<p>(1) Lack of preferred major
(2) Ugly campus (after all, you’ll spend your next 4 years here)
(3) Greek dominated campus life
(4) Terrible Location
(5) Not third or fourth tier school
(6) Awful school colors (Yes, that’s right!)</p>
<p>(6) Awful school colors (Yes, that’s right!) </p>
<p>I can see this…is it asking too much to be able to wear a college’s sweatshirt without looking bad? But the only ones I’ve seen that are potential deal breakers are:
Orange and maroon…Va Tech
Brown…Lehign and Brown
Lightish shade of orange…U of Tennessee
Royal blue and orange…U of FLA
Orange and green…U of Miami</p>
<p>Still on the fence re Clemson’s garish orange and purple.</p>
<ol>
<li>Ivies</li>
<li>Aid availability for internationals</li>
<li>Majors </li>
<li>Courses</li>
<li>Too much Greek life</li>
<li>Schools that are too conservative</li>
<li>Schools with religious affiliation</li>
<li>Too large (I prefer small schools)</li>
</ol>
<p>That’s it for me, I guess. I don’t mind co-ed or women’s college. In fact, my ED college is Smith, an all women’s college. Before researching Smith, Bryn Mawr and Mount Holyoke, single-sex college was probably #3, after aid for internationals XD</p>
<p>Commuter school
Lack of challenge
Lack of interesting majors/fields
Small size</p>
<p>Those four often go together.</p>
<p>too hippie/radically progressive/activist schools
unbalanced sex ratio
bad STEM or bad liberal arts
too big (over 10000)
bad fin. aid
no campus/not spacious enough
bad food/bad, dirty, or crowded dorms/not guaranteed 4-year housing
any school famous for their premeds and cutthroat competition</p>
<p>all girls school
too conservative/preppy/rich kid school
initially I ruled out the east coast but I backed down on that. Not applying to schools in the southern US besides one in cali
over 5000 students
Ivies/ridiculously hard to get into schools (less than 10% accepted)
I’m only applying to LACs so all large publics were out from the beginning
Good financial aid for those who qualify. less interested in merit</p>
<ol>
<li>Bad neighborhood. I ended up not going to my second choice after considering the neighborhood.</li>
<li>Cost. We all know it’s a factor.</li>
<li>Commuter school. The college I attend now, that I am trying to transfer out of is a suitcase/commuter college. I thought I wouldn’t mind but I hate that about it. </li>
<li>Uneven gender ratio</li>
<li>Dirty/uncomfortable dorms or dorms in a bad location realitive to campus</li>
<li>Out of state</li>
<li>Less than one hour away, more than five hours away</li>
</ol>
<p>Ucla…</p>
<p>For my son, it was </p>
<p>-colonial architecture
-bad dorm food
-laxbro/greek/preppy culture
-giant size
-too close to home
-lack of beautiful natural areas nearby</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>See this thread:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/790906-colleges-you-child-crossed-off-list-after-visiting.html?highlight=chapel[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/790906-colleges-you-child-crossed-off-list-after-visiting.html?highlight=chapel</a></p>
<p>If I could go back and do it all again, I’d cross off:</p>
<ul>
<li>Too conservative/preppy/snobby</li>
<li>University religious affiliation (religious organizations on campus are okay)</li>
<li>Too rural with nothing to do or in a bad area of a city</li>
<li>Cannot get around the surrounding area without a car</li>
<li>Doesn’t have my major/minor</li>
<li>Too much Greek participation</li>
<li>Commuter school</li>
<li>Bad/ugly/cramped/old dorms</li>
<li>Bad cafeteria food</li>
<li>Focus of entire school seems to be sports</li>
<li>Lack of activities and organized weekend programs</li>
<li>Low 4 year graduation rate / high attrition rate</li>
<li>Anti-intellectual vibe or perceived intolerance for geeks (sounds counter-intuitive for a higher education setting, but sadly, it’s not)</li>
<li>Whole campus population seems to come from the same geographical area - as in, everybody from X metro area goes to this school and pretty much nobody else does</li>
<li>Bad or small library. Multiple large libraries preferable.</li>
<li>Few places to study outside of one’s room. Many roommate conflicts can be prevented just by choosing to study elsewhere as opposed to asking others to be quiet.</li>
<li>Tiny campus. I’d feel claustrophobic and like I was living under a microscope.</li>
<li>Ugly campus. Four years is a long time to look outside and feel depressed…</li>
<li>Hostile environment / bullying present on campus</li>
<li>Cold climate. I’m from the Northeast and went to undergrad there, but if I could do it over again, I’d look south and/or southwest. Winters up here are hell.</li>
