What is the worst weather you've experienced during a college visit?

Parents Forum
1

DS17 went on 6 college visits and was lucky to have beautiful weather for each visit. DH is away with DS19 this week on a college campus tour trip. The weather was overcast and drizzly for the first visit. The second visit had beautiful weather. The third visit is tomorrow, and severe thunderstorms are in the forecast. The school still holds the tour, rain or shine. I told them to pick up some umbrellas and make the best of it. DS19 has grown lukewarm towards this school in the last couple of months, but I wanted him to keep an open mind and check out the campus. Now I fear the miserable weather is going to influence his perception of the school (at least he loved the prior two schools).

I was just wondering if anyone had stories to share regarding terrible weather during your campus visit.

2

I’ve literally never been on a tour with good weather. I’ve been on 6 and at UF, Emory, and Vandy is was terential rain and at Wake, UNC, and Duke it was 98 degrees and 100% humidity! Nevertheless, I still enjoyed the tours and loved the schools!

3

On my oldest son’s very first college visit we had torrential rain and wind so strong it turned my umbrella inside out. Fun times. The school was great though and wound up on his short list.

4

You know, it’s probably best to visit a campus in bad weather. That way you’re seeing it at its worst and can maybe fall in love with it, warts and all. :wink:

5

Bowdoin and Harvey Mudd were both almost 100 degrees the days we visited them. It poured cats at dogs the day D1 visited Dickinson. Since my kids ended up at Dickinson and Harvey Mudd, I’d say the weather didn’t put them off much. :slight_smile:

6

Florida Southern was about 4000 degrees. We were were definitely in one of the outer rings of hell. It is on a hill with many steps covers by Frank Lloyd Wright awnings. Sorry Frank, those things needed a mist built in. I made it about half the tour and had to be rescued by a golf card and taken to the visitor’s center.

When we visited Wyoming, it was a beautiful day but Colorado had had biblical flooding the week before. We started up the highway and got turned around several times. What should have been a 2 hour trip took 6-7 to get there. Our first stop was to the carwash to get the first layer of mud off the car.

7

Not a scoping visit, but when we picked up our son at Oberlin after his first year, we experienced rain, snow, sleet, and hail, all in the same day. In May. Some friends of ours were attending the Case Western graduation the same weekend and had to stand in lines during this hideous weather,

8

It’s a tossup between 103 degrees in Texas and 15 degrees with blinding snow at Case Western. Both schools ended up the list in spite of the weather!

9

This one is easy for me…and folks from the DC metro area will remember it.

My son had auditions at UMD and Peabody Conservatory…one on Saturday and one scheduled for Monday of Presidents Day weekend…2003. Does anyone remember the HUGE snowstorm that dropped a ton of snow on the DC area that weekend?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_blizzard_of_2003

We got to Maryland that Friday night, and the kid had his UMD audition on Saturday morning…no problem. It was raining, but not yet snowing. We went to Baltimore on Saturday afternoon to so the kid could have a lesson with the private teacher at Peabody…in preparation for the Monday audition.

We woke up Sunday morning to snow…and it kept snowing until there was 30 maybe more inches of snow. It was a huge mess.

As you know, snow removal equipment is limited there…we were staying with relatives in Maryland…thank goodness. The power was out in lots of places, but we had power all week.

The governor shut down the whole state. Peabody postponed their auditions…because their faculty couldn’t get there. They also had no power…and the governor closed the state down anyway. Airports were closed. Train service was suspended. Everything was closed including the Catholic Churches who all cancelled mass on Sunday.

So…there we were…in MD, luckily with relatives who didn’t mind having us for a few extra days.

The auditions were finally rescheduled for Wednesday (two days after Presidents Day). Baltimore was a mess…snow everywhere. No places to park. Limited power. No internet. The school used a big blackboard to show when each audition was happening…and basically they took students on a first come first served basis. Practice rooms were a revolving door. We met people who had been at hotels without food…or power for a couple of days. We met a number of people who had flight cancellations at layover spots…and had rented four wheel drive vehicles and drove to Baltimore. People do everything they can to get to music auditions…on time.

What should have been a Friday to Monday trip…with no missed days of school…turned into a Friday to Wednesday trip with two missed days of school.

I couldn’t wait to drive north. We had far less snow further north.

It’s funny…because in my sons small music world, there are still people who remember and talk about that audition weekend at Peabody Conservatory.

10

Snowstorm during Ohio college visit in January. Level 3 snow emergency in the town, and special de-icing visit for our Pittsburgh-departing plane.

11

The weather has always been really beautiful when we’ve gone on college tours here in Florida.

12

Being served breakfast in an outdoor tent at 8am at Union College when it was below freezing out.

13

@thumper1 here in VA we have like 2 plows for the entire state. The world stops when we get 4 inches :))

14

I think there are only two plows in MD also…and I’m betting they were at BWI trying to get the airport up and running.

15

The tours DS and I went on all had nice weather. In some cases too nice. In our July visit to Chicago, the sun was shining gently down on the beautiful flowers that were blooming everywhere and the birds were singing Disney melodies. I was worried this was not a realistic preview so made DH take DS back to have a look at the place in February. From what they described, Chicago looks a wee bit different in February.

We’re from SW Florida and do outdoor activities year round so I’m not sure I can think of a place we could tour that would be hotter, it’s the bitter cold that we’re not really prepped for.

16

Early April snow storm while visiting St Lawrence in up up upstate NY. Not a lovely, pretty snow, but a wet, heavy, clumpy snow. We weren’t complete idiots, we had our winter coats, hats, gloves. We were just partial idiots, as we all forgot to bring boots so walked through wet snow in sneakers etc. St Lawrence dropped way down the list. Fortunately, we were able to go back, as we just didn’t feel we gave it a fair shot, and realized how lovely a campus it is.

17

I toured USC and UCLA last year in February on the day that LA got its biggest rainstorm in 20+ years. Trying to walk around USC was like a scene out of a movie- umbrellas were blowing inside out and everyone looked like they’d just gotten out of the shower by the end of the tour. I was also in the northeast (we got stuck in Maine for an extra night after touring Bates) during the huge blizzard last year in March when most places got between 15 and 20 inches of snow. We have great luck, clearly.

18

It wasn’t weather related, but does anyone remember the Boston Marathon bombing manhunt In mid-April 2013? Right in the middle of accepted student visits at colleges all over the Boston area.

19

Iowa State torrential rain! Son said the town around it looked sad. Never could quite get over it and didn’t apply. Texas Tech so miserably hot and campus so spread out I had to drop out of the tour. Son continued and it stayed on the list but never very high up.

20

One time we witnessed well over a foot of snow – I think close to two feet. We got stuck where we were staying, and had to be led out by a neighbor on his John Deere tractor so that we could get to the airport to return home.