Pomona College: Positive: large and lovely air conditioned common spaces and dorm rooms. Very good food and grab n go coffee. Specialty coffees. Disappointing: I call it the college of unicorns. Lots of kids who are angular with poor social skills. They have trouble socializing and supporting one another.
@makemesmart - under 3.5 hours in normal traffic, but traffic may make length of trip vary
@preppedparent Pomona common areas are fine but âlarge and lovely air conditionedâ dorms? Only if youâre lucky. My D is a senior and her only air-conditioned dorm was in Mudd freshman year and it was definitely not large. In fact Iâm certain it was originally a single that was converted to a double because they couldnât even fit the standard issue furniture (2 each of desk, bed chest, bookcase) inside the room. Only 38% of Pomona dorms have A/C. https://tsl.news/news6837/
I guess my Sagehen has been lucky. She has had 3 singles all air conditioned and large rooms with windows. Yes, Sophomore year she did live in Oldenborg. If youâre willing to live in the Language dorm, you get AC as a perc. Our student told me that CMC has ALL AC dorm rooms. I guess thatâs the school to beat if you go to school in hot LA where it can get pretty hot in Aug and Sept.
I am enjoying this thread a lot. Iâm tempted to write a love letter about Dâs college (and a hate letter about Sâs, though it isnât a CC darling so who will care?), but am holding off for now.
I like the question in the OP - what was a positive SURPRISE, itâs also what stumps me. So far the positives for D have been mainly expected, the negatives too.
Keep it up folks!
@OHMomof2 please share both. Iâm finding this very useful.
Well Sâs was Capital University (Music Conservatory) in Columbus, Ohio. Between the location, program and cost it was his top choice.
Based on what I heard at parent orientation and in all marketing materials, heâd sit down with an advisor whoâd walk him through requirements and options and help him choose classes. Well due to switching from the BA program to the BM program (the latter being audition-only and he was accepted), he fell through the advisor cracks and didnât have one at all. That led to a rough time choosing and getting classes, which led to lots of problems later which they seemed ill-equipped to help him solve.
He was accepted into the honors program, but didnât take the schoolâs offer until mid-March, so the honors dorm was full (first come first serve type thing).
He left after the first year.
Iâll do Dâs later.
UMass Amherst
positive surprise: Many of my sonâs class sizes were much smaller than I would have expected, and it was easy to get to know professors who were happy to help with research opportunities and recommendations.
the excellent food (both the quality and the wide range of choices) was not a surprise, as UMass is very good at promoting this, but I didnât realize how important this would be. My son seemed healthier and in better shape after a year of dining hall foodâcrazy.
negative surprise: We were so pleased by almost every aspect of the school that the terrible experience (luck?) heâs had with academic advisors/scheduling advice seems strange. After 3 dead ends, he finally seems to have found someone helpful.
@preppedparent @Corinthian We spoke with a jr or sr on move in day and she though that it seemed easier for frosh to get air conditioned rooms.
Okay, now that this thread has matured I want a re-do b/c I did it wrong. For positives I talked about my how my D.is doing as opposed to the college itself.
Davidson
So quick surprise positives:
â Davidson is a really well run college from operations standpoint. From the moment she committed, all the processes and communications have been on point. They sent out info about all the online paperwork, registration, housing, etc with a lot of detail and always stuck to their word about when weâd receive info such as roommates, when they could register, billing, etc. They also spread it out so you didnât have to do everything at once. Compared to what I heard this past summer from other parents with first-years, I felt like Davidsonâs onboarding process was very smooth.
â Course registration process seems complicated at first but once the student figures out how it works itâs pretty awesome. Students build three ideal schedules for themselves from the ground up but with contingencies. Hard to explain, but first-years watch videos and tutorials to figure it out, and once the light bulb goes off you realize what an ingenious system theyâve built for course registration. The college developed it in house â I assume their CS department. . .
.
