I think most of these are reasons not to ‘apply’, not attend. Except for cost.
Religious based school where the student is not of that religion (Jewish kid at a Catholic University)
Does this mean:
a. Police slacking off on investigating reported sexual assaults?
b. Botched campus disciplinary hearings clearing guilty assaulters or penalizing innocent accused?
@gormar099, I will PM you.
Taxidermy in the fitness center.
Co-ed bathrooms
Truly dismal food
lack of air conditioning
Uneven gender distribution (on either side)
Isolation (cultural or geographic)
Difficult to reach an airport
Difficulty getting classes, causing a 4 year degree to take 5+ years (I’m dealing with this now for me and it’s deplorable)
Greek domination (presence is fine, dominant culture, not so much)
Too liberal or too conservative-I feel like if the school identifies along one of these extremes it’s going to interfere with learning.
Too cold (I grew up in it-the kids have NO idea how cold real cold is)
Not in the US (I want them to come home for the holidays)
Crime in the surrounding area and on-campus-I don’t need Mayberry, but downtown Atlanta’s out
Too expensive (duh how could I forget that one!)
@ucbalumnus yes and yes. Like Florida State and their deplorable defense of their football star because they were afraid of losing the sports $
Why is a co-ed bathroom a deal breaker for a parent? Seems like that should be the kid’s choice. Some of those things seem like reasons a KID might decide not to attend (or try to get in a different dorm) but not a reason for a parent to block the school choice. You might say, “Dragon, it would be awfully warm in September and May here without AC”. But if my kid said, “I’ll get a fan,” I wouldn’t block their choice.
I don’t know what to tell you, other than I’m not ok with guys taking showers right next to my daughters taking a shower. I feel like a bathroom should be somewhat of a sanctuary where you can poop and dry your hair without guys being in there doing their stuff as well. Dudes are gross and they stink. Women are gross, but in an entirely different way, and it’s nice to know when you’re having one of those gross moments in the bathroom there aren’t guys there.
It’s not a sexual issue; it’s more of a sanctuary issue.
AC, eh, if they got a great scholarship to a school with no a/c I’m sure we’d compromise 
^^totally agree with you on the bathrooms @MotherOfDragons, and I have boys. Also agree about the cold, though I would make an exception for MIT. 
@ucbalumnus hit the points I was thinking, but much more comprehensively!
We’re full pay so I started with a list of “highly ranked” schools that we would be willing to pay for if he wanted to try for them. After that, anything was fair game as long as he got merit aid or it didn’t exceed the cost of our in-state flag ship. Really wanted him to go OOS to see what another part of the country looks like (we’re in socal). But local schools wouldn’t have been a deal breaker.
And no Ohio State or Notre Dame. Not that there is anything wrong with those schools but there is generational hatred in my family for both schools and I’m never going to write a check to either one. Always hated Alabama too but when he got a full ride offer I got over it:)
Known super challenging schools were originally on my “stay away” list but he fell in love with a couple of them and is attending one of them next fall.
^USC grad? Maybe UCLA?
For the sake of letting our S or D learn to make their own decisions and live with them, it would be really tough for me to interfere at all. Sure, I’d have plenty of opinions on where I’d like to see them end up. But I would need to do my best to not interfere.
Sure, if we couldn’t afford the school, we’d need to say so. Beyond that, almost everything would need to be their choice.
One thing I really look at is how colleges have handled alleged sexual assault claims. In the last decade, the tide has really shifted completely where it now appears any male accused of an assault is guilty, and it is almost impossible to prove innocence. Many colleges have had awful cases; a couple:
Auburn: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/student-accused-of-sexual-assault-like-being-at-the-bottom-of-this-pit/article/2561901
Columbia, and also a good summary of the issue: http://www.newsweek.com/2015/12/18/other-side-sexual-assault-crisis-403285.html
There is another thread on CC about ‘what do you tell your sons about consent’, which is really interesting. Unfortunately, real assault cases do occur, but there are also many cases which from the outside appear completely inappropriate for the school to adjudicate.
