Spring 2019 college visits with D20/S20: Where are you headed?

College Search & Selection
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Did USC in Cali recently. $12 to park on campus for the two hour tour. 30 minutes were spent talking to an AO. USC superstores SAT only. No demonstrated interest required. No ED or EA. Apply by Dec 1 for fin aid consideration. Otherwise Jan 15 is latest. It was suggested to build a relationship with the AO assigned to your high school.

90 min walk was enlightening. Keyvon walked backwards throughout. He did the school proud. Flat terrain allowed for the abundance of motorized skateboarding. Studying abroad for business majors is tantamount with China and Italy on the itinerary for the sophomore and junior years, respectively.

19000 undergrads make it a larger private but average class sizes are 28:1 with 8:1 student/faculty ratio. Curriculum allows for wider eclectic class choices like electronic music or 4 hour Thursday evening seminars watching pre-released movies followed by discussion with production staff to complete general ed requirements.

Keyvon joked about how well their engineers performed on a specific rocket elevation test, tweaking the interest of those also interested in nearby Caltech. He gave anecdotes about how the George Lucas building came to be thanks to Steven Speilberg. He also shared a story on the helpfulness of the alum, specifically at a football game versus Utah.

Overall, it’s in consideration for NMS purposes despite the fact that windows had security bars on the first floor of a building at the McCarthy Way entrance off Figueroa. Any suggestions for other merit rewarding privates on the west coast or New England? Not interested in the south. TIA.

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D20 will be on a school trip for spring break so no trips for us. During winter break she visited Haverford and loved it.

We live in the NE so lots of schools nearby. So far she has visited and really liked Middlebury, Tufts, Amherst, Brandeis, Hamilton.

Schools that are off the list are BC, BU, UNH, St. Anselm.

Still have quite a few to visit, like SUNY Buffalo, Binghamton, U of Richmond, Smith, Gettysburg and others. This is quite a process.

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@Dancingmom518

I can see taking st a’s and unh off the list. And BU not having the traditional campus.

But, at this stage why not take a look at BC for a student if her caliber, especially if you are local.

My d’s favorite thing for campus fun, other than football, has been watching the various dance teams. There are many she says and she loves the super popular step group named “sexual chocolate” (which gives you a sense that BC is not the Puritan Catholic enclave some believe it to be).

And The Fleabags, America’s oldest collegiate improv group and of Amy Poehler (SNL) fame.

It’s more supportive of arts and dance than you would think. Chris O’Donnell and many others.

And despite being a Jesuit school, mistakenly seen to mean conservative, some of its it’s most noted grads are noted liberal icons.

Sen Ed Markey of Green New Deal fame, Secretary of State John Kerry, Sec Robert Munoz of the Obama administration, Legendary liberal Speaker Tip O’Neill, the current mayor of Boston, the publisher of one of the world largest Hispanic media chains and many others. Take a look st the list of notable alums on the BC page before writing it off.

I think the grads help represent the student vibe and quality.

Good luck in any case and enjoy the ride!
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@Cheeringsection - Depends if you were planning on driving or flying. I live in Richmond, have lived in the MidWest, and have driven all around the area for work or college visits. There are so many colleges within four hours of Richmond. If you decide to visit W&M, may be worthwhile to add a couple more schools based on your daughters idea about the type of school she wants to attend.

If driving, coming from Midwest, once you get through Breezewood, PA, I70 to I81S will take you literally right past JMU, you can see it from the expressway, and then to W&L and VA Tech. I64E will pass by UVA about an hour from JMU, pass through Richmond, and it takes you right to W&M.

If you stay on I70 on your way to I95S, you’ll drive though DC on the way to Richmond. You will pass Georgetown, GMU, GWU, etc., on the way down to Williamsburg.

If flying, as earlier suggested, I’d fly into Richmond International airport.

For college visits, from Richmond, W&M is one hour away, University of Richmond is obviously in town (VCU in town also; urban campus), has outstanding merit scholarships and financial aid and is absolutely gorgeous, UVA is also an hour away, Once you start heading up or down I81/I85/I95 from Richmond, college list expands greatly.

