Summer visits-where are you headed, any tips?

@Boomer1964 first you have to know if the school even cares about interest (look at section C7 of their Common Data et)…but usually merit is to attract students with high SAT/ACT and GPA to the college. Interest is about admissions, not merit

@bopper Lots of schools care about interest…As I mentioned above, we only visited schools where she had a chance for admissions and based on the information provided by the schools, she would have had a chance for some merit based on her profile. The point that I am trying to make is for prospective students and parents to take their time to look into schools where the student has a chance for admissions and where the financials will work. In our case, we would have not qualified for need based aid so we looked into schools who were able to offer merit based on her complete profile…No need to spend any time or financial resources if a prospective student is not an academic or a financial fit… As it is my rising 11th grader is very interested in looking at the University of Wisconsin. He is probably an academic fit. However, UW is not known to offer any type of merit to out of state students. In our case, why take the time and spend the money flying to Madison to look at this school if I know full well, we are not going to be able to afford it. However there are other schools similar to Wisconsin who might be better overall fits.

Based on our own experience, a visit or two into at some of these schools may have helped to secure some sort of merit. These schools even offered travel allowances in order to visit them even after she was admitted. The fact that we did not take advantage of these perks probably worked against her in securing even a small amount of merit. Both of these schools are known to offer some sort of merit. Perhaps the lack of interest on our end did not helped. Having said that, we had excellent choices and many of you will too. Just do your homework and visit the ones that fit your profile assuming of course, you can financially afford to visit. So many people around here do not even go to a lot of college tours. and by the end of the day, it works out for them too.

Just finished a tour this week of University of South Carolina. One of the best, if not the best, tour guides we have encountered. Very honest answers, told stories about her time at the school. Beautiful campus that made the tour process very easy by having someone there to direct you where to park, how to get to different locations, etc. Beautiful school of business and fitness center. Faculty we ran into were extremely nice and helpful. We are not city people, but really felt that South Carolina did a great job of creating and maintaining a campus vibe. You can get the benefits of being in the capital city (internships, things to do) without feeling like you are in the city. My son felt the exact same way and moved this school up to #2 (behind Clemson) on his favorites. Will definitely apply this month.

Hey @ChillDad can say more about being an ROI guy? And whether your comment was in reference to the pronoun-eschewing or the lackluster commentary or the sustainability studies or the single-sex trepidation? Thanks!

@Zline are you guys South Carolina residents? That was interesting to hear. I was thinking of taking my son to U of South Carolina. What is it you guys like better about Clemson?

@Zline my D is starting her 4th year at U of SC and the ONLY negative I’ve ever heard from her is that Columbia isn’t a big enough city (we are from suburban Philadelphia so understandable, I guess). And yes, the campus is self-contained but integrated into the city, so you kind of get the best of both worlds.

@collegemomjam - No we are from suburbs in PA. Son wants to go to school in warm location so South Carolina schools naturally made the list. My son felt that it was just a bit easier to get around Clemson than University of South Carolina. Felt the Clemson campus was more self contained and LOVED that the football stadium is on campus vs. being about 2 miles off at University of South Carolina. I also believe if Clemson was not opening their new business school in 2020, he would have moved South Carolina to the top. South Carolina’s business school was built in 2014 and is really impressive

@LuckyCharms913 - Thank you for providing that information. I have talked to a few people who have attended along with their parents. I have heard very positive comments about Univ. of South Carolina. We are also from suburban Philly (Bucks County) but my son is not into large cities. He really liked the little town of Clemson.

@Zline @collegemomjam We have a good friend starting at USoCarolina this fall; from VA originally so had a wealth of schools she COULD have chosen and her parents could send her to whatever school she desired. Something just clicked with her in Columbia and she is excited about being a Gamecock! She was super impressed with the campus (not too big but not too small) and the Honors program. Weather will be a plus if coming from up North - all four season but winter not as long. My D18 moves out in 12 days… hardly seems real! I have 2 more at home and I already know their college selection process will each be different! Thankful I have a 4 year break but miss having the excuse to visit campuses! Good luck with your searching!

My daughter is beginning her second year at U South Carolina. Nothing but positives all around.

@Zline - have you looked into UGA? Athens is a phenomenal town (I used to travel there on business frequently) and the school is developing a great reputation from us northerners. My guess is in the next 5-7 years it will be as popular as South Carolina. And their football stadium is right on campus too.

Edit to add: Very easy to get too as well. Flights to Atlanta are dime a dozen and then it’s a 90 minute drive. I know peeps at USC that have had trouble with the flights in/out.

@eb23282 I’m jumping into this thread late, but UGA is one schools my D19 will be applying to - really like the vibe and Athens truly is a great college town. Do you know how kids get to Atlanta airport? We have been wondering if there is easy access to shuttles given that most students are instate.

Nice to hear such good things about South Carolina which is also on D’s list. We had terrific tour in the Spring. Applying to Bama and Florida as well.

