“I could never go to an Ivy League school” because… there are too many tourists.
I tried explaining that Dartmouth, for instance, does not in fact have a constant stream of looky-loos. No luck. Tarred with the same brush.
Daughter won’t consider a nice LAC three hours away that will likely be a low match for her because the name is the same (different spelling) as a community college in our town that half the kids in her high school eventually attend.
“I’m not applying to colleges in Ohio. People leave Ohio for DC, not the other way around!”
Texas. Just because. He’s never been to Texas. But it is a deal breaker.
This is pretty much my favorite thread ever. Thank you all for keeping it going. 
@cypresspat My D17 was the exact same way. No Texas. No rational reason. Oh well, she ended up where she wanted.
St. Lawrence is off the list…no visit. Anybody watch “Who Killed Garrett Phillips?” on HBO??? Lol
@NJWrestlingmom No, I had;t even heard of it, but i went to SLU so guess what I am watching tonight?!
One of mine wouldn’t look at Hamilton because her friend’s dad, an obnoxious loudmouth, went there 35 years ago and talks about it constantly.
@momtogkc it’s very good! Depending on when you were there you might recognize some people!
S didn’t like a school because it had too many flowers…I thought the campus was beautiful! Keep in mind, this was only one part of campus that had a lot of flowers…
Some things don’t change. Many many years ago, I didn’t want to go to Penn because a classmate I did not like was going there.
I didn’t want to even apply to state flagship school because my father was affiliated with the program.
I also wasn’t thrilled with one of my kids’ schools because it sounded like a directional state college way out in the boonies while we were paying top private school tuition for it.
A worker at the cafe in the student union was short with her in the evening, then overly friendly the next morning. ???
I knew the school had fallen down on her list, but not exactly why. It was only after she’d had the same school suggested as a good fit while visiting other schools, and we’d decided to go back for a revisit, that the original reason came out!
Did I mention 50 pages ago that I wouldn’t look at a university because my parents went there? My thought process at the time was very similar to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnRrvOb0m-I
@cptofthehouse , I try to fight my prejudice against colleges with odd sounding names. An example would be Wooster or Kalamazoo. Colleges like Reed and Rhodes just sound more impressive to me. Once a college has reached a certain reputation level, it no longer matters. Rice U, for example.
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Because it is in Virginia. Virginia is boring and I won’t look at anything in the state of Virginia. Virgina is out people! So is any college she has never heard of or anything with a high acceptance rate. Is it too early to start drinking? (9:15am)
When I first asked D what kind of college she might like, she said, “I might like to go to the East Coast, since we have family there. Or the West Coast, because the weather is better. Or somewhere not too far from home (Chicago), so we could drive… But not, like, Texas.” I laughed and told her how much I appreciated her narrowing down our search radius to only 49 states. And ruling out one for absolutely no good reason! 
Our older D chose Reed, with a salmon creek and lake, nature preserve, some beautiful old buildings, vast lawns, one of the picturesque campuses. Younger D rejected the school: “It’s in a forest.” She chose NYU’s alt-forest.
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A few years back daughter rejected Alabama on the spot because the female student tour guides were wearing skirts and heels in the 100+ Tuscaloosa Alabama August heat.
On second thought, maybe that wasn’t such a stupid reason.
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So now that S is a Senior, he no longer appears to have stupid reasons to take schools off the list. But what I’m finding is he has stupid reasons for schools moving up the list… i.e. those who send the best swag are moving up.
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