Thanks annaliese67. We did the outdoor tour of Skidmore last week. The campus seemed nice and my daughter seemed to like the town of Saratoga Springs. A nice student even came up to use and asked if we needed help while we were looking lost on campus. But, there was no “Aha” moment for my daughter. So we are just trying to dig deeper. We have identified a recent grad that I am encouraging my daughter to talk to. Thanks for your input.
@soboama Please keep me posted what you find out. I sympathize with all the undecided students right now. We have had ONE campus tour where we were able to go into buildings, walk thru the library and peer into lab space. That gave us BY FAR the best impression of any of the schools. I do not think any of these tours while just looking at the outside of buildings present fair and evaluative impressions.
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Hi- I’m chiming in late here, but we unfortunately had the same experience when doing our walk on campus. I don’t know if it was our timing or what, but we only saw about 20 students and everyone was walking alone. I get that it’s Covid Time, but we would have liked to see some kind of interaction or evidence of students having fun. That being said, I’m sure the students were hanging out in dorms or elsewhere- but prospective students wouldn’t know that from the limited view they are allowed to see. It’s definitely not the colleges’ fault- they’re in an impossible situation. I have no idea what the solution is. We did the same kind of tour at other colleges and had a much different experience- but they were much larger and had 3-5x the amount of students, so you’d expect to see a lot more students walking around/interacting. I think smaller colleges are definitely at a disadvantage this year. I wish they would push the deposit day back until June. Many states are allowing 16+ to get vaccinated and maybe that would make traditional tours possible in the next few weeks.
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@rhjcollege2021 Such a great idea! But unfortunately, the waitlists are long and colleges need to start tapping into students who are aching to go.
My daughter '21 just committed to Skidmore last week. We first toured pre-Covid the summer before her junior year and she just loved it then and it’s always been her #1 choice. Then we signed up for a tour last week but it was cancelled due to rising Covid numbers but we were allowed to do the self guided tour like others have mentioned. Before hand we went on line to their virtual tour and this refreshed our memory what the inside of the buildings were like and that helped. (I will say compared to other schools they have a lot of pictures, videos and info on line.) When we went it was a warm, sunny beautiful day and the students were out and about! They looked like they were appreciating the nice day and most were hanging out with others, a few by themselves studying, but mostly gathered with others, having fun. Everyone was definitely masked. My daughter talked to no one but that is her, I am sure she felt she stuck out with mom and dad besides her! No one talked to us either but that was fine by my daughter too! We also got lunch downtown (very lively for a Thursday afternoon) and then also drove to where the stores like Target etc are so we could see how far those were (about a 5 min drive). The downtown area is walkable from the school on a nice day but the bigger box stores really you would need to take their bus or have a ride. Daughter came home very happy and wanted to put in the deposit right away but also I will say she went in with a very positive attitude about Skidmore as it’s been her #1 choice for a long time.
A couple of other impressions and tidbits in case it helps others… The campus has a sort of woodsy vibe in spots. The pond (which I totally forgot about) is really lovely with large grassy areas but most of the students clustered around the quad area… The upper classmen housing I thought looked really nice, more like a townhouse development with mountain views. I can see that being very appealing living in apts but still being on campus. The new Integrated Science Bldg looks like it will be incredible. Some of it is finished but some is still under construction, which I imagine could be a bit disruptive for our kids until it’s done. I loved the cover walkways and just everywhere you turn a cute little place to sit and hang out. We saw an outdoor theatre that looked lovely. Also if you are interested in bringing a car there seemed to be a lot of parking available. My husband was happy to see charging spots too as we have an electric car. The bookstore was closed to visitors but unfortunately once we were home we saw that you could have made an appointment to come inside. We did order some Skidmore gear on their website.
I know what others are saying it is hard to have a feel for the school with just these outdoor tours and this one even being self guided. It can be very challenging to make a choice. There really were no magical moments for us either except for whatever reason Skidmore has just appeals to our daughter. She will be a science major and a minor in art and has done technical theater in high school, which seems to be a good fit for Skidmore.
From the Skidmore Parents Facebook page I learned that NY has opened up the vaccine for college students and there is going to be a Johnson and Johnson clinic I think right on the campus in a few days. So hopefully that will really help the kids there now!
Good luck everyone!
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Hi All, we are struggling with similar challenges. Our tour was also canceled so we walked around. MY DD liked the serene park-like setting but the buildings were less charming and needed some upkeep. We couldn’t get much sense of the students, a few hanging around outside but not a lot of activity. She said she liked how “chill” it was. Compared to the school we had seen the day before (full tour except dorms) that was incredibly vibrant, I was concerned about lack of student engagement. From this experience it felt kind of “generic”. We really liked the town and being able to walk there. Thank you annaliese67!
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Our son is a sophomore and despite the pandemic is loving his Skidmore experience. I think it’s hard to get an accurate feel for the campus vibe during a pandemic when most students are in their rooms studying remotely. Skidmore has done an amazing job keeping the campus safe with stringent testing and enforcement of Covid-related rules. I give kudos to the entire administrative staff and President Marc Conner for the great job they have done. Other schools have been far less successful in their Covid containment.
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So love hearing this, @astonmartin18 ! We are really excited for our daughter to attend Skidmore!
@annaliese67 @sfmomma @rhjcollege2021 @soboama @merjess @GregH625 and anyone else! Just looking back at this thread and wondering what you or your kids decided. Anyone going to Skidmore? My daughter committed to Skidmore!
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My DD is soooo close to pushing the button to commit! She attended sessions with the two departments that she’s interested in and was smiling like the cheshire cat afterwards. She said that she just needs to “absorb it” before she says it out loud. I went ahead and ordered a sweatshirt for her. 
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Congrats to your daughter! So exciting! My son just pushed the button! Skidmore it is! 
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Yay, that is great!! I know pushing that button is kind of scary. My daughter committed to Skidmore on the early side so I think pushing that button was a little scarier for me, haha. But very happy with her decision! Let us know when it’s official!
@merjess Wahoo, congratulations to your son!!! Yay! In case you didn’t know there is a Facebook Skidmore Parents group you can join which has been helpful!
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Super! I will join that group.
I’m only on IG so no FB parents’ group for me and my husband. 
And my son isn’t always the most communicative so this should be interesting!! 
He’s really excited and so are we! Where are you guys from? We’re from Long Island, NY.
It’s official, she pushed the button last night!
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34 ACT, top of class. Waitlist and didn’t stay on for long. Applied for financial aid. It definitely matters for Skidmore. They are very needs award, particularly for unhooked kids. Wasn’t the top choice, so wasn’t heartbroken. Three acceptances to higher ranked schools was the salve. Good financial aid offers put the smiles on parent faces!
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There’s no “having” yield protection. Every school cares about yield; but it’s a matter of degree from one school to the next. Harvard and Princeton don’t have to pay it any mind. But every school wants high yield. Some have to work harder to protect it than others.
It’s a fine school but w/o even researching their stats I’m confident it wasn’t 6.3%.
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