<p>As my DD completes the last of her essays due on the 15th, I still wish she'd applied to UVa (we're in No.Virginia and she preferred W&M and Tech) and one or two places in NC--Davidson would have been nice. She's never lived in constantly cold/snowy weather...but most of her schools are North of here, so this weekend we'll be shopping for a warm coat and other winter wear on sale.</p>
<p>JHS, this is funny because Yale is the only "get back in the car" school I visited. (I'm a student popping in on the parents forum.) My mom and I both shared the sentiment. She still wishes I'd applied to Harvard and Wellesley, and my dad can barely stand to set foot in New York, where I ended up (Barnard). He doesn't understand why I didn't just go to my state school (Maryland).</p>
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Telling a boy he has intellectual soulmates is like calling him a bad name.
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<p>If you remind him that 50% of them will be female and not just interested in his mind, that might help...</p>
<p>Luckily I have no regrets about D's applications. She didn't hate anyplace I loved, and she wound up at a school that is absolutely perfect for her. Her "Run Away!!!" moment was at Bennington; I thought it seemd kinda hip and fun but for her it was much too small and too 'Mad Hatter's Tea Party.'</p>
<p>I suspect I will have many many regrets about my S because he is much more knee-jerk than his sister and pretty much assumes everything I say is wrong.</p>
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If you remind him that 50% of them will be female and not just interested in his mind, that might help...
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<p>Not a chance! He's all too familiar with the "intellectual soulmate" relationship, co-ed variety. It's where he lives. He wants some action!</p>
<p>Scarfmadness, my D is also at Barnard. The whole family wanted her to go to Wellesley, but she held out for Barnard and is very happy she did. She loves New York. She wasn't affected by Harvard, Yale, Princeton or MIT. When she got to Barnard, she felt as if she had arrived</p>
<p>D2 on the other hand is currently (I.e. today) leaning towards Yale. She likes the neogothic architecture.</p>
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Not a chance! He's all too familiar with the "intellectual soulmate" relationship, co-ed variety. It's where he lives. He wants some action!
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<p>JHS, LOL! Sounds exactly like my D. Let's NOT introduce them.</p>
<p>Is there a college student alive who doesn't want more action than they got in HS?</p>
<p>Dartmouth and Colorado College for me. Just couldn't get S interested in either. S had a mild flirtation with Colorado College but disliked Colorado Springs. I love the block plan and it fits S to a tee. Dartmouth just because he's just a Dartmouth kinda kid he would have fit in perfect but no dice on the east for this one. We're in the midwest and "back in my day" many went east first to prep and then on to colleges. These days no one preps and the conversation at the local B-dubs (Buffalo Wild Wings - the local 17 - 18 year old hang-out) is ever about westword ho.</p>
<p>LOL my dad basically wanted me to apply to every good LAC that exists. </p>
<p>After getting a thing from Grinnell in the mail-
dad: Grinnell is a great school.
me: yeah, but it's in Iowa.
dad: but it's a great school.
me: but it's in IOWA!</p>
<p>ad nauseum. </p>
<p>I also think he was a bit disappointed that I ruled out other great schools whose preppiness scared me, ie Colgate, Lehigh, Bucknell; and small places in sort of isolated and unexciting locations a la Kenyon and Oberlin. But I think the one he was the most disappointed about was for a while I was seriously considering the University of Chicago but a few months ago decided not to apply for various reasons, and he seemed to think it would be a good fit for me. and he just really likes the city of Chicago.</p>
<p>Oh no wait, there's more! My sister went to Scripps and I probably would have applied to Pomona had I not FINALLY figured out that I don't like southern california. Dad was disappointed that I ruled out socal, he REALLY wanted me to apply to UCLA or one of the Claremonts but, as he put it, " I couldn't make you do ANYTHING" :-D. My parents are pretty chill, and I'm pretty stubborn. </p>
<p>Don't get me wrong I've done a LOT of narrowing and research so if I'm not interested in a college it's for a good reason, but there's just so freaking many good ones out there!</p>
<p>Oh yeah, and he wanted me to apply to Davidson but it seemed to preppy and I didn't really want to be in the south. He says that's pretty much the only school in the south he'd want to go to, if he had to go to school there.</p>
<p>I decided not to apply to Yale 30-odd years ago after I visited -- I thought the campus was ugly. </p>
