Where should I visit?

College Search & Selection
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<p>Brace yourself for a semi-medium/long post. Honestly, it doesn't require much effort so if you could give some advice, that would be great. :)</p>

<p>Backstory:
Basically over spring break my dad said we could visit some colleges OOS. Now I've been to NC colleges and I've been to DC colleges (we live in VA), but I haven't been anywhere far away. So he gave me four geographic locations and said that I could see colleges in 1/4 geographic locations. I eliminated the Boston schools, and I eliminated ME/NH/VT, and the 2 remaining options include: visiting Brown/Yale/Trinity and visiting UPenn/Princeton. </p>

<p>Current issue:
I guess I just came here because I need help deciding. My dad thinks I would love/fit in at UPenn, and I kind of want to see how urban it actually is (I don't like if a school is very urban). I know Princeton is, by general consensus, the most beautiful college in the US, and I feel like I've already seen it (pictures, videos, etc.). Also I'll probably get really sad after visiting because I'll love it so much but it's so unobtainable. Yale has been my dream school for so long, and I guess it would be good to see it and then determine if I still like it. Besides, I think I need to determine how unsafe/how much of a dump New Haven actually is (from what I've heard). I've heard Brown is a let down for a lot of people, so I need to see if that's true. And if I like/dislike Trinity, I think that would clue me into other liberal arts schools with similar locations (I haven't been to any liberal arts schools, and to a certain extent, they might all be very similar). </p>

<p>I think I just need some differing opinions of people who have already toured there/go there who could tell me if it's worth it to just visit, or to make use of all the online resources. After all, I might get the same perspective of the school. </p>

<p>I'm sorry this post is so long; I just need to be able to use these tours as a time to narrow down my college list, and I wanted to input as much information as I could. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. :)</p>

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<p>Bump</p>

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<p>Penn is urban; there’s no doubt. If you don’t like urban, you won’t like Penn. If you don’t like urban, you won’t like Yale or Trinity. Princeton is the only school that isn’t urban, and it’s to die for, in my d’s opinion. Very similar to UVA, a school I’m quite familiar with, without the numbers. Cornell is beautiful but remote. Harvard and Columbia are city, of course. Dartmouth is not but I’ve not seen it. You might also consider Vassar, Haverford, Swarthmore, Boston College, Pomona, Northwestern as ivies that are more suburban or rural. Wellesley, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Bryn Mawr if you’re female.</p>

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<p>Its common people visit and tour Ivy schools, but unless you have the stats behind it, why spend the money and time? Look at those that your stats and budget can hold. With that said, what is your stats and budget?</p>

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<p>Here is Brown tour and it is a fair look, imo. I really liked the campus and area and I did a lot of walking and hanging out on several visits. My daughter did go sight unseen and loved it and said it felt like home although we are from the West Coast and didn’t tour any East Coast colleges we did see Chicago which is cool looking but very different style and the dorm we saw there was dumpier than any Brown dorm she was in.
<a href=“Brown from the Sky - YouTube”>Brown from the Sky - YouTube;

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<p>I spent quite a bit of time on Princeton’s campus and it is really gorgeous. Plus you do have easy access to two major cities without being in any of them. I think there’s a compelling reason for both visits. I think a question is, which school would you knock off the list if you didn’t visit it? My guess is that you will apply to Yale, Brown, Princeton, and Penn regardless of whether you visit them or not. Trinity might open your world up to consider LACs.</p>

<p>I also think that if your dad is willing to extend your trip, there are more colleges that you can visit in and around both areas. In Connecticut, Wesleyan is only about 30 minutes from Yale. New Haven is also only about 1.5 hours from the Five Colleges area - Amherst and Hampshire, and Mount Holyoke and Smith if you’re a young woman. Providence is only an hour from Boston, so I feel like it makes more sense to lump Brown in with the Boston schools than to lump it in with Yale and the CT/western Mass schools (although to be fair, most of the cities in the Northeast are within just a few hours of each other).</p>

<p>Down by PA, right outside the city to the west are Swarthmore, Haverford, Villanova, Ursinus College, and Bryn Mawr if you are female. To the north is Lehigh and Muhlenberg and Lafayette Colleges. Depending on how far you are willing to venture, Bucknell is about 2.5 hours to the west.</p>

<p>The PA trip does give you the opportunity to see a wider range of types of colleges - there’s obviously Penn and Princeton (large Ivy League universities), but you could visit Swarthmore and Haverford (elite LACs), Lafayette and potentially Bucknell (also top LACs but not quite so elite), and a top-ranked regional university (Villanova). CT exposes you primarily to elite schools (Yale, Brown, Wesleyan, and perhaps some of the Five Colleges), with Trinity being the only counterpoint.</p>

