<p>I wonder about the chance factor. My D loved Willamette mainly because of the friendliness of the student body, she had an amazing host who introduced her to students she just clicked with. They were wonderful and informative, just genuinely bright, compassionate students. Others have visited and felt students were not friendly. It may just be who you get put with and introduced to or it may be the whole fit thing. I do know my son loved Pomona from the get go, 1st visit and still is thrilled with his college. The weather was lousy so that was not a factor in her liking it.</p>
<p>I may just be the controlling Mama, but we parents needed the visit, too. We felt like we wanted to "see the place" beforewe sent our daughter 1100 miles away from home. Three colleges she applied to, we did not formally visit, and the one that was very far away, I was never able to convince DH that it was a good, reasonable choice - he could never get over the location.</p>
<p>cagel,</p>
<p>You are not the only mother that wants to see where she ships her baby off too. I remember my husband taking my son to visit one college. I must have grilled hubby and son for hours, what was this like, what was that like, etc.. I didn't like their answers as these two could have care less about what I thought was important. As it turned out, son didn't attend that school; his own choice, not mine!</p>
<p>Pokey, LOL! I recently suggested to my husband and daughter that maybe he should take her on some of her college visits. They both looked at me in horror. When I asked why, my daughter said "We'd need to take a video camera and take notes of every conversation we have there in order to answer all of your questions. It's easier to just take you along." My husband was nodding his head like a bobble doll while she said this. :)</p>
<p>LOL, Carolyn. I understand completely.</p>
<p>oh gawd, my husband would say the same thing
I wish it wasn't true, I wish he would ask "some" questions, I hate having to interrogate people, but really, he often doesn't even get basic information- like when I come home and the girls are both gone,
I'll ask "where did they go"?....
"I dunno, down to ... probably"
" Oh, do you know when they left, or even maybe when they will be back"?
" No, why does it matter?"
&^^%$</p>
<p>On the other hand I know some husbands that are soo involved that they have to be asking all the questions and don't let anyone get a word in edgewise. THis is despite the fact that they have actually been at work the majority of the childs life, but they still need to be in control of the situation.</p>
<p>If anyone is going to be where the decision stops- I guess I would rather it be me! ;)</p>
<p>Carolyn, we know somebody who goes to Humboldt and loves it. She's an Education major and wants to teach h/s English. She loves writing and tutors lower-division freshmen writing courses p/t. </p>
<p>She is a nice young woman who likes to do her own thing and avoid the limelight. She's a junior this year and was an A/B student in h/s. I would describe her as career-minded, but easy-going. Humboldt is far enough away from her home in the Bay Area for it to feel like she is <em>away</em> at college. </p>
<p>Humboldt might be one of the campuses my son will look at, as well.</p>
<p>...That is, if he were speaking to us about college or SAT's or grades or anything that has to do with school, which he is not! :p</p>
<p>Carolyn,
lol
I too can picture that very same conversation between my H and D. Sluggbugg, it took my S a lot longer to get into this whole college thing then my D.</p>
<p>cangel wrote "we parents needed the visit, too. We felt like we wanted to "see the place" beforewe sent our daughter 1100 miles away from home. "</p>
<p>Well said. In our case it was 10,000 miles away from home. I needed to get a feel for the place so that I could visualize my son's life so far away from us. I think that was also the objective of the OP. They, like many international families, would not be able to make repeat or follow up visits so they wanted to maximize their choices. Hence, the question, how does what you anticipated match up with what you felt afterwards?</p>
<p>Sluggbugg, Thanks for the info. on Humboldt. Daughter and I have been looking at the web site very carefully and it seems like a good school for a cal state. It's much smaller than most of the cal states (6000 undergrads) and when I checked on class sizes, the enrolled classes are decent-size, largest I could find had 75 students in it which is about what you'd find at many LACs for intro. bio and psych. classes. Most of the classes had under 30 enrolled from what I could see, especially in the areas my daughter is interested in. Very different from the other, larger Cal states and definitely far enough from home that she'd feel she was experiencing something different. </p>
<p>Even more exciting, my daughter just noticed today that their social work program has a minor credential option for "creative arts in social work" that focuses on using art in social services programs. Needless to say, this would be a very nice way for her to fit her art interest into a potential career option. The studio arts program overall looks wonderful as well and the history program is solid too. So, looks like we may have found a very good safety for her - she's already talking about visiting. </p>
<p>I was thinking about your daughter today, Slugg, as a matter of fact - reflecting on how she looked at all of those back east private schools and then ended up at UCSC. Maybe that's what will happen to my daughter as well. :)</p>
<p>emerald - I had to laugh at your description of your husband's lack of question-asking-skills. My husband can come home with the details of the hardware store but put him in charge of getting information related to the kids' education and...well...you could drive a hummer through the gaps of questions he doesn't ask. :)</p>
<p>sluggbug, I can't get my junior son to discuss anything college or school-related with me, either. Luckily at his private school they just got a big notebook detailing what they have to do. I asked him about it and he said he wants me to stay out of the application process completely.
I said, um, i've got to pay for your sat/act/satII registration, so could you give me your schedule for that? And he did so reluctantly.... Hopefully, he'll tell me next year where I should forward his mail, lol.<br>
I think he thought I'd be really mad he told me to stay out of it and I said I was glad he was taking control of the situation! [I felt relieved, honestly.] I do wonder how he's going to visit some of these places with the "no discussion" rule in place, but maybe this summer I'll bend the rules and suggest he work up a schedule of a few colleges to see with his dad in August. [father=relaxed, willing traveller]</p>