Sticking with the surprise negative from b4:
â They have a somewhat complicated system where first-years can only use meal swipes at the 2nd dining facility certain hours. (Though you can use dining dollars there anytime.) I think itâs to designed to get the first-years sharing more meals together at the main dining hall and to cut down on congestion at the 2nd (smaller) dining place. The consequence is sheâs often eating meals at odd hours (like lunch at 2:30 and dinner at 8) to get around the restrictions. She doesnât mind; I think itâs a bit annoying.
â Will add that I thought there was going to be more dorm bonding activities than there have been. Either that or my D. is opting out but it seems like the former. Sheâs made lots of friend so itâs not a problem, but I was surprised.
Carnegie Mellon (Dietrich)
+Better financial aid/scholarship opportunities than reputation would suggest, and they allow one to stack outside scholarships.
+Options in required freshman/distribution classes, such that there are high interest classes for any major
+Despite its reputation, grade deflation is minimal, yet classes are engaging and rigorous.
+Plenty of on-campus, high interest job (or research) options within oneâs field of interest. My DS ended up with 4 jobs (one written into a grant just for him), and had to turn several down.
+Lots of room to dabble in theater and music, even for the non-majors.
+Pittsburgh has some mighty fine restaurants and neighborhoods.
+it appears to be easy to get into whichever classes he desires, and no issues with registration
âWell, the food had a bad reputation, but it was worse than imagined. Last year they had a system in which one could only get two meals a day, with a meal defined as one main course and one side dish, and once the student punches for a meal they could not eat until the next meal session officially began. That meant, on certain heavy class days, my kiddo had to skip meals, which is not healthy for him (he struggles to keep on weight). That meal punch system was amended this year.
â About 1/3 of students are asocial. That was perhaps not a surprise, but still, it is rather shocking when on move-in day your childâs suite-mate canât even muster an introduction.
â Some of the freshman dorms are tiny & run down.
â Advising is a bit iffy. He has two advisers for 2 majors. I think one adviser may have more of an interest in filling her programs then in helping my DS achieve his goals.
- there is less support than I would expect for studying abroad. I get the sense they like to keep their credits in-house.
University of the Sciences (not one you would often see in these pages)
- Ultimately did a great job of helping my DS (who has several disabilities) navigate the program. We had to advocate a bit, but in the end they really came supported him.
- Small classes, direct interaction with professors, lots of research possibilities.
- Lecture capture for many classes (useful for a student with a medical disability)
- Up and coming location within W. Philly.
- genuinely diverse (racially, politically, SES, etc)
+Tuition is frozen/going down.
- No one has heard of it outside of pharmacy
- Some science majors (such as Chem) have so many course requirements, that basically the student has no space for electives. Note: I believe that some of those requirements have since relaxed.
- Minimal career counseling or support in the non-preprofessional programs.
Itâs a really good question - in what ways do colleges mis-represent or under-represent themselves? Here are my two:
Purdue - Senior
Surprise Positives:
Freshman Orientation (Boiler Gold Rush) was amazing, she felt at home within days. Given that itâs a huge school and weâre a thousand miles from there it was really astonishing to me that she had few/no problems adjusting to college life. They really know what theyâre doing.
I expected my D to be a bit lost in such a big school she connected almost immediately with mentors who have guided / advised / been there for her in both of her degree areas (she has two - L&S and Engineering).
Tuition freezes for 4 straight years. Wow, were we surprised.
Dorms were great and Dorm food was really great.
Surprise Negatives:
Mental health services are poor. A friend of my daughter went through an unexpected depression and the student health folks /counsellors were worse than useless. Medical services werenât much better - my D went in with a very painful leg and they sent her to sports medicine who told her it wasnât broken so they couldnât help her.
Not much else, which is pretty good for 4 years!
NYU - Freshman
Surprise Positives:
Freshman dorm room is huge, clean and the furniture is new. Maybe she just got a good dorm but itâs way nicer than I expected.