<li>A stupid name. Before they changed their name to Arcadia, I used to get brochures for Beaver College. No thank you. </li>
<li>A college that no one has ever, ever, ever heard of. Ever. </li>
<li>One of those colleges with a name that tries to sound like an Ivy or a higher ranked school but isn’t. </li>
<li>A for-profit online place like Phoenix.</li>
<li>A straight up fake diploma mill.</li>
<li>Scary rape stats on campus (reported or anecdotal)</li>
<li>Lots and lots of suicides on campus. Makes you wonder what’s going on there…</li>
<li>A place with a reputation for professors who are mean for the sake of being mean</li>
<li>A place where TAs do all the teaching at the undergrad level</li>
<li>Ginormous class sizes. If I have to use a clicker for them to know I showed up that day, the deal’s off.</li>
<li>Lack of intellectual challenge.</li>
<li>Student art displays that are so bad they’re embarrassing…</li>
<li>A place where as soon as I mention it, others will say, “Oh yeah, that was one of my safeties!”</li>
<li>A place that mistreats its grad students. Disgruntled grad students means it’s going to trickle down, especially where grad students teach some classes. If the union is frequently on strike, that’s a warning sign. </li>
<li>Poor selection of majors/minors</li>
<li>Class descriptions just don’t sound interesting</li>
<li>School makes it difficult to study abroad</li>
<li>School itself doesn’t offer any of its own programs abroad</li>
<li>School doesn’t help you get internships while you’re there, on or off campus</li>
<li>A career center that only focuses on one thing. At my college, if you didn’t want a career in finance, you were screwed. Yet the college didn’t offer any major in finance…</li>
<li>A school without a good health center (including counseling) on campus. My grad school’s campus even offered full optometry services - it was awesome. </li>
<li>Bad bathrooms. Shower curtains that don’t close all the way, cramped quarters, too few stalls/showers for the amount of people using them.</li>
<li>Extremely hilly campus. I want to be able to walk to class without climbing a mountain.</li>
</ul>
<p>I think a few people already mentioned it but the #1 thing that affects my decision is on campus recruiting. I always check out the schools career fairs. Sometimes, I am able to log into their OCR with my temp credentials to get the scoop on recruiting/internships.</p>
<p>Poor OCR is a huge factor. Why would I want to attend a school with little opportunity or lack of care for a student’s future? I can’t stress this enough.</p>
<ol>
<li>Any school that did not offer good merit aid and/or need-based aid (e.g. Tufts)</li>
<li>Any school with a lack of diversity (at least 30% population of color) (e.g. Wash and Lee U)</li>
<li>Any school with a militant left-wing political movement (e.g. UC Berkeley)</li>
<li>Any school with weak school spirit (e.g. Northeastern)</li>
<li>Any school with a sex ratio > 5 male: 4 female (e.g. RPI)</li>
<li>Any school with no film studies program or strong film culture. </li>
<li>Any school with a weak Chemistry department. </li>
<li>Any school with a perverse number of Greek fraternity participation.</li>
</ol>
<p>Anywhere hot, at all.
At all religious</p>
<p>Dealbreakers:</p>
<ol>
<li>Not academically strong (I mean, this is what college is for, right?)</li>
<li>Conservative/Cliquey/Unaccepting student body</li>
<li>Smack dab in the middle of city (claustrophobic)</li>
<li>Religious! Please, no</li>
<li>All female</li>
<li>Massive class sizes where the professor could care less about you individually</li>
</ol>
<p>Re #33 - Tufts - you are correct when you say it does not offer merit aid, but it is quite good with need-based financial aid.</p>
<p>RE: #33 My income bracket is artificially high, but my big brother is going to medical school and I still have two siblings waiting to go to college as well. My assets are going to shrink!</p>
<p>A school that fills the majority of their class with ED acceptances.</p>
<p>ugly campuses
sprawling campus
schools that didn’t have a campus</p>
<p>Being anywhere besides the South or Kentucky/Ohio</p>
<p>Not having certain types of majors they’re considered one of the best at (like how UT Austin is great at Accounting but MTSU isn’t very well known nationally)</p>
<p>Not being in a city of at least 500,000</p>
<p>No strong, or at least decent athletics</p>
<p>Small college, unless it’s in a big city like Vanderbilt or TCU</p>
<p>In a state that could be considered “bad”</p>