Underwhelming campus experience

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

Who was this directed to? Much of this thread and many like threads is everyone saying Harvard’s campus is underwhelming.

[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.

No dog in this fight, but outside of the main quad, UCLA is very mid. My family much preferred USC, where every single building was nice inside and out. Even the buildings with pretty exteriors at UCLA feel very low budget, public building inside.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

No dog in this fight, but outside of the main quad, UCLA is very mid. My family much preferred USC, where every single building was nice inside and out. Even the buildings with pretty exteriors at UCLA feel very low budget, public building inside.

Agreed. My DC didn’t like how compact and hilly it was. Westwood is really awesome and so close to Santa Monica I’m jealous. But it definitely gives “public school.” We found Berkeley had more run down, grimey vibes but makes up for it with spectacular views and amazing student centers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

DP. I attended a nearby university that is not renowned for its beauty. But Harvard, for a school that's been around since the 1600s, is the definition of underwhelming. And Harvard Square is pretty corporate blah these days too. They've had more than 400 years to put together a decent campus. And this is it? Lame.

Haha agreed. I thought Harvard was gorgeous…on the other side of the Charles River. I also privately disliked walking into the gates and immediately seeing Ken Griffin’s name on a building; yes, he’s a massive donor but also…

I felt the same way when I visited the Peter Griffin Insemination Clinic in Rhode Island.

[Anonymous]

Princeton felt just too precious. It did not feel welcoming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

No dog in this fight, but outside of the main quad, UCLA is very mid. My family much preferred USC, where every single building was nice inside and out. Even the buildings with pretty exteriors at UCLA feel very low budget, public building inside.

Well, UCLA is in fact a public school. USC is private. I personally appreciate the less country club feel of public schools, for both high school and college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We’re another vote for U Richmond being underwhelming.

How so? It was much nicer than I anticipated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The UVA campus, I mean grounds 🙄, is nice but I found Charlottesville as a town/city to be very disappointing.

I came away loving UVA and the surrounding area, it seems like an ideal place to go to college. But Charlottesville itself and the main shopping area was nothing like I imagined! I was expecting something more robust.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UVA and Wake Forest. More about the vibe on each tour than the surroundings. They felt robotic and uninspiring. Also hate when schools compare themselves to other schools during the information sessions/tours. Just stand on your own merits.

+100
The constant comparing (bragging) is such a turnoff and just reeks of insecurity.

[Anonymous]

Virginia Tech

[Anonymous]

Haverford. Practically every student we talked to said “it’s alright. Not amazing, not bad at all.” Like they were content students, but it felt so strange having no glowing or hate reviews, just meh.

[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.

Poe spent his limited time there gambling.

[Anonymous]

Tulane. We had a terrible tour and saw very little of the campus. So, maybe it was the tour but what we were able to see was nothing great compared to what I had envisioned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tulane. We had a terrible tour and saw very little of the campus. So, maybe it was the tour but what we were able to see was nothing great compared to what I had envisioned.

Plus, it's in a cesspool of humidity. Ugh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bowdoin. The people were nice but the campus is extremely boring. We left wondering what the fuss was about.

Hmmm, this review actually makes me more interested in Bowdoin