<p>I am so happy I started this post! I can't believe it's gotten to 15 pages! I'm really enjoying reading these.</p>
<p>My daughter was inordinately influenced by her tour guide at Haverford, a young man with painfully low self esteem. He went into a long winded scheme about very publicly picking up a package at the school mailboxes to demonstrate that people love you.<br>
He also related how he was trying to act cool on his second day on campus by reclining on a glass coffee table. He spent the next days having glass shards removed from his body. I prompted that that must have got you well known among your class. He said "Yes, they call me glass ass".
Completely off her list.</p>
<p>Any school in DC: Because there are "too many plaques on buildings in that city" (childhood memories of boredom during family vacations?)</p>
<p>Any schools her least favorite classmates planned to attend</p>
<p>Harvard: too "pompous" and had a major road dividing campus, refused to do a tour</p>
<p>Princeton: school colors too "Halloweenish" </p>
<p>Yale: interviewer was "too awkward"</p>
<p>Boston U: A "huge" road runs alongside campus</p>
<p>Our flagship state U: the dorm bathrooms have no ventilation</p>
<p>That bathroom ventilation thing would be a deal breaker for me.</p>
<p>This is the most enjoyable thread I have ever read on CC. No bashing each other, no back stabbing....I loved the UMass bricks comment, and I have learned more than I ever needed to know about squirrels. And being a New Englander I pretty much, sad to admit, thought all squirrels were pretty much the same, grey or maybe red and about the same size. Who knew?</p>
<p>We have the most expensive squirrels. Two got into our house, between the ceiling and the floor of the story above. We got the wildlife specialist to come and get them out. It came to $350 each. You can see them for free at a large number of campuses, though. :)</p>
<p>A number of people have commented unfavorably on the "brickiness" of Harvard.</p>
<p>"The parents on the tour were obnoxious."--this spoken by a parent of the prospective student,explaining why they weren't encouraging her application to an excellent flagship state U. (Student later transferred to same FSU and is ridiculously happy)</p>
<p>S rejected Penn State-University Park because the stadium was too big.</p>
<p>On the wildlife front, he called me freshman year to say he could see a DEER from his dorm. If he had seen it on the tour, that school would have been blacklisted. I can only imagine how he'd feel about the gator pond.</p>
<p>"squirrels" in my area are really tree rats. After last big hurricane, they found there way inside house. They ate thru cardboard packages in pantry and labels on cans, and left their poop everywhere. Fortunately, a wonderful pest control man came daily to rid us of these pests.</p>
<p>After reading this thread, almost glad my S only visited colleges after being accepted.</p>
<p>When we did college tours during summer when DD was between junior and senior year she began making "matching architecture" a plus side for schools, and "non-matching architecture" a negative. But now I think she was just trying to figure out why she liked Yale so much.</p>
<p>From jamiecakes:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Stupidest reason a parent recommends a school....
My husband liked many of the schools he visited with our son.</p>
<p>But the reason he recommended the school he wanted my son to pick was completely based on the fact that they had a good Sunday brunch in the dining hall and parents can eat there when they visit!
[/quote]
What school is that? I'd love for my son to go to a school with a good Sunday brunch and I'm always welcome. We'll definitely consider it.</p>
<p>It was Fordham!</p>
<p>This thread reminds me of the Groucho Marks quote:</p>
<p>I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.</p>
<p>No wonder so many parents love Fordham!</p>
<p>Can parents of non-Fordham students eat at the Sunday brunch as well? ;)</p>
<p>ohhh LIMOM I hope so! </p>
<p>DD's refused to look at Puget Sound because their little bro ( a 7th grader at the time) "misread" the school name as University of Pungent Squod which became University of Pungent Squid and that's all she wrote...the death knell sounded.</p>
<p>you guys made my day, now off to work UGH! Have a great sunday!</p>
<p>My son wouldn't apply to William and Mary because it's too near to Colonial Williamsburg (I guess we traumatized him when we took him there once)</p>
<p>Also, my niece has the color thing down to such a science that you can tell her colors and she will tell you the name of the school. She also wouldn't consider any school with ugly colors. Luckily University of South Carolina admitted her after deferring her from early decision and she likes the colors.</p>
<p>And tour guides/information personnel are key - the info session person at Johns Hopkins was a gratuating senior who treated the hour like it was "learn about me" session not learn about JH. The guide at UMass seemed disorganized and not together, which took it out of the running for a safety. The guide at Amherst was cool and together and he was considering it but decided not to apply because he didn't think he would get in (it would have been a reach but he's sort of a legacy - they don't consider grandparents as legacy but we might have been able to make a special case about my father because he almost died in a hazing incident)</p>
<p>
[quote]
And tour guides/information personnel are key
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's for sure! About 8 years ago when D was looking at colleges, we assumed for many reasons that she would choose Drew. It was about an hour from home, my H had worked and completed graduate work there and she had visited him many times, so she was very comfortable on the campus.</p>
<p>So we did an official visit with tour. Well, we had the most pretentious tour guide who felt the need the share his political views about the various public officials who had visited the campus. Ummm, you might want to know your audience before you go off like that! We also had a really obnoxious parent in our group. This mother's D was the prospective student, but the D either couldn't or most likely didn't want to come by the sound of it, so mom was on her cell phone describing everything (loudly) to her D. About halfway through the tour, my then 12 yo son said, "I don't like this place." I hushed him and said don't let your sister know that, we want her to come to her own conclusion. Well, she felt the same way. We got kind of a "you will be lucky if we let you come here" feeling from the whole admissions presentation. No thank you.</p>
<p>D didn't apply to William & Mary because the tour guide acted as if she had never been in the library before. And possibly because the admissions rep who did the info session was quite arrogant.</p>