<p>We took our D to American this past weekend. I am posting our observations in response to some other threads on this forum where parents had children interested. My D thought the campus was just OK but LOVED the school. The campus had an "old" feel to it. The buildings are not modern looking, but they said they will be doing renovations and building new ones in the near future. We have seen nicer campuses.
We scheduled ourselves for the info session and tour on Sat. The college was easy to find, the directions were perfect. It is situated in a residential area of DC.
The info session was done very well. There were only about 8 families, so everyone was able to get their questions answered. The admissions counselor who gave the presentation was well spoken and very knowledgable. She gave us all the info and answered all our questions. Not much said was different from what you can find on their web site, but we still liked hearing it in person.
The only thing my D didn't like was that American does not weigh HS grades. She goes to a HS with a very rigorous program and takes all honor or AP classes on top of that. From they way it was explained, they do look at your cirriculum, but if someone has a 4.0 with no honors or AP and someone else has a 3.8 with honors and AP, the 4.0 is better. I know a lot of colleges do this, but my D was a little disillusioned.
The tour was lacking. The guide was friendly and outgoing, but she didn't seem to know a lot outside of the areas where she spent most of her time. We passed the communications building and the chemistry building and basically she told us that she had never been inside and couldn't give us any inof. Other schools we have been to, trained their guides to speak about all the buildings. We didn not get to go inside the library, and we did not get to go to the main dining area, which to us would be an important thing to see. The freshman dorm was your basic small room with 2 beds, dressers and desks, but the shared bathroom was one of the nicer ones we had seen. Very clean and large. We did not get to see the suite dorms for upper classmen. American does offer overnight visits for prospective students in the fall, so my daughter will take advantage of it and see things she didnt get to see this visit.
Bottom line was she loved what they had to offer as far as courses and majors. She loved DC and what the city has to offer. The school actually offers a "semester in Washington" where the city is your classroom. We were also told that there is not much going on on campus on the weekend cause most students go into DC. Being a "city" kid, she loved this idea.
She will be aplying in the fall and right now I think this may be her first choice.
We have already been to Marist, Roger Williams, Southern Ct State and Duke. We will be visiting Syracuse, SUNY Geneseo, Ithaca, Penn State and Princeton. So you can see what we are comparing it to.
If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask, I'll do my best to answer them.</p>
<p>Don't worry about the unweighting. Colleges often use unweighted GPA which puts the system more on an even keel across schools. However, the schools truly do look at the rigor of the curriculum when interpretting grades. They ask the GC to record how difficult a coursload the child took. More selective colleges indeed want to see that the student challenged herself with the most challenging classes. It is not like a 3.8 in an AP/Honors track looks worse than 4.0 in the easiest classes, don't worry. Also, it sounds like your school has weighted grades and so your child has "benefitted" so to speak with regard to class rank. My kids did not have weighted grades and so kids in the easiest classes could be ranked higher than those in the most rigorous curriculum. So, I would not worry in your daughter's case on this issue. </p>
<p>Also, if your D is a city girl, Ithaca is not like being in a city. I was just there two weeks ago and thought I would point that out. </p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>Susan..her school doesn't weigh grades at all, nor do they rank. Thanks so much for the info you posted, I am going to show that to her, maybe she'll feel better.
She knows that Ithaca & Geneseo are country schools, but she wants to visit anyway figuring that if she likes what the schools have to offer she can see how the other half live..lol. She is not opposed to a rural setting, but does like the city, so we'll see. What did you think of Ithaca?</p>
<p>Yankeegirl- I can chime in on Ithaca. Although it's in the middle of nowhere, the Collegetown area has enough to offer students looking for places to go and things to do. There are a huge number of students in Ithaca (home of Cornell, also).
Students I've known from different parts of the country (at both schools) all seem to enjoy living in Ithaca. There are lots of outdoor-related activities as well but the biggest complaint I've heard is that the winter weather can be brutal.</p>
<p>If your D has the stats to apply to Duke and Princeton, then American might give her significant merit $$$.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the info!
My daughter does have the stats to apply to Duke and Princeton, but the availability of merit money at American is what initiatilly made me discuss it with her. Once we went there she loved it. Duke is now off the list, she doesn't want to go that far from home. Princeton is still going to be a reach, both in getting in and in paying for it. She really isn't concerned with the reputation of the schools as much as she is concerned about finding the right fit. If the school offers what she's looking for, she doesnt care if it's Ivy or anythign else, that's why her choices include everything from State Schools to Princeton. She is also applying to NYU & Columbia, but is still interested in visiting the others on her list.</p>
<p>It's funny, but even though our visits are over and my son has made his choice for next year, these long visit reports are my favorite posts to read on CC. I wish we could have had the time and money for more (maybe..., maybe not). But these reports are not only informative, I can also vicariously tag along.</p>
<p>From Miriam Webster:
vicarious: "experienced or realized through imaginative or sympathetic participation in the experience of another"</p>
<p>digmedia..where is your son going?
I too like reading these types of posts.
