For fun: first impressions of colleges based on tours...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard: Bland and a little drab, too touristy.

Yale: Stunningly gorgeous in every way. A+

Princeton: Also beautiful but felt like it lacked patina/character and felt a little too pretentious.

Columbia: LOVED this campus. Gritty, beautiful, classic. NYC.

Northwestern: Another favorite - great mix of modern and classic, and absolutely stunning location on the lake.

UChicago: So classically beautiful. Felt almost European, or stately, but felt extremely gloomy and gray, even though we visited same day as NU.

Cornell: Another great one - stunning location. Friendly, collegial.

I loved Northwestern. Daughter ended of choosing UPenn because her friends went there. She has regretted not choosing NU ever since, and she's already graduated.

Aw, my kids LOVED Northwestern and ended up elsewhere, too. Would have been thrilled to send at least one of them there if they got in! But things happen for a reason.

Best friend attended Northwestern and, while they overall liked the school, they were put off by the school’s over-the-top pre-professional vibe (compared to other schools where students were more intellectual and interested in learning for the sake of learning).

I felt that way, too. I don’t see how it can rank so highly when no one there even seemed to regret not having time to read books.

Did you attend Northwestern? I don’t think it’s any more pre-professional than, say, Penn, or even Stanford. Plenty of very bright kids there who read plenty of books, lol.

[Anonymous]

Bowdoin, Bates and Colby- very white and very insular
Georgetown- upbeat tour guides- happy, pretty in fall with leaves, values community service
UVA- enthusiastic students- seemed engaged and bright and social- nice town

[Anonymous]

UMiami - awesome blend of diverse chill flip flop wearing studious kids in a resort setting
BC - quintessential NE campus, very pretty
Georgetown - very 'tight' feeling but the overflow into the town is nice.
Villanova - pretty campus, but wtf is literally everyone wearing Villanova gear, and why is everyone white? it felt like stepford undergrads
Northeastern - it's come a long way since 1990, there's no greenery and they will need to spend $$$ buying R.E to keep up with aspirations
USC - a mecca in the middle of yikes

[Anonymous]

Removed Rutgers from list after tour, didn’t like idea of shuttling to different campuses


Removed JMU from list after tour, didn’t like highway running through middle of campus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HS Sophomore at the time:

UVA: "dirty" (I still don't know what this means)

W&L: "too hilly" (98 degrees in July)

My kid also doomed Cornell and Bryn Mahr because they were “too hilly.”

We got "too hilly" at Lehigh. Hilly seems to be a big turn-off! I don't remember any hills at Bryn Mawr!?!

Ah, kids these days are wimps!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve visited about 10, maybe 12. Here are DS impressions

Fav. Campus - Northwestern
Fav. In-State - UVA
Biggest disappointment - W&M (boring)
Nicest students - Bucknell
Biggest + surprise - Wooster

ooh, do you mind sharing where your DS applied? I have a junior DC and those are all on her list (yes, she and her fellow “super planner” friends already have “lists”, although very speculative and random at this point 😂).

Four. NU, UVA, Bucknell, Swarthmore

You better add a safety.

[Anonymous]

Took a tour of JMU with daughter. At very beginning of the tour, the guide shared her pronouns. We walked past a nice big 4 story science building where it seemed every other window had a BLM sign. It was interesting because as we came around the building we looked back on the opposite side and saw no signs. It was if the idea was to virtue signal the visitors on tour that day. And finally, for that real college experience, we had to step over some vommit on the sidewalk. Hard pass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Took a tour of JMU with daughter. At very beginning of the tour, the guide shared her pronouns. We walked past a nice big 4 story science building where it seemed every other window had a BLM sign. It was interesting because as we came around the building we looked back on the opposite side and saw no signs. It was if the idea was to virtue signal the visitors on tour that day. And finally, for that real college experience, we had to step over some vommit on the sidewalk. Hard pass.

I’m laughing! We had a similar experience at Gettysburg (not the vomit) but DC was turned off by all the woke stuff and virtue signaling .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Duke: Are we at Hogwarts?
UNC- Chapel Hill: Is that seriously a dorm room, or a closet?
Tufts: Hand me the water! I need to take a break before continuing up this hill. And: Huh. I didn’t know the campus was so nice!
Pitt: I want to like it. I want to like it. But… I don’t like it. Bland buildings and kind of ugly except for the chapel.
Carnegie Mellon: This is actually kind of nice! And the area right now is a mini- Georgetown. Very mini. Too mini?

Nerd alert!

This is my kid and totally nerd. Truth!

[Anonymous]

DC was turned off by all the woke stuff and virtue signaling.

I'm curious, how would you and your DC feel about a campus that has Trump flags in the windows and students wearing MAGA hats?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Took a tour of JMU with daughter. At very beginning of the tour, the guide shared her pronouns. We walked past a nice big 4 story science building where it seemed every other window had a BLM sign. It was interesting because as we came around the building we looked back on the opposite side and saw no signs. It was if the idea was to virtue signal the visitors on tour that day. And finally, for that real college experience, we had to step over some vommit on the sidewalk. Hard pass.

I’m laughing! We had a similar experience at Gettysburg (not the vomit) but DC was turned off by all the woke stuff and virtue signaling .

We toured a dozen colleges and the tour guides shared their pronouns at almost every single school. I think this is the norm.

[Anonymous]

University of Maryland - Turned off by the woke culture that prevails there. WVU the campus had two sections.

[Anonymous]

I graduated from college in 1998, and it's hilarious how many of these still hold up. In particular:

Cornell - so gray, so bleak, with students rushing around solo, heads down, no eye contact
Northwestern - great energy, beautiful campus, surprisingly engaging given how cold it is there
Tufts - this is better than expected! super friendly tour guide
Vanderbilt - manicured perfection, so southern

Before visiting them, Cornell had been my first choice, but I was so turned off that I lost interest. Ended up at NU and loved it! It may be more pre-professional now than it was then, but between the engineering school and the fine arts program, I thought it had a good mix of majors and interests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Removed Rutgers from list after tour, didn’t like idea of shuttling to different campuses


Removed JMU from list after tour, didn’t like highway running through middle of campus.

my kid disliked those schools for the same reasons

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Took a tour of JMU with daughter. At very beginning of the tour, the guide shared her pronouns. We walked past a nice big 4 story science building where it seemed every other window had a BLM sign. It was interesting because as we came around the building we looked back on the opposite side and saw no signs. It was if the idea was to virtue signal the visitors on tour that day. And finally, for that real college experience, we had to step over some vommit on the sidewalk. Hard pass.

I’m laughing! We had a similar experience at Gettysburg (not the vomit) but DC was turned off by all the woke stuff and virtue signaling .

You all should just look at Hillsdale and Liberty.

Most kids go to college to broaden their horizons.