<p>^^ If Brown is in the picture, SMU would probably not appeal at all.</p>
<p>If you don’t like the weather in New England, wait a minute.
–Mark Twain</p>
<p>It’s been just horrible for well more than a minute or two – but the sun should come out eventually. I’m sure it’s just waiting for me to go on vacation to the opposite coast!</p>
<p>I’d recommend Davidson, the Amherst of the South. </p>
<p>I understand that this June has been an all time low in the dreary weather category, and to me, Providence is one of the less appealing Northeast cities so it may not just be the rain that’s affecting your daughter’s mood.</p>
<p>However, weather – the good, the bad and the ugly – is an integral part of the New England experience, as well as much of the Midwest. The saving grace of the four season arrangement is that each has profoundly beautiful days that make up for the low points. You get so you look forward to Fall foliage, big snowstorms, the first Spring flowers, and June busting out all over.</p>
<p>Where I am from, any temperature over 60º is considered warm, and anything over 65º is highly unusual - the old folks there always start to complain about melting, fainting and swooning if the temperature gets anywhere near that high. I like warmer weather myself, but would have to seriously adjust if I went to live in Texas. I have experienced some New England summers that had me burning up and melting away, and it can get quite hot, really.</p>
<p>The Claremont Colleges have wonderful weather. I would definitely visit in the early fall when it’s the warmest so she can experience the worst weather. The rest of the year is nearly perfect. Our son has asthma and plays an outdoor, running varsity sport and has never complained about the air except during the wild fires when they were not able to practice outside for a day. We are Northerners so he was able to experience more winter than he could stand over the semester break. </p>
<p>I think it’s okay for students to consider weather if that is important to them. Our eldest son wanted cold, snowy winters so he didn’t seriously consider schools without four extreme seasons. He’s in grad school now in New Haven and is rethinking that idea these last four weeks. Even his perpetually sunny disposition has gone a bit sour.</p>
<p>Good luck to your daughter in her summer program and may she have beautiful weather for the rest of the summer.</p>
<p>This post is really a multi-faceted reply to may different posts. Our daughter is really looking at a multitude of colleges and Universities because she is determined to keep an open mind about what every University/College has to offer and throughout the process, has come to some very interesting self conclusions. </p>
<p>She likes the energy of NYU & Columbia, but realizes for her, being educated smack in the middle of a large city would be a distraction for her and she is unsure of her personal ability to not allow the distractions to have a negative effect on her education. (She loves shopping, city energy and broadway shows) She loved the “house” system at Harvard, and similar system at Rice and Yale. She like the fact that Harvard was close to Boston and Northwestern was close to Chicago, but smack in the middle of the respective cities.</p>
<p>As the weather improved in Providence today, her mood certainly lifted, and that actually concerns me. For me personally, weather really has an impression on my mood. For my Mother, it really has no effect. So in that aspect, I understand the “toughen” up stance some posters hail, but I think it is important to understand that by nature of the word “individual,” we are all just that, individuals. My daughter has a wonderful ability to adapt to a multitude situations from social to cultural, and I realize many people don’t have that ability. So for that I am grateful. If weather is her albatross, then so be it.</p>
<p>I also realize every school on her list we visited are super stretch schools. No doubt about it. As a TX resident she is securly in the top 10% (top .5% right now), all public TX schools are safe. But asking her to “love” them are a different story. I think our largest challenge are the target schools. From her journey, she realizes that anything over 8,000 undergrads is too big. Class size is important. She likes the idea of the Greek system, but understands and loves that the “house” system, as it fills that need as well. After visiting Wellesley, she realizes “all-girls” is all wrong for her. </p>
<p>So for fall, we are making another visit list, I committed to paying for 6 colleges for visits and so far, she wants to revisit Rice, and she would like to visit Vanderbilt. UVa was out because of size, and because the sun is like a mood ring to her, New England has become a bit brighter for her today. So who knows. I say apply to ten schools, put any acceptances in a hat and draw one…haha. So if anyone has any other ideas, (I have sent her the information on Davidson and Emory, both we have spoken about before) and I threw Duke out there, but I have no idea of Duke’s size, but a quick google search will solve that. She has mentioned Stamford, but again a super stretch school for an out of stater. I’m sure that will be a fall visit. Thanks everyone!</p>
<p>I’m not crazy about heat or air-conditioning, but I prefer to be adaptable. The weather this spring has been miserable, it’s usually much warmer and much sunnier. Actually, I haven’t had AC most of the hot places I’ve lived. (Pasadena, Africa and visiting grandparents in Florida.) I agree that I hope you are looking at safety schools. Just read your post, it sounds like your daughter is figuring out some good stuff - that’s progress!</p>
<p>Pomona would seem a perfect fit. Small LAC surrounded by the Claremont Colleges (6,000 students total) in the warm, dry climate of SoCal. My D can wear flip-flops every day and is thriving there. Where else can you find “Ski-Beach Day”? And smog is really not an issue - it’s hugely improved from 10-20 years ago. Pomona has the highest freshman retention rate in the country (99.5% according to USNWR) - the students obviously love it there.</p>
<p>I was one who hated the heat since birth so I went to school in Vermont and ended up living in the mountains in the PNW.
