<p>^^^ JHS - Sorry, my bad. I was going to say Lutheran, but I knew St. Joe’s wasn’t Lutheran. (jk)</p>
<p>Post #34 is the only one that mentions summmer months. I would expect that a lot of campuses have very different personalities in the summer vs the school year.</p>
<p>As for the “personality” of the school…I have always liked the advice of sitting at the “fountain”…or whatever a central meeting place may be on campus…and just listening to the conversations. You can also do this in the cafeteria, or some other student hang-out, but make sure you’re not in an already self-selected hangout! (like the crunchy granola cafeteria…which is likely to attract a different personality than the burger and chips grill!)</p>
<p>I wish that we could visit schools when the students are there, but that isn’t possible for us.
That said, D has been very definite about which schools feel right, and which ones are a clear no-go after the tour/info session. </p>
<p>It’s funny, there are 2 schools that I thought she would love, which are barely middle of the pack, and 2 that I didn’t think would interest her that are in the top 3. Shows how effective I was in helping her in the preliminary search. Good thing we are still looking… 9 down, 2 (at least) to go. </p>
<p>Luckily, after looking at one UC, she could tell it would be too big for her, so she crossed off the other big ones that were on the list.</p>
<p>Funny how the university that BOTH my kids ended up at did not feel right when we first visited (in the summer.) We thought it looked too clean and square and empty and there were some problems with scheduling interviews…yada…yada… They both love/loved it! Hard to get a feel in summer!!!
Re; college visits. The more the better. We had a blast on our “college visit” trips. What could be better than checking out great architecture and oncampus museums and eating excellent food and walking around beautiful green grounds and bustling student centers with the kids that you love? Not to mention that thrill of thinking, “This might be the one. My child might actually be living here in a few years, studying in this gorgeous library, drinking coffee at this funky dive coffee bar…” Husband and I, with both kids now in/graduated from college, visited several colleges on our last vacation without the kids. We’re hooked; on every vacation we go on we seek out the local public libraries, and frequently the local colleges, too! ;)</p>
<p>JHS: Reading Chicago’s student blog and reading Dartmouth’s student blog was instrumental in letting my son know he did not want to attend Dartmouth. So many entries were about winter carnival.</p>
<p>On the other hand, as much as he admired Chicago’s blog, it also told him that it probably wasn’t the school for him. The adcom officer made a cute quip about reading War and Peace while waiting for admissions decisions and a dozen kids wrote in (in all seriousness) to ask which translation.</p>
<p>S is just not that much of a reader.</p>
<p>Still, if it hadn’t been halfway across the country I think he might have tried to push himself.</p>
<p>In the end it was the quirky, unpretentious humor of a purple, spotted cow as a mascot that won him over to Williams.</p>
<p>I want to go Chicago. I love the blog. But then again, I love Hanover. So I’d be happy to go to Dartmouth, too. And the HOP is great.</p>
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<p>That is hilarious but oh so Chicago! I spent a fair amount of time there way back when (boyfriend was in school there) and my brain cells used to hurt after visits. Chicago must still be true to its spirit and culture…it’s nice to hear that. As a parent looking at schools I’ve found so many along the way that I think “wow I would have loved this.” I think college visits are so fun…my H on the other hand detests college visits and rarely tags along. The absolute most happy times are when we get phone calls from S1 and he sounds so very happy and upbeat and glad about everything in life. Then you realize all the visits and preparation are so worth it. Now we’re “launching 2” into that phase.</p>
<p>I LOVED the college visit trips we took with our two sons. I’m almost sorry I don’t have any more kids left to do another trip with!</p>
<p>Now that we’re within a couple of years of retiring, my H and I are taking “retirement city” trips instead, much like the college visit trips of a few years ago. We’re looking for a comfortable, affordable city in which to retire. Instead of looking at campuses, we’re looking at neighborhoods, scoping out restaurants and shopping, getting a feel for things like traffic, crowds, etc. Instead of “cost of attendance”, we’re analyzing “cost of living”. It’s almost as much fun as the college visits were! :)</p>
<p>Ok, maybe we aren’t “doing it right”, but these things bore me to death. So far we’ve attended two (with another one coming up next week) “events” for HS juniors/seniors at colleges. </p>
<p>They typicially have a general session about admissions, some breakout sessions with specific departments and then a housing-campusLife summary. Also, we had a walking tour of the campuses.</p>
<p>These are big state schools, so I can’t imagine you’d learn anything beneficial just wandering around. I don’t believe ‘height of the buildings’ is a valid excuse for refusing to attend a school, so I’m definitely not as tolerant as many of the moms here, but seriously… if I had to tour 24 college campuses I would lose my mind! How do you stand it?</p>
<p>I’m in the “I love to visit colleges” camp. I took my younger sister and several cousins on college trips and it’s still interesting to me now that I’m a parent.
