That’s why we went on college/major specific tours whenever possible - so we could see labs, maker spaces, machine shops, etc… None of those were ever on the regular campus tour and that was super important to our D. For those schools big enough to have designated buildings devoted to her major, we also made time to walk around. Lots of labs have glass doors so you can peek in ; )
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Yes, we are for sure going to ask for college specific toura and hopefully to have her sit in on a class. Physics is a very interesting one to compare big schools and LACs. There are a LOT of benefits to big schools in terms of access to research, facilities, etc. but there are also a LOT of benefits to having small physics courses for the first few physics years, and you only really get that at a LAC. She will need to sit in on classes and talk to profs to really get a sense.
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Random aside, but I have noticed some of the very new research and maker-space facilities at “liberal arts”-branded sorts of colleges/universities tend to have a lot of visibility into the labs and shops and such from pleasant common areas.
I am not saying they did that ONLY so they could make it a destination on their standard tour, but it wouldn’t hurt, would it? For sure there is a big push from these colleges to show they are good for these things too.
But conversely, I agree one might want to check out the actual labs and such one would be using, to avoid a Potemkin Village effect.
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I’d love to know who here has a kid who transferred due to the architecture.
We see SO many “I hate my college” or “I am miserable” posts on the transfer thread. A significant majority based on my informal tally is social life- no parties for the kid who wants parties; too many parties for the kid who does not.
Architecture? Not even a blip.
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I found really cheap tickets to and from Milwaukee. If you have experience in WI, how risky is the winter driving? Are roads plowed and sanded quickly? Would we be ok driving to and from Milwaukee - Madison - Appleton - Milwaukee even if it snows while we are there?
I think part of the point of the recent studies is these things can affect people without them necessarily knowing it is causally related to their built environment.
Not to oversimplify, but if, say, green spaces you like can help reduce stress, a lack of green spaces serving that function might result in you feeling more stress than necessary. And if you then transferred, you would more likely attribute that transfer to factors like feeling stressed, versus the absence of green spaces you were not even aware you are missing.
Personally, this is why I really encourage my S24 to do this very intuitively. You don’t have to know why a particular campus feels better or worse to you, the important thing is the actual feeling.
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We’ve driving all over WI in the winter. They typically do a good job with the roadways.
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I also grew up in snow country, and still visit including in winter. If there is a bad snow storm then it can take a while for the road crews to get on top of it, and in cases like that they may advise staying off the roads unless necessary, so that is always a risk. But most of the time they quickly have things cleared, and in fact a light to moderate snow fall typically isn’t a challenge for the crews working the main roads. Just make sure you understand the basics of snow driving (like, leave more space between vehicles, start braking earlier, maybe slow down a bit) and you will usually be fine in all but the worst storm conditions.
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We live in Utah so we are VERY used to driving in snow, but different places are better at snow-related road maintenance. Utah is really good with it (and our snow is typically dry not wet and icy), and our airport rarely gets delays related to snow (even when we get a ton), but I hear horror stories about, e.g., Chicago O’Hare. For the driving - we will be in a rental car likely without snow tires, and are doing a fast trip, so I am going to have to rely on roads/airports functioning well. Hopefully it will all work out.
I’d suggest renting an SUV w/4WD.
You should also have plenty of advanced warning if there is a blizzard shaping up.
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We drove to Appleton from Milwaukee in mid-April when we visited and…it started snowing in the night a few hours before we left for Lawrence. Major snow – inches high already when we started driving!
But the roads were fine and the snow stopped about halfway to Appleton.
But if it snowed mid-April, I can imagine it will be very cold and possibly snowy in true winter conditions.
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But the parents who post here asking “my kid wants a traditional New England looking college where all the buildings match” aren’t asking “are there green spaces?” They are specifically talking about the architecture (which is the word I’ve used. Yes, I get it, the built environment in meaningful).
But is the presence or absence of gargoyles on a building meaningful to a kids stress level? Does clapboard siding contribute to depression? This is what I’m talking about. It’s easy for kids to focus on- because it’s out there, and they don’t yet understand some of the other more important issues to focus on. But parents can help.
It’s similar to the focus on “the campus is too spread out”. If you grow up in suburbia where your parents have to drive you everywhere because nothing is in walking or biking distance and there is no public transportation, than virtually every college over 5K students is going to feel “spread out”. But kids get around- seriously they do. They walk, they take a shuttle bus, they bike, they take a city bus.
Your kid wants a compact campus where every dorm is a five minute walk from the library? Terrific, there are lots of those. But a college of 25K students will not be one of those. And if visits help clarify that the kid wants small-terrific.
