Wow- Great Visit today!

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Missouri - Columbia
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<p>I thought I'd give some information for those thinking about coming for a tour of Mizzou. </p>

<p>Wow - We and especially my daughter were really impressed by our tours today. </p>

<p>We started at 10am with the Admissions Appointment at 10am. We had a hard time getting to the parking area at first because they close the roads to the campus during class hours so that students don't have to worry about cars while walking around for classes. Finally after going through the parking lot for the VA hospital, we found the parking area and my husband parked the car while my daughter and I went over to Jessi Hall and checked in. We had forgot the packet with the parking "tigger tail" and while driving to Missouri on Friday I called and they e-mailed me the instructions with the time, when to arrive, where to park etc. When we checked in, she said not to run back out to the car and hang the parking tag, but to come back if we got a ticket or mail the tiger tail parking pass with the ticket. We did not get a ticket so all was well. She gave us our packet and after all the kids were checked in we went into a room where a student went over the admission process and we were allowed to ask questions. Students were split into 3 groups and each group got a new student who took them around the campus on a tour. 2 of the 3 students were Journalism students. DD was in the smallest group (only 3 families on our tour).</p>

<p>We were the last group to leave. All 3 kids in our group were looking at the Journalism School. Our student tour guide was also in the journalism school and it was great because she was able to answer questions and give lots of great hints about things that pertained to the group. We walked around the quad and she talked about the shamrocks and the engineering department. We talked about different people who had influence on how the school and history of the school, homecoming, Thomas Jefferson, and many more people and events. She told how the incoming freshman go through the columns and how the seniors go the opposite way when graduation and go back out into the world. We looked at the Library, a general class building where there were classes going on, The small student union (next to where the new one is being built), the rec center and we ended at one of the cafeterias. We were unable to see a dorm, but she said we could try to go to the one hall housing the Summer Wellcome Kids and they would probably let us see one. The great thing was that the student tour guide said she only applied to Columbia after seeing a few like North Western and Syracuse. It made us feel better since our daughter has said for a while that she only wanted to apply to Mizzou. Oh - the rec center is out of this world!!</p>

<p>Lunch was wonderful, there is so much to choose from even in one dining hall. Since it's all you can eat - you get a tray and can choose a little of this or a little of that or just one thing. I had a wonderful salad and a build your own taco from the bar. The fresh brewed ice tea was really refreshing too. It was so hot today, and one of the faculty at the Admissions office came during the tour and gave everyone bottled water and made sure the student tour guide knew to stop at water fountains often. It was really hot this weekend. I think they said it was 97 degrees today and very humid. </p>

<p>After lunch we walked over to the one housing hall and the guy got a key and showed us a dorm. It was great because we showed up unannounced. I have to say that the people here are the nicest I've ever met. Even my daughter can't get over how much nicer people are in this city and at the University compared to back home. </p>

<p>Next we headed over to the Journalism Tour and 2:00pm and there were about 5 families. We got a 30 minute slide information session/talk with a Q&A at the end. Then we got a tour of the facitilies. The new building is incredible. We also took a walk across the street and saw the facilities at the Missourian. Great tour and we were so impressed with the J-School. I can't believe how great it is, and I really feel the kids leave MU with a great resume versus most schools where you leave with classroom experience, but no REAL WORLD experience. These kids get REAL WORLD experience, which is how the J-School started out.</p>

<p>After the tour we headed over to the KOMU TV tour. I really thought a few of the kids that were with us all day would be there, but we ended up being the only ones. We were early and everyone kept asking if they could help us. At 4:30pm when the tour was supposed to start, we didn't see many people because the 5pm news time was coming up. Finally someone found one of the students to take us on a tour. I highly encourage anyone thinking about doing the J-school, to do this tour even if they aren't interested in Broadcast Journalism because it was fantastic. We got to see the control room, the make-up room, the production/camera room as well as watch a guy rehearse using this really neat technology where he is in a room with a touch screen. The girl was great telling us how she is minoring in Meotorology and gets to do weather reports and was telling us all the cool stories that she gets to cover and about how she goes live all the time and gets to do other types of stories. We got to watch the broadcast live from the production room, and it was cool watching people run in and out of the room and see everyone work together to make it happen. It was neat to watch the kid who was practicing go live. He came out afterwards right before we left to make sure he got to say hi and sorry he was rude before - he wasn't but that is how everyone is so nice here. Him being rude was practicing and not getting to say hi. He wanted to make sure we knew how awesome this school was and that there wasn't any question where my daughter should go because this school was the best for journalism. He was excited to hear DD isn't planning on considering any other school. </p>