We like to look for whatever is special on a campus…a tower to look out of, a tiny museum, a great garden, a beautiful library.<br>
We also make a point of getting a snack on campus. It’s a great way to eavesdrop on what students are talking about.</p>
<p>I’ll admit the info sessions tend to bore me; but once in awhile you get an admissions officer (like we had this week at Tufts) who is really entertaining, funny and charming and who makes all the dry stats bearable. </p>
<p>But I’m a sucker for the tours. I love seeing the campuses. My daughter loves the libraries; if a tour doesn’t include the library she makes sure we go back and see it on our own. </p>
<p>Yeah, we’re a weird bunch, lol.</p>
<p>I’m with the majority on visiting college campuses for the experiences, and that they all have personalities- or it wouldn’t matter where you go. Sometimes by seeing many campuses you get to know what they all have in common and those turnoffs at the first ones become a nonissue. Spending time seeing campuses casually (on your own- no tours) while in the area when kids are preadmissions age helps them learn about the concept so that when they do formal searches they know how to better evaluate a college. They learn how schools are similar/different to ones near the hometown area. Multiple visits make it easier to evaluate college brochures and online info- you have experience with matching descriptions to actual sites.</p>
<p>Son wouldn’t visit Harvard when he and H saw MIT, H and I checked them out (and others) together on a vacation while son was away at his college. It is fun to see what well known schools actually look like and feel the atmosphere yourself. We also checked out the bookstores in various places. Sometimes it only takes a few minutes to realize a campus isn’t where you would like to spend years.</p>
<p>PS- NOT wierd to check out campuses, libraries et al.</p>
<p>Yes, I love libraries, always have.</p>
<p>Revealing moment on college tour: Ivy library, mid-afternoon, Saturday, spring, cool and drizzling. No one there. Completely empty, except for a couple staff. A neutron bomb wouldn’t have harmed a single student not doing a work-study shift.</p>
<p>Count me in the group who loves college visits. After a while the info. sessions become redundant and some are downright dull, but I’ve greatly enjoyed the time away spent with my teenager, as well as the opportunity to visit new cities I ordinarily wouldn’t have a chance to see. Granted, visiting the more well-known campuses near major cities tends to be more interesting than touring a little-known state university or a small school in the middle of nowhere, but I’ve enjoyed those too since we always seem to have an adventure along the way.</p>
<p>I definitely believe that we’ve tried to capture a sense of the personality of each school we visited. This sense is a very important factor in our selection process; it’s a large part of what constitutes “fit” for our kids. However, this assumes that the schools visited have first been carefully researched and selected according to certain academic, geographic and and financial criteria. Also, I’d agree that the impression might be biased depending on the luck of the draw for tour guides and admissions officers. That’s a good reason to visit top choices a second time if possible, such as during admitted student days.</p>
<p>yes my d definately felt different schools had personalities and feels. thought about how she would fit there. Dont want to get into specifics because someone always ends up defensive. It’s very subjective.</p>
<p>We have done LOTS of college visits. (31 over two kids!) DH and I both like these journeys – lots of time for talking with each of the guys, and we never know what will/won’t impress. S1 was looking for depth in his intended major(s), early access to graduate work, intellectual vibe and general quirky culture. He has the full collection of UChicago t-shirts. S2 goes for LACs and research universities – heavy intellectual bent but with football. Expects IR majors to already have a firm grasp on what’s going on in the world. Good food. Suspect access to major airports/trains will be important, too. ;)</p>
<p>Both have found sitting in on classes and wandering through departments to be determinative in whether a school stays on the list. They tend to do the tours, but not the info sessions. (They duck out and go exploring.) DH or I will do the info session and tour.</p>
<p>JHS, my husband has done the Ontario route twice now. Saves time, and Tim Horton’s is an added bonus.</p>
