Underwhelming campus experience

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVA

It's a world unesco site. And Poe's room is on display. And Montecello. And the vineyards around C'vile. And the beauty of the countryside. If you can't appreciate any of that then the problem is you so I can tell your kid didn't get in. Take your sour grapes elseshere.

For every room in which Poe wrote masterpieces, there are probably 10 rooms in which Teddy Kennedy barfed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread proves that so much is about individual taste...and, unfortunately, the weather on the day of the tour.

Luckily my kid didn't seem to give a hoot about the look of a campus. In fact he liked schools that had no discernable campus like BU. So while I shared some of the opinions on this thread, I kept them to myself!

With so many beautiful campuses in the country, I always wondered who would pick BU. Now I know. Thanks!

Yep! My kid! Owning it. (though he didn't wind up there)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Harvard

Right. I went there. Tell me exactly what was disappointing. Oh Yeah, you're the mom who complained about brown grass in Harvard Yard not realizing the protesters had slept on it for months.

DP. My kid wants to study math and we went to what I believe was the math department, and it seemed like a crummy afterthought. Very unimpressive. Other buildings were much nicer.

I’m laughing at the Yale comment. 😅

Well it’s not exactly like Kline tower is an architectural marvel. Most math departments are put into decrepit buildings, since math majors really only need old blackboards and textbooks. A school where this is very obvious is UT: look at their math building then look at their engineering building. Night and day.

DP. Why is it unacceptable for someone to find Harvard underwhelming? I agree with some of the PPs. It felt very touristy and non campus-like. Also, growing up in VA, everything is colonial, so that era of architecture is just blah to me. Didn't hate it, just a little underwhelming.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:It's as bit more than a view.

It’s just a view. Not like you’re on a fancy island. Lord, NU alum can’t handle that not everyone wants their precious school.

Weird escalation.

The posters who excessively attack a certain school are far more deranged than those who excessively boost a certain school.

DP. I'm not seeing "excessive attacking" as much as ravid defending. I wanted to love NU, and I think kid would have enjoyed the program, but campus felt a little hodgepodge and soulless. Hardly any students hanging out. Then athletes tearing through campus on motorbikes. Plus the weird corporate pond. But, library was gorgeous, and lake views very nice. Also liked the town.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard

Right. I went there. Tell me exactly what was disappointing. Oh Yeah, you're the mom who complained about brown grass in Harvard Yard not realizing the protesters had slept on it for months.

As others have said, the people are the most important part of a college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVA

It's a world unesco site. And Poe's room is on display. And Montecello. And the vineyards around C'vile. And the beauty of the countryside. If you can't appreciate any of that then the problem is you so I can tell your kid didn't get in. Take your sour grapes elseshere.

For every room in which Poe wrote masterpieces, there are probably 10 rooms in which Teddy Kennedy barfed.

I like you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Duke: I know others love it, but the gothic vibe doesn’t jive with me.

Columbia and NYU: No campus feel.

Georgetown (law school only and in the 90’s): Yuck.

UC Hastings (now called something else): Also yuck.

From a distance, Duke’s gothic buildings don’t look much different from those at BC or Northwestern. But up close, Duke’s buildings’ individual stones are offset from each other in a way that they produce a very uneven and jarring effect. I would imagine the people who work or study there eventually get accustomed to it.

It looked very dark to me. Having to get a bus for class was also unappealing.

[Anonymous]

I went to Brown and the campus was magical to me from the very first visit. But to be fair I felt the same about most schools. The one exception was Wesleyan, where the tour put me off. In hindsight I’m sure I would have enjoyed going there!

[Anonymous]

Underwhelmed West Coast: USC and Stanford. (Overwhelmed: UCLA)

Underwhelmed East Coast: Harvard. I'm there for work a lot and every room is always leaking, but I dislike Boston/Cambridge so I'm probably not best judge (Overwhelmed: Yale .. and I went to Oxford).

Underwhelmed Midwest: Notre Dame. Feels like a country club with no real style. (Overwhelmed: both UChicago and Northwestern. Also Loyola Chicago does what they do very well)

A lot of schools are in areas that were so great back in the day for college kids and now are lined with Brooklinens and Warby Parkers. It's a loss.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale is like a weird Potemkin Village or movie set.

I wish I were jaded enough to toss out such a comment. Yale seemed magical to me as a visitor.

DP. A lot of people find it magical. I really struggled to enjoy the tour and found it extravagantly tasteless and a bit dull (which is a strange mix I wasn’t expecting). The auditorium they sent us into just seemed large but also rundown. We got to tour DC’s department and a residential college, since DC has a few upperclassmen friends there and neither of us were too impressed.

Strange, because DC now goes to Princeton and we both love the campus- which is admittedly quite similar.

I’m the poster you’re responding to and I went to Princeton.

When I first visited Princeton I was young and wide-eyed and thought it was amazing. However, when I later visited Yale I thought it was awesome and had a buzz Princeton lacked. Looking back now, I think the Princeton campus as a whole is nicer but that the individual buildings and quads at Yale are more impressive.

But, again, I’m a pushover…generally find things to like at every college campus and would love to be a student again (apart from the all-nighters to finish my thesis).

I remember going to Princeton, seeing a little row of shops with golf shirts in the window and writing Princeton off as a place for golfers.

Stay away from St Andrews.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Speaking of office parks - U Michigan engineering campus (north campus). Such a disappointment after touring central campus.

To be fair, the North Campus isn’t really meant to inspire poetry, it’s there to give engineers their own safe zone where they can completely nerd out without getting laughed at.

[Anonymous]

What makes Michigan’s central campus look odd is that many of the buildings are so huge that the large trees next to them look like shrubs in comparison. They need to plant some redwoods so that in 500 years the landscaping will be in proportion to the buildings.

[Anonymous]

Yes. Cornell.

[Anonymous]

Trump University because they only serve Trump Steaks and hamberders.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Underwhelmed West Coast: USC and Stanford. (Overwhelmed: UCLA)

Underwhelmed East Coast: Harvard. I'm there for work a lot and every room is always leaking, but I dislike Boston/Cambridge so I'm probably not best judge (Overwhelmed: Yale .. and I went to Oxford).

Underwhelmed Midwest: Notre Dame. Feels like a country club with no real style. (Overwhelmed: both UChicago and Northwestern. Also Loyola Chicago does what they do very well)

A lot of schools are in areas that were so great back in the day for college kids and now are lined with Brooklinens and Warby Parkers. It's a loss.

I think we might be soul sisters. I remember walking on to Yale’s campus and just feeling frenetic. There was a ton of movement like it was New York City, and I couldn’t imagine how there could be so much hustle in the middle of Connecticut.
I literally pinched my daughter during the info session and said “these ceilings look massive.”