<p>We had such an amazing day and everyone was so informative and made us feel great about our daughter's decision to go here. There isn't any question for us - we feel it's a great match for her and she is in love with the campus, the school and the J-school. I keep hearing her say how much she loves it. She is not applying anywhere else, she definately wants to go here and after seeing the J-school program I agree with her. No other school has the hands on experience that gives you an actual resume.</p>

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<p>I’d recommend checking out Northwestern. It’s a bad idea to just look at one option. It’s clear that yall are drinking the J-School kool-aid right now. </p>

<p>At Northwestern you will get better hands on experience than at Missouri. At Missouri everyone has the same resume thing. Either KOMU, that radio station, the Missourian, or that crappy website. At Northwestern they hook you up with local news agencies, tv stations, sports teams to do work with. I think that is a better resume builder than the homogenous method Missouri uses. A lot of times at Northwestern, people get hired by the company they were doing their forced internship as well.</p>

<p>Not to say Missouri is a bad school, because it’s clearly one of the best as far as Journalism goes. But it would be extremely unwise not to look at what else is out there.</p>

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<p>Glad you enjoyed your tour! Columbia is great, I hope your daughter got to see the downtown area also. My D also only applied to Mizzou. She did look at Syracuse, Northwestern, Maryland and some others, but when it came down to it, she felt at home in Columbia! She was hired after her Soph. year by a Chicago area newspaper for a summer internship based heavily on the fact she was a Mizzou student. Her “real” life newspaper job is also at a paper that hires Mizzou grads heavily. </p>

<p>I have to agree with you about the friendliness of the people up there. We live in Texas where people are extremely friendly, but the caring shown up there was just unbelievable! I felt that over the four years, whenever my D had a problem, they worked hard to help her solve it. They never left her wallowing in red tape!</p>

<p>One last note for people that are going up to visit. They will gladly let your student sit in on a class in the field that your student is majoring in. All you need to do is set it up beforehand. Good luck!</p>

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<p>We also visited Chapman and USC which are much closer to us and to a lot of her friends staying in CA, but D. applied only to Mizzou. She really liked Summer Welcome tour which we had a couple of weeks ago, even though some concerns are still in her mind, like what kind of students are attending the university if for her SW roommate school finished on May, 5th. She asked her when they had AP exams in this case, and the girl answered, her school had only one AP class and nobody wanted to take it….
I’m sure in J-school all kids will be pretty smart.
D. was also very pleased that the Dean recognized her during the meeting at J-school (I think because of Facebook connection); she liked Honor College atmosphere even though on our way there we were absolutely drenched ( we had umbrellas, but we had never seen such a heavy rain!); and D. chanted,” I already want to transfer to USC…”, but it was rather a joke. I’ll let you know how it will be for her this year :-)</p>

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<p>^^^We have had a rainy summer on the East Coast. Once recently there was a torrential downpour–hard, driving, drenching rain. My Mizzou son said, "Now there’s some real rain like we have in the Midwest. And then there’s the wind: once we flew into Columbia on one of those tiny Northwest Airlines plans–never again!</p>

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<p>Connfamily:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>When you say “the rec center is out of world!”, do you mean the existing one or the one that is being built? What did you like about it?</p></li>
<li><p>Are you from Connecticut? Just curious as there are not many East Coast students at Mizzou and a limited OOS population in general (not that that is a problem).</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>Riggo, there’s not another rec center being built. They’re just redoing Brady Commons, which will have a food court for sure, and presumably have the bowling alley and arcade in the basement again.</p>

<p>The rec center is good. Really nice. There are always games of pickup basketball going on. There’s always are volleyball games going on, on the otherside of the wall. Then right outside, they have the sand volleyball courts, which get loaded during hot weather. They have the field outside too, but that is occupied a lot by club sports teams, so it’s not really available for much use.</p>

