@greenteen17 : That’s a great story!
Middllebury, UVM, Dartmouth, brown (I love eclectic architecture and its location in preservation historic section of providence), UPenn (again, lots of great architecture & I like campuses that are urban). I also like Harvard, especially on a fall day. But 2 of the most impressive campuses I’ve visited are out of the northeast: uchicago and ucla (amazing Romanesque-style architecture). JHU was too uniform for my taste…a tad boring.
@merc81 Thank you! I’m actually not sure how to play it up. Any ideas? I was thinking the section on the Common App where it says “is there anything else you’d like to tell us?”, and someone told me to contact my local admissions officer and explain my school situation.
@greenteen17 : Your story’s definable elements will allow you to convey its essence in one or more ways (Common App essay, supplemental essays, interview). Your theme appears to be one of both difference and commonality, which you’ve already been able to express well in your post above.
My twin DD’s have found Bowdoin, Brown, Hamilton, Middlebury, Swarthmore and Williams campuses to be pretty - very different from each other, but each struck a chord…
There are a lot of potential variables to what makes a campus right for the individual. I really loved the Swarthmore campus visually when we toured in the spring but when I visited a couple times when my daughter took a summer program there it wasn’t as appealing when the trees were all full and it was oppressively hot. And my daughter, who’s still a few years away, didn’t like all the hiking up the hills to get around. I really loved the Middlebury campus and it’s surroundings. But when my son did an overnight while classes were in session, he didn’t like how isolated and deserted it was as he walked around at night. By comparison, Bowdoin is extremely compact and while it has about 25% fewer students than Midd that smallness makes him feel like there’s always people around. On the other hand, he consciously avoided the larger population schools because he doesn’t like large crowds. It’s a bit like Goldilocks – finding the fix that’s “just right.” And the answer is different for everyone.
I am from the Northeast, so would not actually consider James Madison University in VA, where I now teach, the Northeast. But, the campus is beautiful… http://thetab.com/us/jmu/2016/09/26/jmu-ranked-one-beautiful-campuses-3453 Only 2 hours to DC, 4 to Philly.
My first view of Georgetown took my breath away…