<p>
. I think that sometimes what our kid's say isn't really a full reflection of what they feel, and that if they are ready to drop a school on a whim they probably weren't feeling that comfortable about the school anyway. The factor they cite just happens to be a convenient reason to hang their hat on.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that cognitive dissonence will tend to mean that students will tend to interpret 'data' based on their preconceived expectations. That is one reason that it might be more effective to defer visiting until more research has been done and the list already winnowed down some. I think too often parents have a tendency to encourage college visits before the kid isn't yet emotionally prepared or sufficiently well-informed about the college. Of course, some of us are the parents of procrastinators, so very often the most convenient time to visit comes well before the time that the kid has reached that stage of readiness.
<p>I can see too much <em>concrete</em>..
I think it has something to do with the kid's preconceived notion of what a college ought to look like. My daughter likes big imposing college architecture, granite and gothic. Her first college visit was as the guest of another family, midway through her junior year, to University of Chicago during a particularly cold week. Despite the ice and snow, she was amazed -- and I honestly think that she never really got past the architecture. She also really likes the Columbia campus. She wants to go to college at a place where buildings look like this: <a href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Images/Chicago/schulze247b.jpeg%5B/url%5D">http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Images/Chicago/schulze247b.jpeg</a> or this: <a href="http://www.studiesusa.com/pics/2005-12-28-11-11-48-2.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://www.studiesusa.com/pics/2005-12-28-11-11-48-2.jpg</a> </p>
<p>She doesn't want her college looking like a park, a forest or a golf course, like this: <a href="http://www.campuslife.cornell.edu/wallpapers/central_campus_in_fall_1280x1024.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://www.campuslife.cornell.edu/wallpapers/central_campus_in_fall_1280x1024.jpg</a> or this: <a href="http://www.lewisandclark.org/pages/userimages/Columbia_view_4.JPG%5B/url%5D">http://www.lewisandclark.org/pages/userimages/Columbia_view_4.JPG</a></p>
<p>There is some logic to it all - she doesn't want to have to walk a long way to class when it is cold and snowing. She has reasoned that an urban campus where buildings are close together is going to be warmer than a large park-like campus. Since she came up with this observation soon after experiencing a Russian winter, I assumed that she probably knows what she is talking about. At Barnard, the classrooms are connected to the dorms by an underground tunnel, which I am sure makes my d. very happy.</p>