<p>I haven't been able to visit all of the schools I applied to and those that i have visited i toured over the summer. I was wondering for those that have been on tours or on campus could just sum up some points about the following schools. Perhaps i'd be most interested in the general mood/atmosphere sensed from the campus, the friendliness, diversity, style, and inclination for partying of the student body, impressions about the campus and buildings, and any thing else of note that you could only get from a campus visit.
Schools: Allegheny, Brown, Case Western, College of Wooster, Northwestern, Oberlin, University of Rochester, Wesleyan
Thanks!</p>
<p>University of Rochester: Freezy cood. Tunnels. Clusters program. Underrated IMO.
Brown: Liberal. Hippy. Extremely diverse.
Northwestern: Stereotypical college experience w/ sports and frats
Oberlin: Liberal. Very artsy. LBGT certainly welcome.
Wesleyan: Politically in-your-face.</p>
<p>Allegheny: Mediocre Western PA religious-affiliated liberal arts college.</p>
<p>Brown: Left-wing nutjob paradise for geniuses.</p>
<p>Case Western: The red-haired step-sibling of Carnegie Mellon.</p>
<p>College of Wooster: It's in Ohio?</p>
<p>Northwestern: Top-notch midwestern uniersity.</p>
<p>Oberlin: Another left-wing nutjob paradise. Very good liberal arts college.</p>
<p>Rochester: Excellent poli sci program. Good university.</p>
<p>Wesleyan: See Oberlin.</p>
<p>brown: liberal elitists, the loser ivy. probably my fav ivy tho.
northwestern: preprofessional, cold, all wanna do ibanking
oberlin: artsy fartsy</p>
<p>I've been to the following: </p>
<p>Brown: Beautiful campus with red brick buildings, close to Thayer street which is young and has tons of places for students. Socially active on the weekends between house parties (near campus), bars, dorm parties, and frats (not that big). Students are friendly, generally happy. I love this school</p>
<p>Case Western: In a garbage dump part of cleveland. Students seemed to be nerdy or unhappy. Cliquey according to minority groups. Ugly campus.</p>
<p>Northwestern: Felt big, a little impersonal, big frat scene. Dorms are far apart, lake Michigan right next door, lots of social options but not as much unity as the LACs. Hard to know everybody since its 8K students and campus is spread out. Mix of architecture, not that pretty in my eyes though.</p>
<p>Oberlin: Went here in eigth grade for tennis camp so only know the physical space, not the college life. Its small, town is very boring.</p>
<p>Wesleyan: Pretty with green spaces, lots of militant liberal (much more than Vassar or Brown), hipsters, lots of weed (people smoking on the green), lots of random majors (like african music).</p>
<p>Of all of these I'd go to Brown in a second. Judging by the other schools on this list, Vassar is a must apply. Students are similar to Brown students.</p>
<p>id second brown</p>
<p>Wesleyan - mixture of New York/Los Angeles liberals, hard-core nerds and a smattering of jocks; pretty campus.</p>
<p>Brown - same sized campus with 3x the students.</p>
<p>Northwestern - no off campus bars; architecture reminded me of West Point.</p>
<p>If you can't visit schools, you can order videotaped campus tours from <a href="http://www.collegiatechoice.com%5B/url%5D">www.collegiatechoice.com</a>. My son's list of schools was just too large to visit everywhere, so he discarded some possibilities and found a couple others doing it this way. He ended up at the end choosing between the two places he had applied to without physically visiting. (Then he did visit, of course.)</p>
<p>For assessing schools, for both of my kids, it was useful to look at things like the ratings on princetonreview and the comments on studentsreview. We also went to Borders and hung out reading the "what these colleges are really like" book for quite awhile.</p>
<p>If you haven't already, read whatever you can find on the schools' web sites. Look at the menus (well, this was a concern for both my kids!), read the student newspaper if you can, etc.</p>
<p>Of all the schools you mention, I've only been to Brown, which is the school my daughter is attending. I assure you she is neither a loser or a nutjob! It is a beautiful campus and the nearby street has a number of restaurants and stores. The surrounding residential area is nice, with mostly Victorian-style houses (lots of gingerbread, if you know what I mean! Everytime I go there I find myself wanting one of those places ...) People are very friendly and noncompetitive from what I've heard and the professors are approachable. It seems to be a very happy place -- maybe because you don't have distribution requirements and you can take whatever you want satisfactory/no credit if you prefer.</p>
<p>My nephew went to Case Western and seemed to like his education. It is my understanding it is NOT in a nice area of the city, however. He was heavily into Greek life. </p>
<p>I know someone who went to Northwestern and liked it tremendously. It is reputed to have one of the most beautiful campuses in the country. I don't know any more than this.</p>
<p>My brother went to grad school in Rochester. Only go there if you can cope with arctic temperatures and LOTS of snow.</p>
<p>I don't really know anything about the other schools you mention, other than Oberlin's liberal rep.</p>
<p>Case is located at University Circle, which includes Severance Hall (home of the Cleveland Orchestra), the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Botanical Gardens, the Cleveland Institute of Music and other cultural institutions. It's a beautiful, historic area. Yes, it's an "urban" neighborhood. You don't want to get drunk and wander off campus in the middle of the night. But you wouldn't do that in any city, I hope.</p>
<p>Case is tops for engineering ('specially biomedical), pre-med and art history. The reputation is that it's a "techie" school, though I was impressed with the liberal arts program when I visited. There are interesting cooperative ventures with the Institute of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Art.</p>
