@BillW13 Son did not want colleges in South or schools with big sports? I’d say both were great reasons! (And I live in NC).
There are great Universities and colleges in the South. Who wants to freeze for the majority of thier College experience? 30 below wind chill factor as opposed to taking a day trip to a 75 degree local beach. Just saying what most people think. My kid is in NJ, now and has no idea what the next 6 months are going to really be like. I’ll be in mid Florida , 5 minutes to the beach if he wants a relief from the frozen tundra. Stay warm until May.
After our tour of Furman last Thanksgiving, I picked up several black baseball caps with FU in white for my friends for Christmas. They loved it! 
My daughter had so many stupid reasons every where I turned. I have PTSYD (post traumatic senior year disorder). I think I have blocked these things out actually. I recall her saying this stuff, but my gosh!!! I remember it was everywhere we turned. She would pick a part things at every single school.
@CheekyOne That begs the question…did she find some “perfect” school or is she attending a college that she picked apart?
S19 and I recently toured several schools. We both agreed that RPI is impressive but not a good fit for him. As one reason for his view, he mentioned not liking the “wide, open sidewalks”.
Later, I found out that he was comparing it to the tree lined spaces at Lehigh. We still had a good laugh over his comment.
I haven’t read thru this thread but I’m sure a few kids would immediately laugh off UC-Santa Cruz because of its banana slug mascot.
Turned down St. Olaf: “I’m not going to a school named after a snowman!”
And just as many would be drawn to UCCS because of those slugs. It was students, after all, who picked the slugs as the mascot.
There are a number of students who, as the song goes ‘don’t like spiders and snakes’ so Richmond and Florida Southern were out. And ‘orange’ seems to be a disliked color or mascot.
My daughter eliminated one school because there were too many guys with beards in their brochure.
I mentioned U Richmond to my D19 maybe 6 months ago and she did some image searches. Came back to me with a hard no. Reason? She has arachnophobia.
I actually find the beardometer reading to make sense. Some people just don’t like beardos. (Before anyone berates me, please see my profile pic.)
“My daughter eliminated one school because there were too many guys with beards in their brochure.”
Personally I don’t think that is a stupid reason. I’d put in under “observational” research.
The unavailability of sweet tea was a deal breaker.
My daughter totally has arachnophobia so it will be ironic if she ends up at the only college with a spider as the mascot. We are visiting next month.
My daughter doesn’t want to go anywhere warm because sunny weather depresses her.
THIS! ^^^
Actually for mine it was “Direct sunlight stresses me out.”
(And she ended up in LA, too, which I guess is unfortunate.)
And the other one wouldn’t even discuss any schools in Ohio because a state with O’s on both ends is just wrong.
Mine refused to look further south than MD meant she wouldn’t even visit GA Tech…Nice weather and mild winters were apparently a deal breaker.
My daughter won’t look at schools in the south because she’s very fair skinned and doesn’t want to be the palest on campus!
DD’s sixth grade school took the kids on a tour of Northwestern. The teachers built it up as a trip to get kids excited enough to take their grades in junior high seriously enough to give them a good foundation for high school. It was all about inspiring the kids to set a goal for college. Their hearts were in the right place, but Northwestern only showed the kids the sports stadium, the locker room, the workout room, etc. DD was peeved they didn’t get to see the library or possibly a science lab or even a single classroom. She never forgot it. “They only care about sports”.
Alas, reach schools are easy to come by.