<p>Here’s the thing, though: New Haven (Yale) and Providence (Brown) are almost as far apart from each other as New Haven and Princeton. I think it’s an extra 45-60 minutes, driving - and you can take Amtrak from Princeton to New Haven, if you wanted to leave your car. It’s very, very cheap to park in Princeton; I was a grad student at Columbia and we drove down to Princeton for a conference and were astonished at how cheap it was, lol. So if you wanted to go to the PA area and then zip up to Yale for half a day to visit, you could do that.</p>

<p>Also, I agree with @artsloversplus. I’m assuming that you have the stats and potential to get in, but it makes no sense to visit if you don’t.</p>

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<p>@jkeil911‌ I’m all too familiar with UVA (I’m in state). Thanks for the suggestions, I was considering BC and Northwestern but I’m still not sure about LACs.</p>

<p>@artloversplus‌ My grades are fine, my ECs are fine, I need to work on my standardized test scores, but I have time. I’m not comfortable releasing our income but we are mid to high middle class. </p>

<p>@BrownParent‌ Honesty I’m leaning towards Brown/Yale/Trinity because I just have so many unanswered questions whereas I don’t have many questions about Princeton/UPenn, yet.</p>

<p>@juillet‌ I shared that information with my dad, but he’s just going to handle all the logistics information. Also regarding your comment about Trinity opening my world up to LACs, I think that’s why I want to visit Trinity because if I don’t like it, I just won’t consider any more LACs. Of course, not the actual school but I’m pretty sure I can get a feel of what an LAC is like by visiting Trinity. I’m really just looking for ways to eliminate colleges not add any more haha.</p>

<p>Thanks for all the help!</p>

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<p>I think you might be better served in setting up your tour based on the colleges that you want to see rather on geographic groups. Driving distances in New England are really not all that great. If Brown and Yale are your first choices you’ll have many options within an hour or two.</p>

<p>LACs have distinctive personalities – more so than medium and large universities. Trinity wouldn’t be my first choice for an LAC to visit. The academics are fine, but the campus and surrounding areas are not at all representative of most northeast LACs. Plus, if you’re not leaning toward urban, then Trinity doesn’t seem like a good fit. (Of course Brown, Yale and Penn are also urban, but have more expansive campuses.)</p>

<p>If your criteria is proximity to Brown and Yale then I would look at Wesleyan, Amherst, Smith. </p>

<p>If Princeton seems to be your favorite, then you might take another direction and visit Dartmouth plus Middlebury, Amherst and Williams. Culturally these schools have a lot of overlap with Princeton. Davidson too a little closer to home.</p>

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<p>This isn’t enough info to give anyone an idea of what makes sense for you.</p>

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<p>@momrath‌ I hadn’t really considered Princeton; all signs just pointed to Yale as my dream school. However I am interested in Dartmouth and Middlebury so if they truly are similar to Princeton then I’ll need to take a closer look. Regarding your first comment, my philosophy is to just go anywhere I can go because my dad’s taking off work to do this and I don’t want to inconvenience him, so I’ll just make the best out of every college visit. And I think I just need to see how urban Trinity actually is because I don’t want the college to actually be in the city like at GWU/VCU but rather next to a city like BC or in a city but the college still has a campus feel like Georgetown. </p>

<p>@intparent‌ I wasn’t asking for anyone to basically chance me if that’s what you had in mind. I have a long enough college list, I’ve done substantial research, and I’m pretty sure I know which colleges are in reach based on my GPA, ECs, scores, etc. Also, I’m not very comfortable with revealing my stats. </p>

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<p>I agree that any visit would be worthwhile; however if you’re going to choose one LAC to represent all LACs, then don’t start with Trinity! Especially if urban isn’t a plus for you. It is actually in the middle of the city of Hartford and not in an especially appealing area. Wesleyan is equally close to Yale and would give you a better outlook on what selective LACs are all about. As would Amherst, though that’s a bit further.</p>

<p>You said about Princeton

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<p>If Yale is in your admissions ballpark, then Princeton would be as well. Both are of course, extremely selective, but nothing wrong with applying to both. If you’re looking for schools that are similar to Princeton in culture, personality and environment then I would suggest Dartmouth, Middlebury, Williams, Amherst. They are geographically close to each other and can be easily visited in a couple of days.</p>

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<p>"@artloversplus‌ My grades are fine, my ECs are fine, I need to work on my standardized test scores,"</p>

<p>That is great! However, you are making the same mistake my D was making. At time of her visit, she THINK she is fine and she was “working” on her scores. We flew all the way from West Coast to “see” all the Ivies. It turned out to be an expensive field trip. You just cannot assume you will be getting into the Ivies and start visit them first. You should be visiting at all your safety schools first, match schools next and Ivies? If you had the time and just happen to be around, drop in and see them. All the ivies are so nice, you fall love with them first sight You took pics in front of the LOVE sign in Penn etc. But as you know, any and every ivy is a lottery school.</p>

