Portland area college tour, keep it interesting

Parents Forum
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I am taking D24 to Portland for a three day weekend to visit colleges. Formal tours of PSU, OSU and Willamette cover an Urban, college town and LAC. Also plan to walk around L&C. I am looking for suggestions on how to keep it interesting for D24. She is looking forward to the trip, but hasn’t engaged in the college search yet. This trip is to help drum up interest in University life and help her learn what she wants from a college.

Any general suggestions or something specific from one of these campus’s you recommend? D24 is pretty undecided on major, so I don’t know that department specific tours are a good use of limited time.

I’ll start.
Check out the equestrian center at OSU. She loves horses and will love to know she would be able to walk and see them from her dorm.
Look for rock climbing facilities.

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We toured OSU relatively early in S23’s college search process, and he wasn’t sure what major he wanted, so he actually thought it was really useful to do all the tours that he could fit in (for example honors college, business, science, engineering, liberal arts, general campus tour). During the tours he had opportunities to talk to students and a couple of professors, and it helped him in his thinking about potential majors.

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I live within walking distance of Reed, and as long as you’re in town looking at PSU and Lewis & Clark I’d recommend thinking about if Reed may be worth a visit just for a different “flavor” of school? Basically PSU, L&C, and Reed are in a triangle, all about 15-20 minutes from each other.

PSU is very urban, and can feel though a lot like a commuter school; great ties to the hospital OHSU, quite good in other areas, but also lots of non-traditional students: busy people in their 20s-30s taking classes and not sticking around, and also some high schoolers who are doing a dual credits situation. They do however have an honors program and separate dorm and structure for those students which is worth looking at if that may be a fit. (If you’re there on Saturday, the PSU Farmers market is held 9am-2pm in the park blocks in the center of campus; it’s the largest farmers market in the city and a great place to walk through and grab some food.)

Lewis & Clark is in a residential, hilly part of town, farther afield, a nice campus and far more of a traditional LAC feel - there’s a wonderful old growth forest (Tryon Creek State Park) quite close by, but you do need to hop on a bus or drive to get “into town;” where it’s located there just isn’t a place to really hang out nearby.

Reed is also in a residential neighborhood, is more stately looking yet also has Reed Canyon running through it (ducks, herons, trails, ponds, wetlands and creek). While it is also in a residential neighborhood, this one is different - it has two walkable shopping/café districts very close by and it’s also closer to the center of town with a lot of easy bus options plus the Max (light rail) line a couple blocks away.

I’m not sure when you might be planning a visit - but I’d really recommend waiting until a little later in the spring. January and February is just in the middle of the dark, wet and gloomy period here, and if you’re looking to help her get in engaged in the process, maybe wait until the flowers start budding out and things look cheerier - at least late March? April would be even better - all the cherry trees start popping. Then, even if it’s drizzling, at least the flowers will be out and things will feel more nice and approachable, it won’t be dark so early and you’ll be able to walk around more easily and the food carts will be busy and people will be out and about.

Happy to answer any questions if this feels useful!

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Thanks for the great information. I will definitely try and call out the difference between L&C and Reed regarding what surrounds campus.
Fortunately or unfortunately the trip is early February. I would rather D24 gets a taste of the overcast weather now instead of being surprised halfway through the first semester.
Reed is not a realistic option for D24, but this trip is mostly about what to look for when narrowing down the final list.

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Great advice. We are able to fit in a College of Business and Natural Sciences tour before the general college tour. Glad to hear some students participate and answer questions.

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Yep My 25 y/ is doing a post bac for speech pathology and will do graduate school at PSU. Their program for this is very strong.

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Meet with professors if you can. This helped us out a lot. Also go across the river. My daughter lives over there and really cool shops and restaurants etc. We did the farmers market when visiting her on PSU campus. That’s fun. We really liked the vibe of Portland. Good Luck.

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University of Portland might be worth a look. We did a tour of Univ of Portland, Willamette and Lewis and Clark (with a very brief stop at Portland St) during late spring/early summer last year during Oregon private college week.

Salem has a pretty cool food truck court with like 25 food trucks and coffee/beer bar in the middle. Nice little river runs through Willamette’s campus.

Portland has many fantastic restaurants so if you just go on Yelp you will find something great! Deschutes has a brewpub downtown with very good food. Rose Garden is nice but not so much in Feb. Powell’s Books is an incredible bookstore. Don’t think the donuts are great but Vodoo Donuts has a lot of interesting donut varieties such as one with Captain Crunch on top.

