<p>Today my son and I visited HWS in Geneva, NY and were impressed with the campus and friendliness of the staff and students. My son had been in contact with one of the Adcoms and when we went in to the admissions house to sit in on one of the Info Sessions she quickly recognized him and came over to speak to him and welcome him by first name. (He had met her many months ago at his school). She remembered facts about him. Nice touch. I was impressed. We listened intently during the Info session and felt all our questions were answered. Then we went on a tour of the campus. Very nice and well-kept. We toured the brand new dorms...wow...individual A/C in each room and very modern facilities...even a Starbucks in one of them. Our tour guide was extremely pleasant and open minded. We were taken into one of the new humanties buildings and saw several classrooms...the way they have it setup here is round table discussion with about 10-15 students per 'smart-class' all sitting around this mahogony table with the professor. Largest classes are 30-40 and they are far and few between. Our tour guide said she had a class with 4 in it. Profs are very open and invite you to their homes and the President of the College who was (I believe) head of the Peace Corp under Pres. Clinton routinely brings political figures (that he personally knows) to campus for discussions. He routinely invites students in for dinner and discussion. He is very big on giving back to the community and country through service. There a 3 gyms on campus and one of them is used just for the athletes. There is same sex and coed dorms. They even have a Tibetan Monk (Dahli Lama group) on staff who teaches courses in art and offers free meditation sessions weekly. We found this to be very interesting. Our tour ended with a walk on the lake side (Seneca Lake) and we took note of the beautiful sailboats which were part of HWS' sailing team. It was a beautiful sunny day with just the right picturesque view to end the tour.
My son had a smile on his face as we left.</p>
<p>Thanks for the review rubyred. I have been watching the college for my younger daughter and read your post with much inerest. Can you tell me what the town is like, or, more importantly for the D, is there decent shopping? (can't believe I actually asked that). Did you hear anything about the "Media and Society" program? And what about the student body? My daughter, likes the all American preppy types. Happy to hear your son was impressed.</p>
<p>Hello, yes I can tellyou about Geneva, NY. We live 20 mins away. Son goes to private school 5 mins away from HWS. Geneva is a mix of cultures. Typical smaller city with your Walmart, Staples, Big Lots, etc. There are only small plazas to shop but if you head west about 45 min you get to Eastview Mall in Victor, NY tht is just great shopping and then heading east to Syracuse you get to Carousel Mall. Really great shopping.
The city of Geneva is always trying to improve itself and it does have some nice small shops in the downtown district which has alot of the historic bldgs. left. Not much of a downtown 'college town' though as some colleges have.
I did not hear anything about Media and Society ...sorry.
The student body? Seemed to be very homogenous (saw only 1 person of color). Many "North Face' jacket types. As a matter of fact while we were on the tour today I chuckled to myself as I counted all the North
Face fleece jackets the kids were wearing. All the kids I saw were nicely dressed and some carried their Coach and Prada bags. Lots of cute sweaters and would you believe lots of flipflops in a multitude of color with the cute tops and shorts. ha! The kids wore so many different things. I would say yes there is alot of the all Am. preppy type at the college but not at all stuffy. Even the Adcoms dress like that. I was quite surprised to see a moderate amount of kids smoking as they walked around. No cigarette butts on the ground though. All bldgs. are smoke-free. I guess it's strange to see b/c my son and our entire family doesn't smoke. There is a shuttle that takes the kids around the the local stores too. Hope this helps.</p>
<p>Here is the website for the Rochester mall so you can see what is there:
<a href="http://www.eastviewmall.com/shopping/default.asp?file=properties/details.asp?id=EVM%5B/url%5D">http://www.eastviewmall.com/shopping/default.asp?file=properties/details.asp?id=EVM</a></p>
<p>....and here is the website for the Syracuse Carousel Mall to check out what stores they have:
<a href="http://www.carouselcenter.com/stores/directory.asp%5B/url%5D">http://www.carouselcenter.com/stores/directory.asp</a></p>
<p>During our visit today the Adcom did mention that they are not considering the new 'Writing' part of the New SAT yet and they will continue to just use your best Math and Verbal score. They said the SAT is only one tool they would use to assess the student. Also of interest was the fact that they said if you had AP Exams with certain values you would get credit for 2 not 1 course since they said AP courses are a year long in high school. That was nice to hear. They also said alot of students do take a college course between senior yr high school and freshman yr college.</p>
<p>Thanks for the review. D is interested but it is unlikely we will get to visit prior to summer. What did the other dorms look like? Did it look like party central?</p>
<p>Thanks for reporting on HWS. It is a school that doesn't get much mention here but should.</p>
<p>HWS has many dorms scattered around campus. They told us there is single sex and coed bldgs and said that there is quite a draw for the single sex female dorms. Big beautiful old trees. They are all of the old gothic brick bldg form. The resason they are a draw is because of the strong sense of family that develops betw. the girls there. The way the school is set up is that they have 2 deans; one for the girls and one for the boys and they work very well together. The dorms other then the new A/C ones were nice, clean but typical. The central campus ones were 2 or 3 stories high and newer but well kept brick. In the quad area of the campus the dorms there were very classic looking and new windows were put in. The college also purchased over the yrs many of the old brownstones on the edge of campus and old gothic bldgs and remodeled them for student living. On one edge of campus there is the Jr/Sr living complex consisting of fairly new (few yrs) apts. They are clean and well kept 4-5 bedroom units with A/C, kitchen, LR etc. This is called O'Dell and it sits around a small man-made lake. Students here do not need a food plan. It did not feel at all like a party crazy place. There were students skateboarding, rollerblading, playing frisbee, football, making some art on the quad, and some sunning themselves. There was no yelling or crazy things that I saw. Several students were out on the lawns reading.</p>
<p>Here is a pic of the O'Dell area;
<a href="http://www.hws.edu/about/campusmap/mapdisplay.asp?mapid=23%5B/url%5D">http://www.hws.edu/about/campusmap/mapdisplay.asp?mapid=23</a></p>
<p>rubyred, those pictures are just awful. How can students stand that? People- don't look. It is too horrific.There is no reason for anyone to consider a place that looks like that. That is to say, not until after my kid applies and has been accepted. (Man. My college did not look like that. Do you think they rent that out in the summer? LOL.)</p>
<p>You are too cute!!! >>>wink wink<<<</p>