There has been some recent common sense used, and countersuits are becoming more common: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/11/05/more-students-punished-over-sexual-assault-are-winning-lawsuits-against-colleges
There is also a database that lists cases, by school: https://boysmeneducation.knackhq.com/due-process-lawsuits
And another organization that is helping this situation: http://helpsaveoursons.com/
It is scary how little evidence (none!) can exist in a case and still have serious consequences for any male accused!
For my DD, it is the “flourish”, or “thrive” as a student. Things like:
Location and sense of the freshman housing
Pervasiveness of drinking culture
How much students discuss classes outside of class
engagement in school life by the students (as opposed to off-campus life)
quality of applicants (in terms of energy, engagement, creativity, etc.)
One could say “not a commuter school”, but this is after applying, looking for more subtle “commuter-like” aspects, and living aspects- how is it to actually live at the school? These are the things we see after applying, that many may see doing due-diligence before applying.
I was actually surprised at how this played out and affected my DD’s choices this cycle, including withdrawing one application after visiting and seeing students dart from class to off-campus appointments and sit at cafes and NOT discuss ideas or depth.
Another is requiring Engineering majors to apply separately and/or to declare early (not allowing exploration) [yes, I know this drastically narrows the field], and another is not having an institutional focus/priority on 4-year graduation.
These seem like they would be in the “application checklist,” but are actually something my DD only really uncovered as deal-breakers as she finished up writing applications.
For me outdated and crowded athletic facilities (for the general student population) is on my list, but not seemingly on my DD’s list. I think all schools on the list will exceed the bar on this, anyway.
Really? As parents you would decide to nix a college based on the co-ed bathroom thing? Just FYI, both D2 and I attended colleges where our first couple of year’s living arrangements had single sex bathrooms. So that would have seemed fine to you. Guess what? Junior year, we both ended up in co-ed bathroom situations. I lived in a co-op that had co-ed bathrooms. D2 lives in a suite with mixed genders (two single rooms with girls, one single room with a guy, and one double room with two guys). They have a shared bathroom, and people can be in brushing their teeth while someone is in the toilet stalls or showers. It is set up so there is a dressing area outside the shower that is also enclosed, but it is a co-ed bathroom.
I am not sure how you would even KNOW the bathroom arrangements at a college prior to applying. If you asked the average tour guide, they only know their dorm arrangement and that of a few friends. They might not even know that some dorms or some floors or some suites have co-ed bathrooms. Do you ask on the tour? Do you call housing?
Edit: D1 just told me her dorm floor bathroom was co-ed her sophomore year. I didn’t even know…
My D will be going to a college with a large majority of women vs. men. She’s not going to get her Mrs. she’s going to learn, and it doesn’t bother her at all. She also applied to an all-women’s college, and others with an unequal gender balance. That never even crossed our minds to be an issue. She did, however, decide not to apply to one school that does not have air conditioning in the freshman dorms.
Not that it took me as a parent to make the decision, bc the kids reacted the exact same way:
When the dean of the dept and the undergrad advisor look at each other blankly when asked where students from their dept have attended grad school.
When the head of the dept says that no students are allowed to skip their 101 version of a language bc she has such a unique way of teaching. She even asks the kids to know their colors. (I asked dd on our way home how she restrained herself from making comments about the woman’s clothes in that language bc she most certainly knows how!)
When the student will enter as a freshman having completed almost all of the available in major courses offered.
When the dept is small and when talking to a few srs about their plans post-graduation and not one of them had any direction (the dept is weak in opportunities for their students.)
I agreed with most of the items listed on the first page. The last two pages have what are to me a lot of subjective determinations that I leave up to my kids. We may discuss them (along with other subjective issues) and let them decide. I picked my college decades ago. Its their time.
Safety.