If W&M interests your daughter, and you’re looking for merit or need-blind, I would definitely look at University of Richmond. My daughter also loved Davidson.

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@travelfamily , so many I know fell in love with Stonehill after visiting! It is a hidden gem

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@Longhaul Thank you! If you have any info you could share I would love to hear it! Particularly about the sciences. My daughter is also an equestrian and into social activism. Her stats fall above the 75% so I think that would bode well for merit.

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@jcwjnw99 thank you for the information based but upon recent, more local tours, DD20 has decided not to look further for schools smaller than 10k students. JMU is still on the to be toured list. URichmond and W&M are not. Progress!

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@travelfamily she sounds like a Mount Holyoke kid!

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@Itisatruth Totally! The only problem is that we can basically walk there from our house! Which also possibly gets us the town scholarship. She doesn’t want to be more than 3 hours from home- but she’s not sure she wants to be in our backyard either though. On the flip side- if it wasn’t in our backyard she would be eligible for that scholarship. So hard!

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I think we’re going to do a PA LAC tour. Univ of Scranton, Susquehanna, Gettysburg, Dickinson & Muhlenberg. And throw in a day or two at Hershey Park for some fun.

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I need to take some time to comb back through this thread and remind myself of which schools might require me to be on better behavior in the next couple of weeks, in case I run into any of you. :smiley:

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We are visiting mt holyoke and smith during my daughter’s april break. She will interview, too. Anyone know if the interview will be with a student? Incidentally, we visited both W and M, and Richmond last month. Liked them both but would click better with the student body of W and M. She loved the look of the campus, and dorms, and majors and class size at Richmond but perhaps the student body is not the best fit for her.

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@silverpurple When my older daughter interviewed at MHC it was with a student. Don’t know about Smith.

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@Cheeringsection gotta draw the line somewhere! Sounds good.

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We’re doing a four-school road trip with S20 in early April. These will be his first tours (the only campus he’s ever really seen is his older brother’s LAC). He’s our 3rd son and it’s so funny how different they all are: S14 and I went on about 15 tours; S17 knew exactly where he wanted to go so that was his only one; and S20 knows only that he wants to be in warm weather (we are in the midwest), and that his school have a great social atmosphere and not be super-competitive (he’s a B-student).

To that end, we are flying to Charleston and driving through Florida, with stops at College of Charleston, Rollins College, Florida Gulf Coast University, and Florida Atlantic University. The second two were his suggestions (amazing what a NCAA Tournament run will dol!) and the first two were mine. Even though it’s just four schools, I think it will be very enlightening, since they tick the boxes of small, medium, and larger (he wants 25,000 max) and they are all valid options in their own right. At this point, I don’t anticipate doing a lot of other visits with him, but we will use his impressions of these four to guide him in crafting an application list and we can visit anything else that comes up after he’s been admitted.

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@julesegr I’m a Rollins grad! It is an awesome school. Best 4 years of my life, and all my Rollins friends agree!

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We are heading to UVA, William and Mary, and Wake Forest. May also try to fit in U Richmond. On the way home, GW. I’m hoping my DD20 likes at least two of these!

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@travelfamily we have the same issue with Bryn Mawr! Not in our backyard, but <10 miles from our house which is starting to feel too close to D20. Which is too bad because I think it’s a great fit otherwise!

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Has anyone had experience trying to get into an NYU tour/info session as a walk in? We have to cancel our scheduled tour (long story, but basically my fault) and try to go another day on walk-in basis, since all of March is booked solid on their website. Not sure how good a chance we’d have? We can always do a self-guided tour if we don’t make it in.

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@MAmom111 We also did the PA tour…flew into Scranton and rented a car there for our trip. UScranton and Dickinson made the final cut after seeing probably 8 or 9 schools between Scranton and dropping the car at BWI to fly home. We visited the Amish Country sites for a day which was fun. All in all I believe we were there 3 nights, it was a fun trip!