<p>Steve, </p>
<p>I understand that there is no such place, I too lived in tornado alley when I was younger (only 4 years) and never experienced a tornado but was left terrified of storms and tornadoes. </p>
<p>I live on the East coast now and have had to deal with some hard hitting events, but it was nothing as terrifying as things that happen other places. I’m not saying I’ll find that one perfect area where nothing bad will happen, but feeling safe is a major issue for me.</p>
<p>My trivial requirements: </p>
<p>Climate-controlled dorm rooms… A summer in the Keeney Quad at Brown was enough to make this a big deal!</p>
<p>Gender-neutral/married/family housing for sophomores and above, or cheap off-campus housing in the area. Girlfriend (a year younger than I am) and I may want to live together at some point, if we go to the same school. </p>
<p>A variety of food must be available nearby.</p>
<p>Not a dealbreaker, but schools with ice rinks on campus were given preference by my D, who is a figure skater. Bonus points if the school had a synchronized skating team!</p>
<p>D1 wanted to be able to study abroad in Finland. A few schools that would not allow that or made it very difficult were knocked off her list.</p>
<p>D2 would prefer a school with a Quiz Bowl team. She is considering some schools that don’t, but I suspect this will be a key factor in her final decision. I will not mention others comments about bubble tea or Chipotle availability to her, or she would probably add those to her list!</p>
<p>As a parent, I like schools that have phys ed requirements. 
Otherwise D2 would be a complete couch potato during college. I do not mention this, merely make note as we visit each school…</p>
<p>Another one of mine is a school that allows you to take graduate/law school courses as an undergraduate.</p>
<p>Re First vs. Third World problems: I think it’s true that these are trivial concerns, but that was the intent of the thread. It is frivolous, but that’s why it’s fun. Some of the concerns are sillier than others, but the sillier the better! And as someone said, if these kids didn’t have the freedom to have these concerns, they would adjust.</p>
<p>Re Williams – sorry about the bubble tea, but it does have good Indian food in W’town. S got a job to finance his Indian food addiction (and Thai food too) because I refused to supply money to eat out when I was paying for the meal plan. Luckily the job was able to pay for other things too.</p>
<p>DD: Preferably a school in NYC. She needed Starbucks too. Student interviewers needed to be brilliant. When one didn’t know something she thought was important, the school was off the list. She got all three of her requirements met: She attended Barnard. Too many Starbucks to count, and student interviewer was reading Vanity Fair, just like DD, in preparing for the movie.</p>
<p>DS: I have no idea of what his requirements were because he refused to tell me. He’s very private. He chose Williams. I still don’t know why, but he did love it there. No Starbucks, though. DD freaked out when we visited. It does have its own independent coffee shop, but it closed early.</p>
<p>One more thing: there are many threads here that demonstrated that poor kids do not have it better. This is a misunderstanding that middle class people have looking into the process. Poor kids often have no access to a room to work in or textbooks. Some work long hours to support their families. There are NO tutors or even money for SAT prep books. They are limited to the schools that specifically want them and some can’t even swing CC college if they don’t have the stats to get into those schools. They don’t have the same Stats as middle class kids, and they need to find an administration enlightened enough to understand that. They don’t have computers at home. And the list goes on.</p>
<p>I am always surprised by the American middle class. Instead of resenting the rich and uber-rich who are the real shapers of middle class hardship, we choose to resent the poor.</p>
<p>Bubble tea - never heard of that before oldfort’s post. It is online at several locations near me. May or may not try some.</p>
<p>The main trivial factor for my kids was to avoid school with nerds.</p>
<p>Chipotles is on my kid’s list too, but I don’t think it will really affect the final decision…lol</p>
<p>mythmom=I’m not resenting the poor, just giving facts. While the poor in your area may not have access to extra help, etc., the poor schools here receive double or more of the funding as the other schools in the area, they have programs available to them at every step of the way to gain success in the classroom, all free to them. They have a multitude of options…that are not used…which is the issue. I just don’t buy into the “I’m poor so I can’t do better”. It’s a cop out, sorry to say, but it is. There does have to be some personal responsibility to change that and if you are not willing to work hard to rise above, that is no one’s fault but your own…</p>
<p>As for bubble tea–great place near Carleton for those looking there :D.</p>
<p>I wanted Coke products and a good basketball team to cheer for. Wound up with neither.</p>
<p>My list:
<p>Sent from my PC36100 using CC</p>
<p>
Apparently, Storrs, Connecticut was deemed the safest place to avoid natural disasters (University of Connecticut).</p>
<p>[Storrs</a>, Connecticut - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storrs,_Connecticut]Storrs”>Storrs, Connecticut - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>My D refused to even consider schools in the South, because she was terrified of hurricanes. She chose a school in the Midwest. I’ll never forget the look on her face during Freshman Orientation when they handed her the tornado packet!</p>
<p>My DD had two criteria- located in a urban area and easy access to an ice skating rink. This ruled out all schools in our home state and most other schools in the country. She ended up at Minn (2 ice rinks on campus).</p>
<p>At this point DD has ruled out any state with alligators.</p>
<p>My list:
-I have a tornado phobia, so no colleges in Oklahoma, Kansas, etc (even though I live in Tornado Alley currently haha)
-Has to have a good sized swimming pool and it’s even better if they have a swim team
-Can’t be in the middle of nowhere, but it doesn’t have to be in a big city
-I would like a suite style dorm, but I can get over that if the college is fantastic</p>
<p>I think that’s about it…</p>
<p>Youngest D is looking for squirrels on campus - there must be squirrels!</p>
<p>Someone here once pointed me to a link that rated campuses based on their squirrel population, so I guess she is not the only one!</p>
<p>I know people whose children have rejected schools based on their mascot.</p>
<p>^ I don’t think I could go somwhere without squirrels either, luckily they’re in abundance here, even inner-city.</p>
<p>It could be worse… she could only want colleges with black squirrels. They are actually something D2 likes about the Macalester campus, although as far as I know it is not a factor in her decision process.</p>
<p>Intparent, regarding black squirrels on Macalester’s campus: on our way out of town after our Macalester tour, we saw a WHITE squirrel. It was like the cherry on top of the sundae for my squirrel-loving daughter. I made my husband circle the block so I could get my camera out, but the picture came out looking like a small albino bigfoot.</p>