed.

Bryn Mawr – should be on your list as it offers a lot: gorgeous campus, manicured but not overly so. Science facilities are being redone currently, but the older ones were also excellent. Consortium includes: Haverford, Swarthmore, and UPenn. Haverford and BMC coordinate schedules and departments. BMC has theater and geology, for example; Haverford has the studio arts, running trail through woods, etc. So you would need to check both campuses (or all three or four) to see if your favorite interest/ dept is included. Student body is noncompetitive while seeking the highest level education. For example, the Honor Code allows for exams to be taken when student finds it suitable with no proctor; and no grade competition. Amtrak offers easy transportation to NYC. Commuter lines easy transport into Philly.

Because the women’s colleges invented early decision, they tend to look on showing interest favorably. They know that their peer schools are the other women’s colleges (plus some others) and so if you indicate in your interviews or other ways that 1) your first choice is X school; and 2) understand exactly the culture of that school in essay, then your way is smoothed.

Second the importance of demonstrated interest. Not just the official tour, but interviews as well.

Regarding FA, although may not be a factor for you, the NPC for Smith vs Wellesley was dramatically different for us. Each school has their own formulas, so run your numbers for each one.

@Dustyfeathers You nailed it. One thing – they’re all meet full need schools…what is distinctive about Wellesley in that regard?

@Dustyfeathers Barnard is part of Columbia University but my D., who went there, said she always felt part of a Women’s College. Indeed, the minute you walk onto the Barnard campus you sense that you are in a women’s college. However, the great thing (in my D’s opinion) was that she also had access to Columbia and so had the best of both worlds. That said, Barnard isn’t for the faint hearted. It is very much “New York” and so you need to be assertive (or Bold as they like to say at Barnard).

W defines need more generously than most, and without loans (at least for lowest income, maybe all).

MoHo gives some quite generous merit aid, as does Bryn Mawr to a somewhat lesser extent. I believe Wellesley give no merit. Not sure about the others.

Smith gives limited merit I think around 10% get some (top candidates). Barnard does not though I did hear a rumor they were adding merit but does not seem to have materialized. Mount Holyoke gives a fair amount including a few full tuition scholarships

Wellesley is materially harder to get into than the rest, but not necessarily higher in everyone’s preference…I think it’s great to see them all around the same time, as the contrasts will be clearer.

When we visit our daughter at Smith, we stay at the Fairfield Inn. it is less than a mile to Smith. There are a lot of interesting shops and restaurants on Main Street. We like the Green Bean and Jakes for breakfast. Local Burger is a small, but good, burger joint. There are a lot of dinner options in NoHo. You can use the hotel as a base for seeing MHC too.

Since we live in the west, anything built before 1950 seems “architectural” to us. :slight_smile: However, all of these campuses are beautiful. Although, I don’t know what they look like in winter!

Both Smith and MHC did a great job of reaching out to my D during the application process. Very personalized. Not only did the student interviewers maintain contact but a Smith professor emailed her to see if she had questions about the department. I think “fit” and demonstrated interest are cultivated over time.

D and I toured the indoor (greenhouse/solarium/conservatory) gardens at Smith and MoHo during a spring snow (she’s already in college, this was just a fun thing to do in snowy weather). Both campuses were gorgeous in snow. One of my favorite photos of us still is with tulips in a greenhouse with snow on the “roof”.

Smith has a larger indoor setup than MoHo but both were really nice. Those of you touring in winter, I recommend a stop.

Also, if you have a car, Westhampton (pretty much where you’d think it would be relative to Northampton) has an indoor park that is amazing, with grass, plants growing vertically and in hydroponic units, and a bar/restaurant that is quite good. Live music and a yoga class were going on when we visited. All in an old mill. https://www.mill180park.com/ - another thing we found because it snowed so much that trip.