But I know a lot of kids who have transferred (and are in the process of transferring) and not a single one of them has cited “my dorm is too far from the labs” as a reason. “Can’t find my people” is usually the big one!
Yeah, same sort of deal with airports–most times some snow is a non-event, but a bad enough snow storm can cause a lot of cancellations (including because of incoming flights getting cancelled, which can create a cascading effect in a widespread snow event). So that is also a risk, but most of the time nothing like that will happen on a short visit.
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With that list of criteria, I’d recommend looking at St Olaf as well, especially as you’ll be in St. Paul already.
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Yeah, obviously I can’t answer for other parents. But green spaces is just an example. In that snippet from the BBC article I provide, facades were also important and had an observable effect on mood states, the desire to vacate spaces quickly, and so on. The article also touches on (and I have read a lot more over time) how the feel of these outdoor spaces, including the surrounding buildings, can encourage or discourage social interaction in those spaces, and so on.
But again, people will not necessarily notice the causes, they will more just feel the stress, the desire to move on quickly, the relative social isolation, and so on. Indeed, that article is titled, “The hidden ways that architecture affects how you feel,” and a lot of the recent research has been about how these affects can be happening without people understanding why.
So I agree it is potentially a mistake to think of this as something you can just do in theory. I think it is actually one of the leading reasons why a campus visit can really be important. Because I think when you are in a space, you may not know why you are feeling better or worse, and yet that is what matters.
So one of the ongoing themes in the research is that a lot of observable variety appears to have a positive impact on the emotional and social issues. Again, that was touched on in that snippet, and it seems like part of what is going on is natural environments, the ones in which we evolved, typically contain a lot of variety, and so human-made environments that don’t have similar variety can feel wrong and stressful and unwelcoming and so on.
Obviously incorporating natural things is one possible solution, but so is making sure the human-made things are supportive of such positive responses. And in that context, it might well matter if there is more ornamentation, more breaking up of facades, more color variation, and anything else involved in introducing more variety to outdoor spaces through the surrounding buildings.
But again, I think it would be a mistake to try to choose a college to attend based on a purely theoretical approach. I think it makes much more sense to get into an environment and see how it actually feels. And while I do personally think I can see supportive evidence for these theories in my own subjective responses, again in the end what matters, in my view, is how the kid actually feels, not why that is happening.
I think you can get small classes beyond an LAC.
If you go to a school with Honors, you can get (not all, but some classes).
My daughter’s school is 10000 and her classes are all 30 or less - from the get go.
So I think you don’t necessarily have to be at an LAC.
You may also have a “small physics” cohort - that could also lead to small classes - but then less electives.
I think it’s a good question to ask - class size - at all schools you visit no matter their size.
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I have a different take on this. Yes, weather can matter, but visiting in the very coldest month doesn’t make sense either. If you happen to arrive during a cold snap, you may get the mistaken impression that the weather is always that cold, when in reality cold snaps only last a few days, and for most of the school year the weather will be much nicer. In addition, when you live in a cold state, you will have all the clothing that makes living in the cold enjoyable. I am outside each day (EVERY day) for about an hour and I love it, but I have the right gear. You will not have the right gear coming from a warmer state (even a state like, say, Colorado.) It would be a pity to rule out a great fit school due to a mistaken impression.
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For the road conditions, you are likely to have more issues at the airport than on the roads.
I know this thread is about visits, but you mentioned merit scholarships for full pay students. According to the most recent CDS for Wisconsin, 5,374 students didn’t have “need”. Of that 464 (8.6%) got some kind of aid with an average amount of $7,224.
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We also took our s’s to see the northern schools in the dead of winter. It makes perfect sense. If students visit in the spring and see the classes being held out on the lawn, it gives the false impression that those outside classes happen a lot. Realistically, in the NE (climate change aside) it’s usually pretty darned cold from Nov- March. And most colleges let out in May. So for most of the college calendar year, it’s pretty cold.
As for ugly campuses, while this isn’t why DS didn’t apply to Harvey Mudd, and the Claremont colleges are great, he did comment on how ugly the campus was (and the dorm we saw at the time was pretty dismal too).
As for class size, “average” numbers can be misleading, because lower level classes can be lecture hall classes, while upper level classes, especially in less popular majors, can be a handful of students. And at schools like CofC that have honors programs, those classes will typically be smaller too.
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Gargoyles are life. 
The first tour we took was for “practice,” in our area: Agnes Scott College. Agnes is a great college for the right students, but we knew our daughter would never go there–partly because it’s a women’s college. There were so many red flags thrown up (in the face of my daughter’s biases) that it might as well have been one giant red banner! It’s really affordable and a wonderful place, but not for her.