<p>No, it can keep going. It’s funny! The point of the thread is the <em>stupidest</em> reason a kid won’t look at a college.</p>
<p>LOL Love it Laf!</p>
<p>My D refused to apply to Hampshire because the student interviewer hadn’t read Lolita or the Iliad.</p>
<p>My S hate Amherst because of the thick red carpeting and leather chairs in the room of the info session. Claimed it was “pretentious.”</p>
<p>Oh, and my D also refused to apply to Hampshire because she saw haystacks on the way.</p>
<p>My daughter refused to look at Wellesley because it was “just another women’s college.” She went to Smith.</p>
<p>She also refused to look at Williams because it was in Massachusetts. Again, she went to Smith.</p>
<p>And she wouldn’t look at anything, EVER, in a city because she was NEVER going to live in a city. Naturally, she attends graduate school in a city.</p>
<p>^ That is truly funny! How did she justify going to Smith or graduate school in a city?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>She made the above comments in either the spring of her junior year or in the summer between junior and senior year. </p>
<p>We forced her to look at Smith – and Bryn Mawr and Mount Holyoke, mostly because her guidance counselor urged her to. At first, she wasn’t even to get out of the car at Smith – she told us this before we even arrived. However, to be fair to her, she fell in love with both Smith and Bryn Mawr within minutes of starting the tours. By the time spring rolled around, she had decided that Smith was the place for her. She no longer cared about being in Massachusetts, as long as she’d be at Smith.</p>
<p>As for attending graduate school in a city, she had little choice because of her field. Most of the best programs for her interests are located in cities.</p>
<p>Ha, looking back over this thread and seeing where it all started.</p>
<p>My son actually wound up going to the University of Alabama. No sports there! </p>
<p>As it all turned out, he got into a great honors program there, he felt it was a great fit, not too far from home, and he couldn’t turn down the full scholarship.</p>
<p>I am trying to enjoy the next couple of years of bliss before we start the cycle over again with grad school options. I’ve already got an eye on a few, but I know they will not pass the “no California, no winter, no state flagship” criteria. I hope, in the end, he’ll put those aside, as he did for his undergrad decision, and just choose based on the school that’s the best fit for him and has the best program for what he studies. And of course, mom and dad will be happy if there’s scholarship money involved, too.</p>
<p>I judge a school based on the creativity of the mail they send me (and how much of it)</p>
<p>I would presume the quantity of mail sent is inversely proportional to the positive feelings for schools… Weekly (yes, that often) mailings reflected negatively for son and me. It was something we would joke about.</p>
<p>"Have you thought about Grinell? "</p>
<p>“I won’t go to any school in Iowa.”</p>
<p>“You don’t know anything about Iowa.”</p>
<p>“I was born there.”</p>
<p>“But we left there when you were 2 and have never been back.”</p>
<p>“Whatever. I’m not going there.”</p>
<p>“Have you looked at Butler?”</p>
<p>“I’m not going to anywhere in Indiana either.”</p>
<p>“Why not?”</p>
<p>“Dad, I’m not going to school in a state that starts with an I.”</p>
<p>“But you plan to apply to the University of Illinois!”</p>
<p>“That’s different. We LIVE in Illinois.”</p>
<p>^ I am guessing you did nt bother about Boise State!</p>
<p>I refused to attend any university that refers to itself at the “Ivy League of the South.” They just sound like wannabes! That cut out Vandy and William&Mary. (Eventually I got over it and applied to Vandy anyway but this actually played into my final decision not to matriculate.) </p>
<p>Anything that promoted itself as a southern school was also out. Again, Vandy, Tulane, Sewanee (it has “of the south” in its name… seriously?!?), etc. I guess I’ve been in the south too long. </p>
<p>Refused to consider LACs because they were all “in the sticks” even though I applied to and considered schools in the same areas as many great LACs (I saw Tufts and Amherst while visiting Harvard…) </p>
<p>Though I applied to UofChicago for the quirky intellectualism they are known for, by accepted students weekend I was so fed up with what seemed to me to be failed attempts at being quirky, intellectual, and different that I went to Chicago but never set foot on campus. =P (No offense, UofC lovers!) Also, the videos on the accepted students website were miserably dry and boring. I could tell why fun would choose to go there to die. =P</p>
<p>Of course, all of this is coming from someone who initially wrote off her chosen school as “too pretentious and snotty.” =)</p>
<p>I refused to look at South Harmon Institute of Technology because of the unfortunate acronym. </p>
<p>I hope someone gets the reference</p>
<p>Post #674 is indeed a priceless summary! Thanks for the smile! 
We are glad D only applied to & got into ONE university, where she should be graduating from next spring. Both kids had lots of interesting reasons for their choices & eliminations. Isn’t that what makes life so interesting? ;)</p>
<p>“But if I went to Tufts, I’d have to root for the Jumbos. Who wants to go to a school where the mascot is a cartoon character, especially one that’s an ELEPHANT?!!”</p>
<p>Don’t worry packalldwy, I got your reference ;)</p>
<p>packalldwy, what I thought was a cheap joke turned out to be a clever and perfectly fitting reference. Thanks for sharing!</p>
<p>Hey, my mascot was the “fighting ducks.” Donald was the model.</p>
<p>Our family was laughing about this thread the other day. My daughter jokingly added another stupid reason - If Vineyard Vines doesn’t have a tote for the school, she doesn’t want to look at it.</p>