@Zline @LuckyCharms913 - We are a suburban Philly family as well. So many kids heading South!

@houndmom there are shuttles available to/from airport and campus.

@eb23282 - My son had not considered UGA. I’ve asked him to at least look into it so thank you for the suggestion
Have not been to Athens in on over 25 years. The company I work for used to have a location in Royston, GA.

@Zline Glad to hear, though personally I’ve got no skin in the game as I don’t live in GA nor have any family who attends. I simply travelled to Athens frequently and worked with many UGA graduates. Seems like a great school and I would encourage my kids to look if they were interested in larges schools (which they are not). Good luck. I’d be curious to hear your opinions if you do visit.

We saw:

Kenyon Aug 9th Summer day and it was good enough, but left her feeling “meh”. Sat in on 1hr interactive mock class with I. Garcia awesome professor. Talked to 3-4 students in detail about life at Kenyon. Every time I (parent) left the students would be much more candid with my daughter. As much as Kenyon is hyped on CC I really wanted to love it and the academics seem very solid, intellectual vibe was evident, but it truly does seem behind the times in many ways buildings, services, etc. Student panel wasn’t super strong either all were still searching in a way; “I think I will be a professor”, “I think I will be a professor”, “Maybe a think tank”, and the last “Work on my tattoo portfolio or maybe Supreme court, so many options”.

Denison was better than expected. Tour, interview, daughter again talked to 2-3 students a decidedly preppier or dressier vibe, prettier, nicer, more up to date (everything) and Granville is cute. The faculty she met, the students, all gave a great vibe. Worst tour guide by far, in fact, out of all of the tours we have been on 15-ish she was the worst. Talked super soft and no hype like a memorized speech regurgitate.

Wooster was a surprising ultra nice and thoughtful from the time we entered until the time we left. The IS seemed challenging and as they say “Tour guides matter” and ours was awesome. Math major researching “knot theory” who isn’t in math these days. Seems every college we go to the Math majors are researching “knot theory”. He was clearly passionate and loved his experience a rising Junior who stays over the summer and does research, volunteers, etc. She interviewed here as well more informational I believe.

CWRU as expected great area LOTS TO DO, great equipment, great school for the focused driven I know I want engineering or premed student. Did not have a nice people vibe more of a tolerating vibe…like we are “CWRU” top 20 this, best research that, very very long tour 10210 steps. She interviewed here and it went fine enough.

Daughter’s ranking lol

  1. Denison
  2. Wooster
  3. Kenyon
  4. CWRU

Mine was different, but I’m not the one going to school.

Her current favorites are: Trinity, Rhodes, Denison, Davidson

@emptynesteryet Kenyon on S19’s list as well. We visited the summer before junior year and loved what he saw. I did as well. Since then we have visited quite a few schools. Carleton, Grinnell, Davidson, Bowdoin being some of his favorites. When I think about Kenyon now I feel like there are fewer opportunities there even though we still think it’s a top contender for him. I looked up the number of majors at each school and the others all have 45-55 options. Kenyon has less than 30. I don’t know yet if that would be an issue as S19 is undecided but it did seem a bit odd that they had so few compared to others. Denison has 50 or so. Dickinson (another safer school for him has 60!) I also felt like the kids there leaned more towards grad school than working professionally out of undergrad. We are visiting again this fall and need to get a better grip on career services there.

@homerdog – Kenyon was the first school each of my kids visited, and we all swooned. Campus looks like we imagine a small liberal arts college should look like and we liked the “smart kid” vibe on campus. As we moved through the process, I was surprised to discover some of the things that weren’t there, like a Computer Science department and major (though there is a computational science concentration) and Ceramics as part of the Fine Arts department. Both my kids found the right place for them, and we have good friends’ kids who are at Kenyon and very happy. My take-away is that, with any LAC, do your “diligence” and not assume that it offers what you want.

@emptynesteryet you have toured many of the schools that we hope to over the next year for DD20. My main concern with many of them is the level of diversity. No offense intended to anyone, but she is trying to escape the suburban-raised, mainly white bubble that is her high school in favor of a more diverse experience. I think she may need to go bigger than these schools to accomplish that goal. Did being on campus support that? If not, how would you rank order them purely on a diversity scale?

@Cheeringsection, hard to say as school was not in session.

Wooster said this year was 17% international higher than normal of 12-14% they see it settling around 15% longterm.

One of the females on the Kenyon panel said this AA female, paraphrased…when she was asked her least favorite thing about Kenyon. “Diversity, we need to do a better job of it. They are trying, but it will be a LONG road to get the type of diversity we need here in small town Ohio, but it is good. I did some research and schools that have higher rates of diversity freshmen year do not always keep those diverse students. Here at Kenyon we need more diversity, but the diverse population we have isn’t leaving either, and that is a testament to the good vibe at Kenyon, but Yeah we need more diversity!”

The numbers may tell a different story and as others have said in other threads…even if the school is diverse the town may not be. CWRU would be the most diverse in that regard being close to Cleveland.