Our next trip is the end of March, we are taking 3 days and visiting Syracuse, Ithaca and Genseo. So many schools, so little time!</p>
<p>My son's been accepted into the Honors Tutorial College at Ohio University into the TCom - Telecommunications (audio/video production) school. They have (I think) 27 majors, but only take 60 or so people a year into the program, so it's unbelievably competitive. Some of the students in that program won this year's MTV award for campus film. It was done in a competition where you get an assignment and then, 48 hours later, have to screen the resulting film. The prompt was: "Now where did I put the remote control?" the prop was: "suitcase," and the genre was: "Musical." The result: <a href="http://www.par-t-com.net/projects.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.par-t-com.net/projects.html</a></p>
<p>Click on the movie "DETONATE."</p>
<p>That was so cool, digmedia!!!</p>
<p>Very cool.</p>
<p>My mom works at AU and my cousin went there so I know some of the inside of the buildings.</p>
<p>The main dining area, affectionetly known as TDR (Terrace Dining Room -- AU calls the basement a "terrace"), isn't anything spectacular, though the food selection is somewhat varried and isn't half bad. Their library isn't very big and has this dark and danky feel. People do do work in there and they have a decent selection. I've only been inside their science buildings once and it felt old and dark to me, though I was young and felt overwhelmed, so that could be a very biased view. Every student has an academic advisior who is required to meet with the students to sign them off to register. Supposably, once you declare a major, you're expected to meet with a faculty advisor, but I know my mom has plenty of students that continue to come ask her questions. I've been inside GW, Georgetown, and AU dorms and I've found AU's to be the most appealing in terms of smells, lighting, ect. The school is in the process of finishing a new arts center and recently opened a new theatre somewhat off campus with nearly double capacity of their old one.</p>
<p>I'm sure you know this already, but if your daughter wants to do extensive work in science or math (especially math), AU isn't the best school. If she wants political science or international relations, it's a great school. Also, if she has the stats, their honors program is decent and I know of people who don't finish GenEd requirements until senior year because they are taking honors colloquiums.</p>
<p>My daughter was home long enough this weekend for us to have real conversation, and it turns out American is higher on her list than I thought. She'd just been hesitant to mention her strong interest, because the school is a definite financial reach for us. But since her interest is very real, I told her I would try to figure out a way for us to visit the campus before she applies (it's occasionally flattering that my boss acts like I'm indispensable...but I'm really not and I REALLY won't be over the next year with auditions plus college visits). American is a school that will accept CDs for vocal auditions, and while that's a route she'd prefer not to take, it is one possibility that we'll keep in mind as the time comes nearer. Thanks for sharing...</p>
<p>I hesitate to bring this up but if music is your daughters thing and she wants to be in DC area then Catholic U is the place she should be looking at. I am a GW grad myself (many years ago) and the only thing I can play is the radio) but I do know that Catholic has the best music department in town.</p>
<p>Patuxent: I'm not sure I can get my daughter past the Catholic part of Catholic University. I've mentioned the school to her more than once, but the one day she finally decided to check out their website, there was a big announcement on the first page about hosting pro-life folks who were headed to DC...it really made her wonder about the wisdom of a liberal Protestant attending (any) Catholic U. It's not off her list altogether, but her interest has definitely cooled.</p>
<p>Well Catholic is definitely a lot more catholic than say Georgetown but it is not all catholic let alone all conservative. Marueen Dowd went there for starters :-) </p>
<p>A neighbor of ours sends their daughter to Catholic. The kid has a an incredible voice and the family had the resources to send her anywhere including their alma mater BYU. The catholic part didn't put them off. </p>
<p>Back in the day when I was applying to schools I put in an application to American - then Iheard about the "Methodist Haqndshake" and opted for GW. Little did I realize how far removed American was from its Methodist roots even then.</p>
<p>yankeegirl:</p>
<p>Thank you! From another one of your posts I know your daughter is interested in the same major as my D, so I was looking foward to reading about your experience. We have AU on our list for a visit this spring, as well as Syracuse.</p>
<p>It was disappointing to hear that the tour was lacking. Now I understand why other posters have advised that I should encourage D to also venture on her own when we start our visits! Did they discuss internship opportunities at all?</p>
<p>Thanks again for sharing your info!</p>
<p>If you are a supporter of abortion, you will not feel comfortable at all at either Georgetown or Catholic. I cannot cite specifics, but I believe the administrations at both schools have disinvited speakers who were abortion supporters. Again without being able to cite specifics, I believe that there isn't much free speech on either campus on this issue.</p>
<p>Other than that concern both schools are very welcoming to non-Catholics.</p>
<p>Hopefulmom...</p>
<p>They breifly discussed internships, didn't really go into detail but stated that they were numerous and with regard to cummunications they did mention the Washington Post.
BTW..I see you're from Newark..we are almost neighbors, I'm in Staten Island and actually I used to work in Newark.</p>
<p>When I took a tour at AU (I did two) they were great - it may just depend how your interests match the interests of the tour guide for whether they will know specifics about your intended major..</p>
<p>whenever i went on tours and had a choice of tour guides because the group was splitting up - i waited until they introduced themselves and told their major before i picked my group</p>
<p>I'm a freshman at AU this year, international studies, but I feel I know a lot about many aspects of the school because I asked so many questions before and since coming here about various things, so if anyone would like more info let me know!</p>