<p>mathmom, I though Brandeis would be a winner. Really surprised me when it wasn’t.</p>
<p>Here’s a little Midwest perspective…</p>
<p>D1 and I visited all over (BU, Duke, SLU, MiamiU, UMiami) as well as the requisite Big Ten schools, and she ended up at Iowa. She liked the fit–it was strong in health sciences (she’s applying to med schools now), and the social/Greek life was up her alley.</p>
<p>Last year, D2 (a different animal altogether!) had her eyes on UW-Madison right from the git-go, although we had her visit small & large institutions (Augustana, UIUC, Iowa) for perspective, but Madison had her heart, especially after multiple visits. And it does have a ‘feel’–more than any other college after probably 15 visits for 2 D’s. At times while walking the UW-Madison campus I felt transported to the early 70’s, when liberalism was king & anything was possible.</p>
<p>I had forgotten what that felt like…</p>
<p>One thing my son liked about Brandeis was that they had flyers for each department in the admissions office - they gave an overview of the department and highlighted some interesting courses. He’s commented that most schools hardly say anything about their academics beyond the obligatory “small classes, classes taught by professors, it’s really easy to do research”. He thought that some of the top schools (like his recent trip to U Penn) figure you assume the academics are good and that they think you need to be assured you can have fun too, but he’d still like to hear more about academic programs.</p>
<p>I agree. ^^^ The local business college gave me the course catalog of undergraduate classes so I could see what an actual student is doing, and it made a difference, compared to other schools who were like, “Oh yes, take our word that academics are interesting and challenging.” Reading through it makes me all the more excited to possibly go there. :D</p>
<p>I am enjoying the posts on here immensely. College visits are such an intenses rite of passage for the entire family. For our first child, we did everything wrong - were certain he’d be rejected by all his reaches so we kept him away from visiting any school that was terribly selective and focused exclusively on building an enormous set of safeties. It turned out he was accepted at many reaches that he’d never even seen! That made for a second round of hurried college visits during the spring of his senior year. I would not recommend this approach. Be judicial - some reaches, some safeties - and visit all of them. We were too focused on protecting him from disappointment so he wasn’t really prepared for the decision he had to make, and neither were we. </p>
<p>I’m really looking forward to college visits with my second child who is more artistic and a bit less preoccupied with prestige. She wants to visit Sarah Lawrence and Barnard and places like that. I can hardly wait and will be looking for guidance from CC. Am noting the postiive mentions of Bard on here.</p>
<p>sewhappy: Sounds like your list will be similar to ours. D just graduated from Barnard. Feel free to PM with any questions you might have.</p>
<p>As you explore various colleges, it is important to be aware that at larger institutions in particular, there may be different cultures in different parts of the university. </p>
<p>The “personality” of a university’s engineering school and that of the same university’s fine arts program may be entirely different.</p>
<p>When I visited Yale with my D several years ago, at least half of the people in our tour group were just in the area on vacation and were curious to see the school. The guide actually asked for a show of hands as to which people were actually considering applying for the next year, and took those of us to the front of the crowd for more attention.<br>
I know when we moved to Princeton 20+ years ago and my kids were toddlers, we spent more than one beautiful day touring Princeton’s campus. I don’t think it’s that unusual to visit a college (especially a well-known one) when you’re just in the area. I know lots of people who have done just that, and visited quite a few places long before the kids were old enough to be thinking about applying. It’s free and interesting to many folks.</p>