Many classes are smaller than anticipated. Her Freshman writing seminar is just that - a seminar style class with 15 kids and she says itâs more like what we saw at Vassar - a group of student sitting around a table with the prof and talking.
Surprise Negatives:
Itâs hard to get to the dining hall to use your swipes. Some of the dining halls are good but they are really far from where my D takes classes. The ones that are close - arenât good (She doesnât want to eat Chick-Fil-A every day).
My very outgoing kid has had some trouble finding a group of friends. She says everyone is really nice and she meets lots of people but without a social âcenterâ I think itâs a little isolating. Early days on this but I was surprised.
Off topic, but @skieurope knows everything. 
^and all these years, I thought the logo had to do with their delicious buffalo chicken sandwiches⊠a goose, who would thunk?
University of Maryland
Suprise positives - very small upper level classes, professors were very accessible and went out of the way to suggest my son take a particular upper level class that lead him to his eventual career path.
Suprise negatives - parking tickets, parking tickets, parking tickets!
Example: Prospective students/families parked in the correct parking lot, walked into the admissions office to pick up a parking pass and found a parking ticket on their car when they returned to put the pass on the dashboard. (This did not happen to us, but my son saw it happen to people when he was a campus tour guide.) You can count on getting a ticket if you are 5 minutes late returning to your car. It gives a strangely negative impression. Our other son attended a different large state flagship university, where we never got that impression about parking.
Iâll add a negative for Princeton in that they donât allow Food Trucks on campus or in the town. I can understand the town and the effect on brick and mortar establishments. And I know why the University doesnât but itâs a great disservice to Students (and Employees). Far east campus doesnât have much available except one Res College dining hall and 1 tiny cafe. They have Food Trucks for special events so they know the quality of modern Food Trucks. They would have no trouble attracting a rotating group of very high quality establishments and they could have them in a couple of strategic locations to serve the campus residents.
Iâll also third the general crappiness of the dorms and especially the failure to maintain them throughout the year (mainly the bathrooms) is inexcusable.
There is also a municipality in Ontario, Canada called Wawa. About 150 miles north of the Sault. It is a place of special significance to my family because my grandfather took each of his 14 grandkids on a fishing trip there when we turned 10. My dad continued the tradition with his grandkids. So when I hear Wawa, that is what I think of. ?
Literally?
University of Notre Dame
- The dorm system: dorms and roommates are randomly assigned and students tend to live in the same dorm at least 3 years. It's an automatic social support system built into the housing structure. S1 and D went to a college with freshman dorms and dorm choice with variable prices so you end up with the rich dorm/poor dorm divide, then rush starts right away and half the kids stop socializing inside the dorms. He is in the shabbiest dorm on campus and loves it.
- Parietals/quiet hours: S2 thought this would be a negative but it has been nice to be able to go to bed and get to sleep without people roaming the halls. After hours socializing gets relegated to the basement.
- The students: ND screens for the smart/social/caring trifecta and mostly they nail it. It has been truly special to be part of the ND family.
- Professors: All of S2's classes have been taught by professors and they take pride in undergraduate education. Their engagement with students has been amazing.
- Study groups: S2 has tried to form study groups for a couple of his classes and has had no luck. As a college with a reputation for cooperative students, he was a little disappointed by this.
- Grade deflation: He thought he could avoid this given the rigorous academic background of his STEM HS, but almost everyone there came from great high schools. It's real.
- Not really diverse: They are putting an emphasis on making it racially and economically diverse, but even though we come from a rich and white area it was still more than he was used to.
- Bus service to Chicago airports: S2 has not had problems yet but it is run by a private company and run poorly. Every break kids get stranded and end up with $200 cab rides.
Good food/pretty campus/mediocre town all met about what he thought.
@intparent
Getting stuck in Wawa while hitchhiking across Canada was a rite of passage for Boomers.