I think weather does make a difference in where we choose to school and live. If your daughter is lucky enough to be a student who would be readliy accepted the schools you mention, then she should have no problem getting into most schools in another clime. Look at SoCal schools (north coast gets very damp and wet) Stay away from the coast of the PNW. Maybe look at Whitman in Walla Walla - sunny most of the time - very little rainfall</p>
<p>“Usualy at this time of the year, it’s sunny, 80, and not a cloud in the sky. The worst weather we get is in the winter, and yeah, that might upset someone from Texas.”</p>
<p>The OP’s D is lucky to be experiencing the unusually gray weather during the summer. Otherwise, she might have thought that RI was sunny most of the time, and may have gone there and been very miserable during the seemingly never ending winter. By the time winter ends in NE, it’s time for final exams…</p>
<p>If she hates gray skies, I can’t emphasize more that she should not apply to schools in the NE and Midwest. In addition to being gray, winter days also are short in places like NE and NY. I’m from Upstate NY, and sunset during the winter was 4:30.</p>
<p>Hating the weather is a good reason to not apply to certain colleges. I don’t suggest wasting your money to visit places that she has ruled out because of the weather. She may have unseasonably lovely weather during her visit, and then be miserable if she goes there for college and experiences day after day of weather that she despises.</p>
<p>Gulp–DS en route to Brown this Fall. Has always said that weather would not be a factor–we shall see! For most of our only visit there, ADOCH, it poured rain most of the time, so at least there was no false advertising. You know it’s bad when the kids were willing to wear those goofy plastic coverings over themselves like you find at Disneyworld.</p>
<p>University of Tulsa? It’s about the right size.</p>
<p>collegeshopping… it is grand to do the big tour of wonderful colleges with your senior…but please don’t forget to visit match colleges and develop one at least beside your flagship college instate. Every one you name so far is highly selective, and match colleges for a good student like your girl can also be selective if they sense they are mere safeties. Respecting and getting to know and appreciate your match college is the key to happiness and mental health when you apply to a Reach Heavy list. Vanderbilt only admitted just under 17% to the school of Arts and Sciences this year, putting it on par with Duke’s Trinity undergrad college and similar to Rice, which had a very good year for being popular as well. Emory had an easier year for admissions this year…less selective than Vandy. Many fully qualified students are still on the wait lists of these colleges. Randomness and unpredictibility are part of the process for selective colleges…I am not saying don’t apply to ten colleges…but it is a mistake to spread yourself so thin that your son or daughter can’t right an incisive essay about each of them or interview well.<br>
Lastly, the thing we most ignored and lived to regret. Don’t apply to schools you view as unaffordable, do factor in the recession on your assets…do your FAFSA and realize that merit money at most highly selective institutions is either rare or non existent.<br>
we had a wonderful time exploring America through many great colleges and I hope you also have a memorable year full of growth for your daughter…parent of a Duke 09 grad and a Vandy 13 student…
if you have questions about southeastern colleges, let us know. Our son applied to nine colleges but after the recession hit —two of his favorites, two wonderful LACs, where he was admitted after much effort, interviewing and visiting…became moot as they were unaffordable for us post recession-qualms and blues and they do not award merit money. In the end, seven was “just right”…and my eldest applied to seven and was considered to be excessive by his guidance counselor to do that many</p>
<p>I’m going to second jellxtoxthexo. I’m from RI in MA right now, and weeklong long stretches of rainy days are unusual. Everyone is complaining about the weather lately, because it’s usually less depressing. I remember something like this in 2006, but for the most part sunny, rainy and cloudy days are evenly mixed. Also, my undergrad jobs were weather, specifically cloud, dependent so I notice and remember stuff like this more than the average person…</p>