<p>My daughter had two not-getting-out-of-the-car campuses (Bryn Mawr and Haverford). She loved the 15 minutes we spent wandering around Penn, though. It was summer and the sun was setting. I was always disappointed that she never went back to look at it while it was in session. I think that's the only school I wish she'd considered -- but it is her best friend's number one choice, and I think that partly affected her thinking.</p>
<p>She was definitely affected by clothing -- shoes in fact. Liked the shoes at Wesleyan, hated them at Trinity.</p>
<p>And while I think where she's going is a good match, I'm a little disappointed she's not in NYC, because I'd love to have more excuses to go to NY.</p>
<p>I actually suggested Reed to D- I thought it fit her requirements- and it would have fit the "perfect college" in my head if it had been twice as big ( all the way up to maybe almost 3000? just not enough cute guys to pick from* for me* at 1300 ;) )</p>
<p>But great buildings, loved the grotesques ( what most people think of gargolyes), loved that they played capture the flag using the whole campus, that they played paint ball with the president ( of the college), that they were teh only college in teh country whose nuclear reactor was mainly staffed by undergrads-I liked the no grades & everyone writes a thesis, I really liked Portland and I apparently knew my D well enough that the things I liked and I thought she might like, she did!</p>
<p>just remembered- one of my dad's best friends who's known me since I was born went to Stanford and he REALLY wants to write me an alumni rec, but I visited Stanford and really did not like it. It seemed like southern california, but in northern california, which for me is completely pointless. And it seemed really stagnant, like there wasn't a whole lot of thinking going on and you'd just be pampered and lie out in the sun for 4 years. I just didn't have a good feeling about the place. Dad was once again disappointed :-D</p>
<p>We went to one school, and to D it was just a bigger version of her HS...people asked and she would sayL it is a great school, and for some it would be wonderful, but for me, I need blah blah blah</p>
<p>She learned not to "bad mouth" a school because it could be someone's favorite...she learned to find positives about anyplace so as to not hurt feelings</p>
<p>But this school, while the campus was beautiful, I got the same vibe D did, the kids even dressed like at her HS, even though there was no dress code in the college like her HS has....</p>
<p>pretty funny</p>
<p>the icecream place was good though</p>
<p>ps- What we liked about Reed was the dogs everywhere, in the classrooms, etc</p>
<p>apparently they are the reincarnations of Reed Alum....</p>
<p>What we liked about Reed was the dogs everywhere, in the classrooms, etc</p>
<p>Our dog loves Reed.
My D worked in the computer lab & our black lab really liked sitting in there with my younger D and I while we were working on our laptops and waiting for the other D- because everyone had to give her a pet
Many doggy friends- especially in my Ds dept- biology :D
( plus even when it is 95 deg out, computerservices is nice and cool)</p>
<p>Re sly_vt's post from a few days ago: Your daughter wouldn't get out of the car at Bryn Mawr? That's one of the most beautiful campuses I've ever seen. My daughter wouldn't get IN the car to go there, and I understood why, since she really wasn't interested. But I've gone and looked around myself. It's the nicest version of American fake Gothic I've seen.</p>
<p>Mini, the status of being a womens college per se never entered my D's mind as a criterion. I'm sure there are exceptions but every Smithie I've talked to at length eventually says something along the lines of "Well, I never <em>meant</em> to attend a womens college <em>but</em>...."</p>
<p>My D did not want me to park the car at Mount Holyoke. Privately, I agreed with her but was determined to see it through in the spirit of fairness. Then TheMom asked about taking a tour when we were in Admissions and I thought D would have a heart attack...fortunately, the last tour of the day had already left.</p>
<p>JHS: My daughter wanted a medium-sized urban school (which we came to realize partly based on her visceral reactions to Bryn Mawr and Penn). While Bryn Mawr is near Philly (and we pointed out the train station to her), from her perspective there were too many trees and it was too small. The beauty of a campus was not one of her criteria for a college. I agree that Bryn Mawr is beautiful. But it wasn't what my daughter wanted, and she could tell that immediately.</p>
<p>For my D Bryn Mawr felt a little chilly and bloodless.</p>
<p>SBmom, I got snowed out of the Bryn Mawr tour in 2005, my flight couldn't leave California because of snow in the East. I really wanted to see Bryn Mawr. Are the buildings as beautiful as they say?</p>