What school dropped off the list because of your visit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:William & Mary. Campus seemed to lack energy and students seemed miserable.

+2 Great way to describe what my kid felt. Absolutely HATED the feel of W&M.

Our daughter reacted that way to UVA. Huge campus of kids all walking alone and frowning at their phones is what she saw. The fabled lawn was a gross mud pit and she was puzzled by the most sought after rooms not having bathrooms. The downtown mall seemed too far away from campus

GMU was an overwhelming number of people in a very small space. Students were asleep in chairs all over the place. The dorm we toured smelled awful. There were just too many people and not enough room. People seemed to be talking at each other not to each other. Our daughter said she felt anxious just visiting.

When we went to WM, the kids were walking together in big clumps and talking to each other. More than once, one group found a second group and continued on their way. Kids were wearing WM sweatshirts, t-shirts, etc. More than one group of students said hello to our tour guide and the students in the group. There were also a lot of dogs getting walks on campus (this was a big selling point). She also liked that she could walk or run in relative peace around the lake and in CW - and that there were good, cheap eats, coffee, and boba tea within a block of campus. We never gave a second thought to the mock dorm room - that dorm isn’t even a freshman dorm. Our daughter fell in love on her first visit.

Yeah. UVA kids don't wear the school colors and have no school spirit. Sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wake Forest
St Joe's (Philly)

Took two of my kids and they both HATED these schools and wanted to leave before the tour was complete!

How funny. Both DC and I loved these two schools - along with Georgetown! Although SJU gives off a much friendlier vibe than Work Forest. GU was in the middle.

Maybe people should look at the “hate” lists and if they like one of the schools, apply to the others!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vanderbilt, William and Mary,

Princeton, university of Chicago,

Do you hate beautiful campuses?

I was unimpressed with Princeton also. For the money you would think they would hire lawn service. It was weedy, overgrown and the bathrooms were filthy!

What time of year did you visit? There are few college campuses more manicured than Princeton. And when I go back I'm also stunned at how much cushier it is for current undergraduates than it used to be. I give them some money every year to get them off my back, but not nearly as much as I give to the public high school I attended, which is now majority low-income and where some of the kids can really use some extra help to attend college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Virginia

Same here. The presentation by the AO dean was very condescending and made it clear that UVA was doing your child a favor by even bothering to consider her or him.

The tour guide was a Stafford County kid who gave off mixed messages about UVA. Had lots of information and liked his classes and professors, but didn't like his fellow students (complained about heavy drinking, Greek life, social class issues). He later confessed that UVA was his backup for his Ivy-level applications, so when he couldn't get into any Ivies and didn't get enough merit money for the others, he was forced to go to UVA.

Hence if the guides are selected and trained to give good messages about their schools, the process didn't work here.

Ha! If he thought uva has social class issues, he would’ve drowned at an Ivy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:not this year, but UVA. Bubbly sorority girl tour guide totally turned my daughter off. I'm sure there is a crowd that isn't like that, but she was really completely turned off.

When we went on a tour, we kind of roamed around through the lawn when the tour guides started and listened in on a few and picked the guide we like the best. I agree that guides can really affect how someone feels about a place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:not this year, but UVA. Bubbly sorority girl tour guide totally turned my daughter off. I'm sure there is a crowd that isn't like that, but she was really completely turned off.

When we went on a tour, we kind of roamed around through the lawn when the tour guides started and listened in on a few and picked the guide we like the best. I agree that guides can really affect how someone feels about a place.

Does anyone else find this to be an entitled attitude?

You can all be assigned a guide, we will make our own rules?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:not this year, but UVA. Bubbly sorority girl tour guide totally turned my daughter off. I'm sure there is a crowd that isn't like that, but she was really completely turned off.

When we went on a tour, we kind of roamed around through the lawn when the tour guides started and listened in on a few and picked the guide we like the best. I agree that guides can really affect how someone feels about a place.

Does anyone else find this to be an entitled attitude?

You can all be assigned a guide, we will make our own rules?

We weren’t assigned a guide. The inside portion of the tours were booked, and the Admissions Office told us to just join in on the outside portion somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Pre-COVID:

John's Hopkins - he thought it was a fun city school
Georgetown - too close to home and the tour guide was condescending
UVA - it was raining. Literally, that was his complaint

Lesson learned - 18 years are going to act like 18 year olds and they may pick a very superficial reason during a visit not to like a school. Just go with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:not this year, but UVA. Bubbly sorority girl tour guide totally turned my daughter off. I'm sure there is a crowd that isn't like that, but she was really completely turned off.

When we went on a tour, we kind of roamed around through the lawn when the tour guides started and listened in on a few and picked the guide we like the best. I agree that guides can really affect how someone feels about a place.

Very true, and so can the weather. I was a tour guide in college and could tell on rainy days that it just wasn't working. Conversely, when it was a beautiful day and people were hanging out on the quad, playing frisbee with a band playing outside the dining hall, you could totally tell you were making the sale.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter looked primarily at lower-tier Virginia schools (i.e, not UVA, W&M, Tech). After touring, she hated:

JMU--central campus is gray and dismal looking, campus split by a highway. Just didn't feel as warm as other campuses.

Longwood. We were hoping this was a hidden gem, but alas their Open House was amatuerish and the students we met seemed very provincial.

Mixed feelings about VCU School for the Arts. She (and I) didn't like that the arts program was scattered among several buildings at the edge of the campus. I worried about her safety traveling around at night; she was expecting more cutting-edge facilities and equipment. But she loved the vibe of the art students and the main part of the campus.

Pro Tip: If there's a school you really want your kid to love, don't go on dismal day. It's amazing how much weather affects their opinion.

+1 DS saw W&M on a dreary day and said it was a definite no.

Specialty tours/sessions also can really make a difference. Took DD to a STEM panel at W&M and it was three girls chattering away about their research interests and DD could absolutely see herself hanging out with them so it went high on the list even though the tour itself was nothing special.

[Anonymous]

Tour guides have such a big impact. I think one of the things that gave DS a great impression of VT is that we had two guides for the tour (one male, one female) so he got multiple perspectives on the school. It was also a beautiful day. Came away with it as his first choice.

[Anonymous]

A lot of these reports sound more like confirmation bias.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Pro Tip: If there's a school you really want your kid to love, don't go on dismal day. It's amazing how much weather affects their opinion.

+1 DS saw W&M on a dreary day and said it was a definite no.

Specialty tours/sessions also can really make a difference. Took DD to a STEM panel at W&M and it was three girls chattering away about their research interests and DD could absolutely see herself hanging out with them so it went high on the list even though the tour itself was nothing special.

We didn't have much choice -- we'd flown to see a distant school that seemed like it fit all my kid's criteria. Then it rained.

That my kid was still interested after that was a sign it was the right place, I guess.

(When I was in high school, my parents swung through Oberlin on a family vacation. It was gray and humid and I had a migraine, so I get the impact of peripheral stuff on a response to a college, but what can you do? I like pretty much every Oberlin grad I've ever met as an adult, but I wasn't interested in going. Things work out.)

[Anonymous]

UVA

[Anonymous]

chicago