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<p>Minority view here. I actually think visiting Trinity is a fine idea. It has an attractive campus bordering a densely populated urban area. But, one could say the same thing about half the colleges in the Ivy League. A visit to Trinity would give the OP a further insight into how so many of them have managed to adapt over such a very long time to changing environments. Is it “representative” of all LACs? To some extent, I think it is. If the OP doesn’t think they can spend most, if not all, of their time on a 100 acre campus with a relatively small number of people their own age, then scratch Swarthmore, Haverford, Wesleyan, and Amherst off your list.</p>

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<p>I don’t know @circuitrider. The OP said she didn’t like urban and that she had hoped that Trinity would give her an idea of what other LACs were like. I realize that each LAC has it’s own set of circumstances, but Trinity to me is unlike its northeast cohort. I don’t think it would be a good introduction to LACs as a classification. </p>

<p>LACs are not for everyone and may not be for this student either, but if she’s worried about too urban and thinks Princeton is ideal then there are LACs that might fit better with what she’s looking for. </p>

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<p>I would like to strongly emphasize the wisdom of adding a variety of schools of varying levels of selectivity to your visit list. It is very easy to visit the Ivies and love them. The trick is to visit less selective schools and find something loveable about them. It will make the entire process less stressful if you find a less selective school that you love early in the process. And no, BC and Northwestern don’t count.</p>

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<p>We may be quibbling here, @momrath, but, Trinity students aren’t exactly dodging traffic to get to classes on time. They live on a fairly self-contained campus just like any other LAC with the possible exception of Barnard. </p>

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<p>I can quibble with the best of them. :)</p>

<p>That’s exactly the point: Among academically rigorous northeastern LACs, those located in the middle of cities are quite rare. Since the OP is not attracted to urban settings, why choose an LAC in an urban setting for her one and only representative LAC visit when there are so many suburban and rural LACs to choose from?</p>

<p>There’s nothing wrong with Trinity’s campus per se, and its academics are quite good. It’s the surrounding area that is a potential negative (that is for someone who doesn’t want urban), and, I think, the reason that Trinity’s acceptance rate is so much higher than other LACs in its academic cohort. </p>

<p>100 acres is a relatively small campus even for LACs – Swarthmore is 426, Haverford 216, Wesleyan 316, Amherst 1000. For better or worse, interaction with the city of Hartford is very much a part of Trinity’s personality.</p>

<p>Personally, I like Trinity and think it provides a proportionately high level of academic experience compared to its acceptance rate; however in order to be happy there you have to consider being in the middle of a gritty part of Hartford a plus (which some do).</p>

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<p>I looked back at old threads. OP had a 165 on the PSAT sophomore year, and probably doesn’t have PSAT results for junior year back (but has been studying). That is what ‘working on test scores’ means. PSATs coming soon will likely give a better idea of whether the OP has any chance at an Ivy. 165 as a soph isn’t great shakes (my kid who had admissions at top colleges had a 210 as a sophomore, also without studying). Just saying to the OP that the competition is tough. You REALLY need to look at more match schools and fewer reach schools. I know you think you’ve got this, and maybe everyone around you (parents, for example) is telling you that you do. Take it from those of us who have been here for a while, you need to look at schools between the Ivies and Trinity.</p>

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<p>@intparent‌ Obviously it’s a crapshoot but I am doing everything in my power to be able to get in.</p>

<p>And just a PSA, this isn’t my actual college list, I just haven’t visited any selective colleges so I wanted to see them. I have in state safeties and matches, which I know will be affordable, like CNU, JMU, GMU, VCU, Radford, Hampden-Sydeny, etc. And I’ve seen the more selective Virginia schools like UVA and William and Mary. Please don’t think I haven’t thought of this. I’m not just visiting these schools because I thought “Oh, maybe I’ll get in to Princeton, I should go see it because I might want to go!”</p>

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<p>@momrath‌

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<p>Give the OP some credit for intelligence. As they’ve explained for the umpteenth time, they are not comparing Trinity to other LACs; they are comparing it to a list of much larger, mostly northeastrern research universities, a couple of which (Penn and Yale) are in settings at least as urban as West Hartford. Needless to say, Amherst Williams and Wesleyan have way more in common with Trinity than they do even with Tufts which is in the same athletic conference they are.</p>

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<p>All of which will be pertinent if and when he or she decides that LACs - as a group - are their cup of tea. But, they aren’t at that point, yet, and Trinity is close by. Stop busting the OP’s chops.</p>

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<p>That’s not really true. Most of Swarthmore and Amherst’s actual real estate holdings are devoted to non-academic uses. All of Swarthmore’s academic buildings, for example, are scrunched together behind Parrish Hall, the main building on campus. All of Amherst’s are on a bluff overlooking the Pioneer Valley and they’ve spent millions of dollars trying to figure out where to put their proposed new science building. You’d think with a thousand acres to choose from, that wouldn’t be a problem, but, apparently it is. A hundred acres of actual campus is in fact the norm for an LAC.</p>