I would recommend Univ of Portland. Overlooks city. Not as pretty as Lewis and Clark but people were much more engaging. My D applied to all other schools above except Lewis and Clark as she really did not like the negative vibe.

Can’t speak to Oregon St.

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Just hanging out in Portland and eating meals at different places helped get a good vibe. Powells Books was great, of course.

When we were out that way we took time to drive to the coast as it was the first time our east coast kids had seen the Pacific. Cannon Beach was beautiful.

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Yes Canon Beach is really nice!

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I’m curious about the negative vibe of L&C. Was it from the tour guide or just a negative vibe in general?

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Kids did not seem happy, not just the tour guide. It is only 10 minutes by car to downtown Portland but feels very isolated in a tucked in neighborhood. So much so that my D felt like the school was in the middle of nowhere (even though it is in Portland, not that far from DT). They don’t do a very good job presenting the school. Everyone had low energy. (This was when we visited several months ago). They also made a point that parking is limited and Freshmen are not allowed cars (think there are some other limitations as well). There is a periodic shuttle.

My older D just walked around and did not do a tour when she was looking (4 yrs ago) but it just felt boring to her. Campus is gorgeous with a reflecting pool, cool older buildings and spectacular view of Mt. Hood.

We all just felt like we had a much better experience at Willamette and University of Portland (D admitted to both and both are still possibilities).

Also should note that Portland St is in DT Portland. So so area and seem to be a fair amount of commuter students. It is close to all the amenities of downtown and probably less need of a car than most other colleges. Does fall under WUE which is why I encouraged my D to apply and they have an Honors program. May not be the best if you live on the other coast but others may disagree. My D was admitted but they have not sent anything about WUE albeit I believe it is automatic as long as a fairly low GPA was met in HS (maybe 3.0).

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It is worth a visit to Lewis & Clark. Of course everyone will have their own impressions of any school. My son toured it and liked it better than Reed (comparing on the same trip). The students didn’t seem unhappy or low energy to him. I am from the Portland area and we know several alumni (family friends) who were happy with their experience there.

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Interesting, we are touring there next month and I wonder if our impression will be similar. So much depends on the people, we have had bad tours at schools purely based on the guide and it’s hard to turn around a bad first impression.

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Agreed and little things can have a big impact. It was much more than an unenthusiastic tour guide though. It was also very striking comparing it to other peer schools.
But, that is why different schools exist. And, the campus is really beautiful.

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Well, now I’m curious to say the least!

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Well, let me know what you think! Maybe it will be your child’s dream school and you will tell me I am crazy!

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Voodoo donuts are for the tourists - you’re right, they’re not great.

Locals go to Pip’s - they’re terrific. :slight_smile:

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Understood about Reed not being realistic; fantastic school, intense, not for everyone (wasn’t a fit for my kiddo, but we know kids there and I love going through walks on campus, especially Reed Canyon!)

For other folks on this thread, Portland has several schools that are all in the city but their environments are quite different from each other. The three that are in residential neighborhoods, are also in different types of residential neighborhoods with differing degrees of remoteness, accessibility, and amenities in their neighborhood.

Portland State University is what I would call urban-urban, and (I’m quoting from above) “can feel though a lot like a commuter school; great ties to the hospital OHSU, quite good in other areas, but also lots of non-traditional students: busy people in their 20s-30s taking classes and not sticking around, and also some high schoolers who are doing a dual credits situation. They do however have an honors program and separate dorm and structure for those students which is worth looking at if that may be a fit.” No, you would not want to have a car here - it would be very expensive, parking is a chore, and transit is plentiful in and out of here as it’s on the south end of downtown.

Lewis & Clark is in a residential neighborhood, but not the type where there are lots of shops or cafés nearby; it’s hilly, pretty, and also close to an old growth forest.

Reed is in a residential neighborhood, but this neighborhood sits between two shopping/eatery districts, as well as having multiple bus and light rail options to get anywhere in Portland easily.

University of Portland is in a residential neighborhood but up in the north part of the city, on a bluff on the peninsula. It’s a flat area with lots of views from the bluff and it’s very walkable and bikeable in and around the Peninsula; it has multiple food options about 20 blocks away, and the St. Johns neighborhood about 1.5 miles away with shops and eateries plus the immense Forest Park is just over the river from there. It is a Catholic university.

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Agreed. I have tried some other donuts in Portland that were great but very expensive (not sure if it was Pip’s). Vodoo is fun to check out once though.

Also forgot to mention that a few coffee shop visits are necessary. Sadly my favorite coffee place in Portland, Public Domain, is closed DT. Smith’s Tea also has a really nice little tea house (kind of like a really nice coffee place with tea).