<p>Thanks to those who mentioned the Ontario route. I would do that but…there’s a certain requirement. I need to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to see the Springsteen exhibit. There’s no way I can enter the state of Ohio and not see that exhibit, so it made mapping out the trip slightly more complicated. The perils of being a Bruce fan…</p>
<p>My son’s criteria for a college:</p>
<ol>
<li>engineering</li>
<li>within a days drive from home</li>
<li>snow</li>
<li>lacrosse- club preferably</li>
</ol>
<p>During his spring break this year (junior yr) we visited 10 colleges in one week. Needless to say, he wasn’t too happy. We went from RIT, clarkson to MIT, tufts, WPI, Univ Rhode Island, Bucknell, Lehigh, lafayette and york… </p>
<p>By the end of the trip he had finally figured out what size/type of school “felt” right. Aside from it being a whirlwind trip it was invaluable. This June, he wanted to visit WPI again (his #1 choice) and we threw in RPI to compare. He’ll still apply to WPI this November as early action and then RPI, Lehigh, Va Tech, Bucknell and probably a few safeties thrown in.</p>
<p>The June trip it was just him and I- with him doing most of the driving so he could get his “45 hour” driving time requirement in so he could get his license. If you had happened to see us on the freeway, I was the one with white knuckles on the dash! :)</p>
<p>We had some wonderful conversations about school, life, his expectations, choices about colleges and life. I’d love to go on another trip with him- he is such a thoughtful, caring person and I can’t believe he’s almost ready to leave. Boy does time fly! And… he did great on the driving- a little heavy on the gas, but overall not too bad. (says the control freak who can’t stand other people driving…)</p>
<p>You could definitely tell the difference at WPI from the Spring to Summer trips. Good thing we visited when it was in session- I’m not too sure he would have picked it if all he had was the summer to base his decision on.</p>
<p>I guess it’s a good thing I like visiting schools…just counted it up and over three kids, we’ll have visited 47 schools by this December (that counts repeat visits to three schools for different programs for different kids). Almost all were in driving distance and some of the overnight stays were linked with family visits or camp dropoffs, so it was much more do-able than it might seem!</p>
<p>Of course, the one school where I would enroll in a second was the one everyone else in the family hated.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s just the engineer in me, but I have a really hard time scoping out the “personality” of a college in a half-day visit. Also, I tend to go to a school with preconceived ideas that I selectively reinforce during the visit. (That is one reason why I think it is not a bad idea to visit a school that you have no real interest in, in order to get a feel for a particular type of school without the pro or con rationalization that goes on inside your head…)</p>
<p>I’m a big believer in the students doing an overnight visit if possible, since I think it gives them more time and opportunity to get the feel for the place and see if they can picture themselves there.</p>
<p>Yes, I think schools absolutely have distinct personalities, and yes we visited close to 20 schools during the process.</p>
<p>With my son, “personality” (or “fit” or “feel” or whatever you want to call it) was one of his major deciding factors. Maybe “personality” isn’t the right word for it, but that really is what he ultimately made his decision based on - the campus feel, the interaction with staff, faculty and students. The personalities of Boston College and Kenyon College (the 2 schools to which he finally narrowed it down) were very, very different.</p>
<p>I’d also mention that one of our many visits was to a little liberal arts school in the midwest in the middle of nowhere that my son knew practically nothing about. I was a big believer in trying to visit as many colleges as we could practically manage, and I had a sneaky feeling that if he got on campus (and felt that “personality”) he’d be sold on the school. He actually almost cancelled our road trip thinking he had no interest - but I think he had his own feeling that he should probably check it out.</p>
<p>Well, as you can probably guess, he’ll be a freshman at Kenyon College this fall. So again, I feel strongly that schools have distinct personalities, and also that you’re well served if you can visit as many as you personally feel comfortable with!!! Have fun - we did.</p>