<p>At least yours were "get back in the car" moment. We had some "I won't get out of the car" moments. Luckily, they were schools in between other schools he was visiting.</p>
<p>We loved Univ. of Richmond. S said it was too "preppy". From the kid who thinks "popped collars" are okay! I remember those collars back in my day and can't believe we did that 25 years ago. Oh well, we could not afford the tuition anyways!</p>
<p>We had a time similar to weenie at BC. A neighbor's daughter attends (and loves it) and had said she could show us around. S. thought everyone looked alike (good-looking, but alike), so we never even phoned her. Visited Tufts the same day and loved it - lots of diversity, no "type." Think we also must have hit a football recruiting weekend at BC -- have never seen so many gigantic kids on a tour.</p>
<p>My junior son seems to be following his sister's path. If a school doesn't march to a different drummer, it isn't going on his list. He hasn't quite told me "no girls with designer bags" yet -- that was an important leading indicator for his sister -- but I suspect he'll find the male version of that once we start visits in earnest.</p>
<p>So far, he's hot on Reed, Hampshire, Sarah Lawrence and Bard, but I'm hoping to get him to look at a few more "traditional" places like Denison, Kenyon, and Lawrence. Luckily, he does have one school on his list that he and I both like a lot - Beloit, the school where his sister is a very happy freshman. So, it will all work out in the end. :)</p>
<p>
<strong><em>ROFLMAO</em></strong>!!!!!!!!!!!! :D</p>
<p>
Here's what we should do...get our NEXT college-bound kids to put it on their lists and meet there!! <em>They</em> can tour...<em>we</em> can loll on the beach! :)</p>
<p>My friend had a "I"m getting back in the car" moment at UF......her son applied ED and is going to a college with 1100 students!</p>
<p>
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My friend had a "I"m getting back in the car" moment at UF......her son applied ED and is going to a college with 1100 students!
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</p>
<p>Well, I can see that with UF vs a 1100 student LAC, my kid ended up at a school not really different from the ones (there were at least 2) where she had her back in the car moments.</p>
<p>carolyn</p>
<p>We've visited Reed, Hampshire, Sarah Lawrence, Bard and Beloit (along with 15 other quirky campuses). The only "let's get out of here" visit was at Bates. I'm sure it's a great school, but my husband, son and I all had the same reaction. </p>
<p>My husband has been suggesting U of Hawaii to our son for years...no luck.</p>
<p>My Dad suggested looking at an Ivy or two, but it's not my style. There are alot of good schools between the Ivy's and your local public university. We hear about the Ivy's and Ivy like schools or exclusive LAC's because of who they are. We also know about the public university systems for their affordability. But there are so many great schools in between. After looking at costs, I hope I'm able to good to a great tweener school. Somewhere between Ivy's and publics. </p>
<p>At least my parents are keeping an open mind, and waiting until the regular acceptances and offers are in. I have some friends whose parents are all ready telling them they have to go public without waiting to see what kind of aid packages they get.</p>
<p>Stanford. She and her dad visited and she wouldn't have anything to do with it. I just wanted to go to California for Parents Weekend. Oh well.</p>
<p>quiltguru: I moved from Yale to Stanford for grad school, and I HATED the way it looked at first. Took me months to begin to appreciate it at all. The physical styles of the schools are so different, I'm not surprised that someone who felt instinctively at home at one might react very negatively to the other -- in either direction.</p>
<p>It also goes to show the limits of visiting. I had a great experience at Stanford, and I'm certain that had I actually visited it before I decided to go there, I never would have chosen it. Once I was there, I learned to appreciate the way it looked, and of course I never had any problems with its intellectual qualities, but I was so put off by the way it looked at first that I'm sure I would have "gotten back in the car" if classes hadn't been starting in 24 hours.</p>
<p>JHS,
Similar story here. After Yale, I missed its Gothic visual infusions when I went to Columbia. Still do. My mind was asking, "Where have all the gargoyles gone"?</p>
<p>JHS, we tried to tell our son that -- that visiting doesn't give you the whole picture. But the sales staff, I mean, tour guide, at Yale was so fantastic and the one from Harvard so awful that my son locked into Yale. That and the library where they can take all the oxygen out in like 60 seconds, he thought that was cool too. There was no talking to him about making a decision based on a half day visit. No talking to him about choosing a school not near a major airport or major league stadium. And it wasn't just him, his whole school just was mesmerized by Yale. I'm convinced it's some mind control thing they've taught their student tour guides -- it's very effective.</p>
<p>It's not the sales staff, it's the product.</p>
<p>When I toured Yale with my daughter three years ago, our tour guide was a 19-year-old Pakistani engineering student who was in Silliman. In other words, someone who could not have been more different from me or my wife, and almost 30 years younger. Halfway through the tour, my daughter whispered to me, "He says EXACTLY the same things you and Mom say about Yale. Did you write his script or something?" Of course, I had noticed it -- and been deeply moved by it -- long before she said anything. The consistency of experience was amazing.</p>
<p>But . . . as you point out, no one wishes their kid had applied to Yale. They all already have.</p>
<p>That's funny. As an architect, I hate the Yale campus--the modern bits are comletely disjointed and I hate the way it sits in the town fabric.</p>
<p>To each his own!</p>
<p>I agree about discounting an actual visit however. I've moved to two foreign countries without visiting first. When you visit, you see all the things you don't like. When you simply make the move, you make the most of it.</p>
<p>At Rhodes, don't you mean the march of the ducks at the Peabody Hotel?? I think Memphis is a little too warm for penguins!</p>
<p>S would rather apply to UWisc, and go to basketball games and paint his face red, than apply to Swarthmore where IMHO he would be surrounded by his intellectual soulmates.</p>
<p>Oh mom, <em>eyes roll</em>.....</p>
<p>University of Chicago</p>
<p>--but there was that pesky business of not offering an engineering major.</p>
<p>That's where you'll find me if I get to direct my reincarnation.</p>
<p>Cheers -- I agree with you completely on the architecture and city planning aspects of Yale. And I would add that a lot of the Gothic stuff is kitschy. There are lots of places I prefer in pure terms of how they look and are situated. (But not Stanford, which represents the Golf Course school of design.)</p>
<p>Alumother -- My son rolls his eyes, too, when I say things like "intellectual soulmates", and he doesn't care a fig about big-time college sports (or little-time college sports, for that matter). Telling a boy he has intellectual soulmates is like calling him a bad name.</p>