<p>Ha – the sword and shield people are everywhere! If she rules out every school that has a chapter of that particular club, she’s not going to go to a very good school.</p>
<p>LOL! She just isn’t ready for quirky and different yet. She’ll get there!;)</p>
<p>I realized my odds of getting into any school were slim so I didnt write off many.</p>
<p>That being said, I never would have applied to northwestern, tufts, or washU. They try too hard. Or Penn (Wharton) which I continue to be happy I don’t do more with each passing day. Or Princeton, because it is a) filled with princetonians and b) somehow more boring than rural schools.</p>
<p>In college I would have been considered a non-conformist in a non-conformist way. I wasn’t a hippy and I wasn’t a lesbian. I just didn’t want to dress a particular way because that’s what was expected of me. I wanted to dress for comfort! With that said, I did not apply to the following schools for the following reasons . . .</p>
<p>Cal Poly SLO–everyone was a Bennington fashion clone–it was way too much like the way my high school looked (except the girls could wear pants)</p>
<p>UCLA–my half-sister (21 years older than I) attended for 3 semesters before eloping in 1968. My dad never let us forget that he paid all that money for her to live in the dorms (we lived only 30 miles away) and she had the nerve to drop out of school. </p>
<p>USC–neighborhood and cost</p>
<p>Anywhere in the tornado belt–give me a good, old-fashioned earthquake any day, but not tornado watches/warnings.</p>
<p>Anywhere it is consistently over 75 degress in the fall and spring or under 50 degrees in the same seasons.</p>
<p>Anywhere too close to home (within 3 hours of driving).</p>
<p>This thread is underscoring how important campus visits really are.</p>
<p>Yale, Brown, Stanford, UC Berkley</p>
<p>U Penn</p>
<p>I hated the feel of their campus, where there wasn’t a distinction between the school and other buildings. Probably the one school that the campus turned me off.</p>
<p>DS#1 did not like Tufts or Penn or Northwestern and any school south of the Mason-Dixon line.</p>
<p>I refused to get out of the car at brandeis. the campus was too unattractive to me.</p>
<p>When you guys say “refused to get out of the car” do you actually mean you/your parents drove all the way out there and you wouldn’t even step foot out?</p>
<p>^ Hehe…why do I have mental images of that scene from the Omen, when Damien was driven up to the church and freaked out?</p>
<p>Haha hopefully it wasn’t THAT BAD :D</p>
<p>^^ huskem…
In our case, my D was visiting Eastman School of Music, and we had planned to visit U-Rochester River Campus as well since we were there. She did not like the look/feel of it when we arrived, so we skipped it. It was part of a big upstate NY swing, so we did not make a special trip just to Rochester. If we had, you better believe she would have gotten out of the car – ;)</p>
<p>Yup- fortunately Brandeis was part of the Boston trip and we had plenty of options to substitute!</p>
<p>UChicago-Visited and thought it was beautiful until I started hanging out with students. Most said they were unhappy and disappointed with their college experience. Chicago is also really, really cold.</p>
<p>Stanford/UCLA/USC/UCB-Dad lives in California and would definitely be stopping by way too much. Not to helicopter but to party. There is also a disproportionate amount of douchebaggery at most of these schools (spent extended time on all of them for debate tournaments).</p>
<p>Amherst-Got the creepiest feeling while visiting. I can’t even explain it. I just wanted off the campus. Totally loved Williams though. Weird gut reaction I guess. I also didn’t want to do their supplement essay.</p>
<p>NYU</p>
<p>it had been my dream to go there since sophmore year because ive lived near nyc my entire life and i love the city. once i applied (and got into) boston college EA, i decided to cut nyu off my list. i realzied i would go to BC over it anyway so why spend all the time writing the extra short answers? too bad i had already paid the fee..</p>
<p>i wanted school spirit, sports are huge to me. i wanted a campus and more of a change. so many people from ny/nj go to NYU and i just wanted something more different. 3 of my best friends go there (15 in total from my HS) and i loved it when i visited and found myself saying hmmmm. but the way i look at it, im going to live in the tristate ny area hopefully the rest of my life so let me try something different for college.</p>
<p>“Northwestern–too pre-professional, not intellectual, too Big 10, too fratty”</p>
<p>Our frat guys are not very “fratty.” I think they try to be but their nerdiness still comes out. They’re kinda cute about it too.</p>
<p>I’d say the fraternity brothers at NU are better (i.e. less “fratty”) than even Yale or Dartmouth e.g. </p>
<p>[Rowdy</a> Dartmouth Frat Returns, Forcing Sorority’s Eviction;](<a href=“http://www.ivygateblog.com/blog/2008/01/rowdy_dartmouth_frat_returns_forcing_nicegirl_sororitys_evictionanimal_house_not_even_cited_once_in_this_post.html#more]Rowdy”>http://www.ivygateblog.com/blog/2008/01/rowdy_dartmouth_frat_returns_forcing_nicegirl_sororitys_evictionanimal_house_not_even_cited_once_in_this_post.html#more)</p>
<p>[Zeta</a> Psi Pledges “Love Yale Sluts,” Women’s Center Pledges to Sue](<a href=“http://www.ivygateblog.com/blog/2008/01/zeta_psi_pledges_love_yale_sluts_yale_womens_center_pledges_to_sue.html#more]Zeta”>http://www.ivygateblog.com/blog/2008/01/zeta_psi_pledges_love_yale_sluts_yale_womens_center_pledges_to_sue.html#more)</p>
<p>MIT - Their info session really turned me off to the school.</p>
<p>My D nixed Duke because she didn’t like their admissions guy at a college fair we went to. I didn’t like him much either.</p>