<p>hi everyone. i'm heading south sometime in july or august to visit some colleges. i believe the following are on my list:</p>
<p>-UPenn
-Johns Hopkins
-Georgetown
-George Washington
-<em>UNC Chapel Hill
-Duke
-Wake Forest
-William and Mary
-</em>UVA</p>
<p>the starred ones are iffy. please offer some input on what to see, what not to see, advice, and etc. thanks!</p>
<p>-anyone in a similar situation?</p>
<p>Well, if you're coming to Duke I'd suggest looking at UNC as well, since they're only 15 minutes apart. Now, obviously I think Duke is the best place ever, but I think in looking at schools it's important to get the full picture, and UNC's campus definitely has a very different feeling from Duke. You might as well make a day out of it and visit both to see what fits for you.</p>
<p>Anyway, definitely do a tour, and if you're seriously interested in Duke, contact undergraduate admissions and see if you can work in and overnight stay. Student hosts are absolutely wonderful, and just so enthusiastic about Duke, so that might be a good idea if it works with your schedule. THat's an intense list, so I understand time might be a constraint.</p>
<p>I saw a lot of those in one trip -- I never saw Wake or W&M.
I personally really liked UVA, and if you're in the south, it's definitely a nice place to see (esp. if you can fit it in well). as for UNC, it was nice to at least see Franklin St. and walk around/eat/whatever-- but I was able to do an early UNC tour and then an early afternoon Duke tour.</p>
<p>No matter where you are, talk to the students about what they think. Johns Hopkins has a very bad reputation for having nasty competition between students - they're tear up each other's lab notes and sabotage each other to move the grade curve in the class in their favor. I don't know if its true, but that's the sort of thing you're only going to find out about if you talk to the kids there. I thought my tour at Duke was informative, but after living at Duke for a month I realized that Duke was absolutely nothing like what the tour made it seem like. Not that it was a bad thing - I'm incredibly happy with Duke - but I think talking to the students is a lot more important than any tour.</p>
<p>Most def visit U Penn as well...i personally liked the campus. it was cute</p>
<p>thanks everyone i'll def. take ur advice into consideration. from my "research" i've come to like upenn, georgetown, and wake the most. but i'll try to visit all of them</p>
<p>Joe Meyerowitz, what was different about Duke from what they said in the tour?</p>
<p>They just talk about the academics...not the fun haha</p>
<p>More or less, yeah. I got an earful about academics and programs and departments that, now that I'm at Duke, I just don't have much to do with. Most of my time goes into stuff that I didn't hear about at all, like Duke EMS.</p>
<p>hey, visit UVa! take that * off of it and make the visit. it's a gorgeous place and a very good school.</p>