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<p>Hi Riggo,</p>

<p>Yep - Akhman is correct that they are redoing Brady Commons (the Student Union) and we were told that will be completed by Dec 2010. The Rec center looks pretty new. Not sure what it will be like when school is in session, but when we went on Monday it seemed very large (pretty empty though), had a great atmosphere (lots of palm trees), nice and cool inside (temperature -it was scorching outside). There was lots of various ways they can work out and the pools were really nice. I imagine they get super crowded during the year though. </p>

<p>We actually live in Pennsylvania. There were quite a few out of state people at the tour. </p>

<p>Akhman - While we might be on the Mizzou J-school kool-aid after just visiting, it’s totally my daughter’s decision and her’s alone where she applies too. She is pretty stuborn and has been saying all along she only wants to go to Mizzou. I think after this weekend her and us as her parents are fine in that decision. I have seen enough of the school that I’m comfortable in her choice. I’m totally at peace with her decision whatever it is. Knowing her, Mizzou, the downtown area and the surrounding areas fit her to a T. Big city enough, small town enough and suburban enough. </p>

<p>Mizzou Mom - Yep we saw the downtown the first night we were there. We parked and walked around the downtown and then ate dinner that night at Panera Bread.</p>

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<p>The J-school is close to 50% out of state. Big difference to the total school population.</p>

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<p>@connfamily </p>

<p>When I was picking colleges, I was deadset on some other colleges. The college I was set on was better ranked than Mizzou by a lot (about same level journalism program) and gave me a better financial aid package. I wasn’t even planning on applying to Missouri, but applied to it as a safety, since I had guaranteed admission to it. But I did my due diligence and visited it, and did research on it, and ended up picking up.</p>

<p>I recommend your daughter at least check out some other colleges, because that can really change your mind. In all, my visits to schools, they only helped. The only real negative one was when I toured Madison. That place was just old and a dump compared to the other schools I was visiting. Your daughter might find one she likes more if she goes and checks them out.</p>

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<p>Can anyone compare the differences (education, quality of life) between University of Kansas and Mizzou?</p>

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<p>^I can’t speak to the comparison between Mizzou and KU, but my daughter’s decision a few years back came down to Mizzou vs. K-State (which has the same admission standards as KU). She ultimately chose K-State because she was offered early admission to K-State’s vet school and the financial aid package was more generous than Mizzou’s. That being said, I think that Mizzou, KU and K-State are all underrated and don’t get the press that they deserve on CC. All three have great programs in many areas, terrific sports/school spirit, very nice facilities and Columbia, Lawrence and Manhattan are classic college towns. In addition to that, Midwesterners are some of the most genuine, friendly helpful folks that you’ll ever meet. And that’s my assessment as a jaded New Englander.</p>

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<p>That “rude guy” who really wasn’t rude but in reality was pretty cool–one of my best friends :)</p>

<p>compare Mizzou and KU? Are you out of your MIND!!! Never ask that question in Columbia unless you’re making a “Oh those poor KU fans…” joke. Clearly there’s only one winner there :wink: M-I-Z!</p>

<p>Happy to see you’re all enjoying campus. It’s a wonderful place and your kids will be lucky to go there. I was determined to hate Mizzou (high achiever in high school, Mizzou was my last choice safety, I wanted somewhere with more prestige, etc etc) from the get go, but man that’s nearly impossible. </p>

<p>Enjoy your visits! Let me know if I can be of any help.</p>

<p>Quick list of my favorites: pizza-Shakespeare’s; ice cream-Sparky’s (find an Add Sheet in the dispenser at the corner of 9th and Cherry; toward the back of that book there’s a buy one get one free anything at Sparky’s and it’s incredible); family restaurant-Heidelberg; outside dining-Flatbranch; coffee-Artisan; bar-Harpo’s; off campus living-east campus (just drive around the neighborhoods on the east side of College Ave near campus); sandwiches-Sub Shop; outside location on campus-patio at Memorial Union</p>

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<p>“quote” That “rude guy” who really wasn’t rude but in reality was pretty cool–one of my best friends </p>

<p>Well tell him we were so impressed with him. He is doing an awesome job for just going into his freshman year!!! We were so impressed that he came out to say hi. We walked out amazed that he took the time to seek us out!!</p>