My big surprise was that my daughter and I had identical reactions to MIT. Even though she wanted to be an engineer we both instantly loathed the place. The presenter began by saying that they were not looking for well balanced applicants. The tour guide’s script was filled with the sophomoric pranks the student body had pulled. The campus was one of the least appealing we visited. I just felt extremely anxious the entire time I was on campus and couldn’t wait to leave.
We thought we’d be blown away by Berkeley. But the campus was full of litter, overflowing trash cans that bums were picking through. On Sproul Plaza you could trip over the plastic cups, paper bags, and other trash. It’s a shame.
Claremont McKenna. None of us liked it.
^^Adding Pitzer to that.
Completely agree re Berkeley!
My daughter loved the Berkeley campus but her tour guide was a top student from my daughter’s school (class of 2016) She was extremely negative about the cutthroat nature of her fellow students. She thought they were intentionally sabotaging her. Ironically my daughter still applied, just to see if she’d get in? Teenagers!
None of the Claremont schools were a good fit for her either but they didn’t make me want to run for the hills.
+1 on Berkeley being generally unkempt. There were weeds and litter everywhere. We did a lot of California schools and our favorite by a long shot was UCLA. We did not really like UCSD either – the campus seemed cut off from everything by the highway. Maybe we hit it from the wrong direction but my S really preferred the campuses that flowed right into a town.
Wesleyan. I had few expectations, but didn’t like the campus or the tour guide.
Oh, and our Cal tour was horrific. The guide flat out lied about the effects of state budget cuts. The day we were there (way back in 2012) all of the libraries were closed or on limited hours because of the state budget crisis.
^Berkeley must have clean up. I was on Berkeley campus in an unrelated matter recently, didn’t see a single piece of trash. Even their frat houses looked stately. I could have been in the wrong section of the campus. I was blown away by their campus.
For my D, it was Middlebury, there was a bit too preppy feel to it.
I live near UCSD and feel that it’s an architectural mess. How they turned a beautiful stretch of coastline into “that” has always amazed me. Daughter did not apply there but UCLA is on the short list.
Brandies- on paper we thought we would love this school. The only building that we thought looked interesting, was the castle that we were told was going to be demolished. Overall just didn’t feel any connection to this school.
This was a few years ago, but my daughter went to a summer program at Duke University to check the place out. She stayed in their best dorm. She absolutely hated everything about Duke. The parking lot and driveway leading to the dorm was difficult to drive through because of the size of the potholes and cracks, and meanwhile right next to it Duke was putting in a new surface for a sports field. It was like they could care less about how their students lived. My daughter also felt like all the Duke students she met there were unhappy and less than enthusiastic about their experience. This was confirmed later when I took her to dinner with two friends of mine who graduated from Duke, and they both emphatically told her not to go there.
Johns Hopkins. Went to a multi-hour Saturday event at start of D’s junior year. It wasn’t awful, but just kind of flat. Students didn’t look happy or relaxed – and it was the weekend! Campus was OK but kind of tired. Just as well, as my kid would almost certainly not have been accepted.
But we both liked Loyola, which is just a few miles away, so it was a worthwhile day.
@toomanykiddos. Funny Brandeis was one of my wife’s and my favorite schools but our daughter hated it. We had just visited Wellesley which certainly is in the top five for most beautiful campus. Brandeis did not compare favorably. She ended up not applying to either one because she decided on engineering.
Pitzer was the pits … ahem … of the tours we’ve done so far. It was really hot the day we were there and that didn’t help.
Duke. We weren’t looking at it as a possibility, but were in the area and just wanted to see it. A lot of points taken off because of all the construction near the medical buildings, it was really really hot that day, there was no parking, and we got to see a lot of the surrounding area as we desperately searched for a gas station.
Pomona! So snotty/uppity! On the other hand, @thumper1 - we loved Claremont McKenna! Did not look at Pitzer.
Tufts for my twin DD’s; five minutes into the tour they said it wasn’t for them - who knows it may have been the painted cannon…
I didn’t do many of the college visits. But I think the school that D2 visited that unexpectedly was her least favorite was Amherst. (There were others that she and D1 didn’t like, but their expectations going to see those were lower to begin with.)
Does Harvard have any grass? At all? I just saw mud.