<p>Yes, I remember my cousin the graduate student pronouncing (in 1973) that there were effectively only 8 universities with libraries adequate for actual research: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia (with help from the NY Public Library), Penn (with help from the Philadelphia Free Library), Chicago, and Berkeley or Stanford (with help from each other). Libraries were incredibly important to me when I was a student -- the (open) stacks, the beautiful reading rooms, and the ones that were open 24-7. When I went to law school, I was stunned to discover that the law library closed at midnight (since the law library at my undergraduate institution never closed). By the middle of my second year, I had been given a key. (A combination of legit extracurricular needs, and the fact that the campus police were tired of coming to let me out when I got locked in by "mistake".) I was a heavy user.</p>
<p>Yes! That seems to be becoming a lost art. I do love the new Middlebury library (dubbed "The Death Star" for its round shape and clerestory lighting). However, the beauty amounts mostly to good lighting, good seating, nice views, and traffic flow. Engineering. A missing element is the wonderful, inspiring inscriptions one used to see ("Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.")</p>
<p>Another thing I used to enjoy was the penciled margin notes from generations of students. Do kids do that anymore?</p>
<p><<I think your exchange students must have been total indoor kids. They have plenty of squirrels in France: Red squirrel - wildlife of France <<
No, I am originally from France and I can vouch that squirrels in France can only be glimpsed deep in the forest. My mother has come and visited me many times over the past 25 years and she still gets a kick out of the many squirrels that live in our yard.
As far as Michigan, I never found the squirrels particularly threatening when I visit my in-laws, but the mosquitoes are another story: I swear that they are twice as big as the ones on the East Coast.</p>
<p>Thanks for this thread. I still haven't stopped laughing!</p>
<p>My kids:</p>
<p>BC: Religion would be forced down students' throats (D saw a priest getting out of a car near the admissions office as we were walking in.)</p>
<p>Brown: Male tour guide was too outgoing. Female guide was wearing a sweater slung over her shoulders and tied at the neck, thus school was too preppy.</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins: Students walking around campus looked like they wanted to kill themselves.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon: Since none of the current students we saw walking around in groups were speaking English, then English must not be spoken on campus.</p>
<p>BU: Professors were 'dumber' than those at our state university.</p>
<p>Cornell: You might get mugged in town.</p>
<p>Georgia Tech: Ditto Johns Hopkins.</p>
<p>Tufts: Since one kid in our tour group asked numerous stupid questions, then all the kids at Tufts must be stupid.</p>
<p>I ruled one school out because during my visit I saw very few students on campus. It felt weird, and I like to think it's a valid reason. I asked an admissions person when spring semester would start and she said it had started - people were hiding because it was cold. 50 degrees isn't cold. 50 degrees is spring.
Of the very few people I saw, one was walking to class barefoot. That's not practical.</p>
<p>I'm heading out on a college visit today with the child who hates rain. Torrential, epic rains are in the forecast. Upside: perhaps this will result in two fewer applications to prepare and submit....</p>
<p>S2 has said he won't consider UMichigan because he does not like the philosophy of their drum line. Now this might make sense if he actually wanted to play in the line, but he doesn't.</p>
<p>Squirrel story: When dropping off S1 at UChicago we saw a t-shirt that said something like, "U of C where the squirrels are more aggressive than the guys." Shortly thereafter we were walking near a dorm and saw a pit bull and a squirrel facing each other. For a moment they were perfectly still, then the squirrel, head down, with eyes fixed on the dog, started moving toward it! The dog owner finally managed to pull the dog away to apparent "safety" before the squirrel reached it. S2, who was transfixed, finally said that we had better warn his brother that the t-shirt was right, and to never cross a Chicago squirrel.</p>
<p>LIMOM, D was harassed by a group of young men when we were walking around the Commons in downtown Ithaca. It was so bad that we actually had to leave. However, it was my son who was looking at Cornell at the time. When he later decided not to apply to Cornell, I asked him his reasoning. He said, "You might get mugged in town."</p>
<p>The most aggressive squirrels I have ever encountered were in Wooster Square in New Haven. My family was happily ensconced on a bench eating our delicious pizza taken out from Pepe's, a block away, after walking our dog in the small park there. After a bit, we realized that a group of squirrels was executing a series of coordinated tactical maneuvers of the sort attributed to velociraptors in Jurassic Park. One would approach us from the north, and establish a position too close to us. When we shooed it away, we would notice that another squirrel to the southwest had moved even closer than the first squirrel had been, and when we chased that one away there was a third right behind us to the east. Even taking the dog off her leash didn't solve the problem, because the dog would chase the first squirrel she saw to a tree that was some distance off, and the other two squirrels would continue their assault.</p>
<p>We finally assigned one family member to patrol our perimeter, and we finished our pizza much faster than would otherwise have been optimal. The three squirrels continued to test us and to look for an opening to the pizza until it was gone.</p>
<p>I suppose it's good that the weather is rarely hot in Seattle. I attended the UW and remember seeing the squirrels run right up the leg of an unsuspecting student. That's surprising when one's wearing jeans. I can't imagine the excitement if one were wearing shorts.</p>
<p>I nixed one school from the list because they gave us an undeserved parking ticket. We are frugal people, and had checked carefully for "no parking" indicators beforehand and we swear there were none. I thought that was sneaky and mean, because the spots were near the Admissions Office where many other visitors besides us had parked. It didn't matter, though, because S thought the boys looked too "artsy".</p>