<p>New dorms are under construction.</p>
<p>Don't write-off Case. It has a lot to offer.</p>
<p>Allegheny is a decent LAC located in a fairly dead town in NW Penna. My S, graduated from there in '93. It is a school that I found supportive and very positive, Frat scene is mild and the students seem hard working and faculty moderately supportive. My son was an average student, somewhat lazy but liked the atmosphere at Allegheny and was able to fulfill his program.</p>
<p>College of Wooster, visited there last summer with my D, nice campus, faculty seemed very involved, was impressed overall. Not on my D list, but a decent LAC with a quiet location in a nice town. Near a lot of other schools and not far from Columbus. Frat scene quiet and local.</p>
<p>If you want a good education is a relatively relaxed but good academic environment and in relatively safe area with minimum distractions, either of these two schools would be excellent IMO.</p>
<p>"Its small"
- compared to, e.g. Case it is , but not for an LAC.</p>
<h1>undergraduate students:</h1>
<p>Oberlin 2,950 (600 of which are Conservatory students)
Wesleyan, 2,700
Vassar 2,400
Allegheny 2,000
College of Wooster 1,827</p>
<p>"town is very boring"</p>
<p>But fortunately the campus isn't, I understand.</p>
<p>One observation: a good number of Oberlin students are politically attuned and politically active.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Case Western: In a garbage dump part of cleveland. Students seemed to be nerdy or unhappy. Cliquey according to minority groups. Ugly campus.
[/quote]
This wasn't our impression at all! I would much more agree with ici's post #10 above. We thought the campus was well-designed, many of the buildings were beautiful, and there was much more green than we'd have expected from an urban campus. It's not at all like BU, for instance - there are lawns and gardens and a feeling of being separated from the city.</p>
<p>The area immediately surrounding Case was one its leading attractions when my oldest d and I visited a few years ago. Museums, hospitals, and the concert hall (home to one of the greatest orchestras in the world) - these don't spell "dump" to me. I absolutely agree that Case is near a very distressed urban area, but I'd say it was a 5 minute or so drive. As we were leaving, we decided to take a more direct route to I-90 than the one outlined in admission office materials, and it was an unsettling drive - I wouldn't do it again. But then, many urban campuses are within 5 minutes of a tough area.</p>
<p>I always urge people who are considering Case to give it a chance by visiting, if at all possible. I don't think the "ugly campus" rep is at all deserved.</p>
<p>Of your list, I've only been to Northwestern. I wasn't all that impressed with the campus (a lot of gray) and the dorm we visited was kind of gross and TINY (about half the size of your average walk-in closet). However, the view of Lake Michigan was gorgeous and they have some great facilities. Its a good school but it felt impersonal and I didn't apply there.</p>
<p>I have several friends who visited Wesleyan and none of them liked it, a couple of them said it was the worst school they visited. However, this may have had something to do with the politics of this school since most of them are either conservative or moderate-liberal.</p>
<p>I also have a friend who visited Oberlin, she said it was just like our high school. She also mentioned that it is VERY liberal.</p>
<p>shellzie, when did you visit campus? in the spring, summer and early fall it's gorgeous, not gray at all. Unless you mean the buildings -- in which case, yeah, we do have a lot of gray-ness.</p>
<p>University of Rocher is a strong school, probably up there as one of the best in that list for their premed/physics/polysci . Rochester curriculum is a plus. The only con is the weather, which is bearable, but if thats not your thing, then it wont be the best experience.</p>
<p>Brown - I'd say is a better experience, as it too has the Rochester curriculum, where you have no mandatory classes and a liberated curriculum.</p>
<p>Oberlin- Extremely liberal crowd</p>
<p>We live not far from Nrothwestern and it is beautiful campus on a good day. Unofrtunately there is more not so good days here. I know several people who went there and it is very good school but I also think it is somewhat overrated. Is it a good school. Without a doubt. Is it worth paying 47K as compare to UIUC state flagship- I am not so sure about.
College of Wooster is very highly regarded small LAC located in the middle of Ohio.
It is known as college where other college professors send their kids. Atmosphere nice and friendly. Very pretty campus. Classes that my D visited were about 35 kids. Somewhat isolated if you need big city around. Scottish traditions show in the band costumes. Known for independend reseach paper which student does during junior and senior year and gets tootsie roll. My D received very nice merit aid from them- generous people.</p>
<p>lilybbloom, I visited campus during the summer. The weather was pretty good that day and everything, but I just wasn't too impressed with the architecture, etc. around campus. The campus didn't seem as naturally beautiful as others I have visted either- except, as I mentioned earlier, for the view of Lake Michigan. Don't get me wrong, Northwestern is an awesome school- but, the campus just didn't feel right for me.</p>
<p>I have a very favorable impression of Brown. Reasonable city plus a college town area, top students if a little leftie. Several relatives there love it and would do it again over almost all other choices.</p>
<p>Some friends thought Wes was OK. Bad town, over the top lefties in sometimes unattractive ways.</p>
<p>My experience has been Wesleyan is also over the top left, while Brown is much more tolerant left.</p>