<p>Yeah, so, I hate the weather up here too. Love the area in general, but hate the weather. I have not gotten used to it.</p>
<p>But I can <em>assure</em> you, the current stretch of weather is not representative of June. It’s <em>horrible</em>. It is by far the worst June weather I’ve seen in the nearly six years I’ve been living up here. No contest.</p>
<p>I disagree with the people saying that anyone who hates the current weather will be even more miserable during, say, the winter. I don’t love the winters, but I expect certain things from the winters, and I deal. I find this terrible weather during a time of year when it is usually really pretty, and when I expect it to be really nice, MUCH worse.</p>
<p>“disagree with the people saying that anyone who hates the current weather will be even more miserable during, say, the winter. I don’t love the winters, but I expect certain things from the winters, and I deal.”</p>
<p>That’s true of people who are from regions where winter weather has short. overcast, bone chilling days. That’s not true of people from sunnier regions, whose expectations of winter are very different and who may not be able to deal with winter in PRovidence.</p>
<p>Everyone should keep in mind that summer weather in the Northeast and Midwest is nothing like the weather students experience during most of the school year. Even days of summer rain don’t compare with the short days during the dreary, cold winter months.</p>
<p>Saying this as an Upstate NY native who found Boston weather milder than the weather that I was used to. What was wonderful weather to me, however, would be horrible for many college students from places like Calif. and the South.</p>
<p>FWIW when the weather was bad in the NE - we’d go to the library and study. When the weather in February is beautiful at my kids southern school, I’m hearing about the picnics at the levee.</p>
<p>when we visited the Claremont College area, as much as we liked Pomona, we were really unhappy with the acrid smoke in the air from wildfires… this was a huge STOP for us in further consideration of those schools… understand we know how random fires are… and that many are summer events, but for us, it was as much of a factor as weather would be…</p>
<p>NE is experiencing a horrible weather spell right now… I read somewhere that folks are calling it Junuary … Brown is such a great school, I have never heard of anyone say NO to Brown because of weather… </p>
<p>there are definitely kids from NE who refuse to consider schools north of Wash DC and there are kids from NE who refuse to go south of Wash Dc… </p>
<p>in my opinion, it pays to visit 1 very different region if one can afford it, just to ensure that your child has had the option to consider going “away” to school… we visited 6 CA schools and my child applied to only 1… the rest of those visited were not compelling enough to be so far away from home… but I never regretted providing my child with that experience and opportunity to acquire the knowledge of what was really important to them…</p>
<p>I slept a lot during bad weather in the NE. Took me years to find out that I had seasonal affective disorder… I remember that freshman year when we finally got a sunny, warmish day in the spring, I skipped class and biked 26 miles. </p>
<p>There’s so much excellent weather at his Fla. LAC that S definitely does study in the library during it. I think he takes excellent weather for granted.</p>
<p>I dislike rain but a sunny winter day makes me quite happy even when it’s cold.
That said, I totally agree that weather should be a big factor–It was for my S who turned Stanford down on account of same weather year round. Bear in mind that students will be at college from fall to late spring rather than summer. so it does not matter that it has been wetter and drearier than usual up in RI and MA.
There are quite a few southern LACs which are undervalued because they are not situated in the Northeast but provide an excellent education:Rhodes, Davidson, Sewanee, Centre, Hendrix, Furman… Then there are universities such as Emory, Duke, Vanderbilt. UNC is also excellent, but for OOS, it’s a reach. Would universities in DC fall into the warm weather category?</p>