Anyone touring top schools and finding then all to be dumpy and unimpressive?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will never understand people who tour schools in the summer. You aren't getting to see them other than the buildings. It's a waste.

I don’t understand tours. Just go on campus and enter buildings after people. Ask people on the quad questions. The tour guide is just a student doing their job and giving you lies about the school.

....and also:

If random campus visitors are able simply to "enter buildings after people," then that campus has a security problem. What an idiotic post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Quite frankly I don't care if the buildings are beautiful or up to date. These schools aren't ranked highly because they won a beauty contest. I care about the intellectual rigor, student culture, research opportunities, etc. If different factors are important to OP and OP's kid, that's perfectly fine! It's better if people really prioritize what is important to them, rather than just looking at rankings and piling up to compete for the same schools regardless of their interests or priorities.

I don’t know why, but I just can’t agree with this. If you want to sell a brand of this beautiful groomed environment for students to be with the best, you should be a…beautiful groomed environment. These are status symbol colleges and pretending they aren’t is very strange. I also disagree with OP— most colleges are exceptionally beautiful and are well planned environments. If Harvard was dumpy looking (beyond Harvard Yard, the campus is pretty gorgeous), it would be an embarrassment for Harvard’s brand.

You are at least honest.

Your kid’s college is a status symbol to you.

Pathetic but there are sadly many in DCUM who think like you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will never understand people who tour schools in the summer. You aren't getting to see them other than the buildings. It's a waste.

I don’t understand tours. Just go on campus and enter buildings after people. Ask people on the quad questions. The tour guide is just a student doing their job and giving you lies about the school.

This is not possible at Columbia, Dartmouth, Yale, Penn, Princeton and many more.

We did this exact thing at Penn, Columbia, and Dartmouth. Their security isn’t crazy, just walk behind someone.

Then their security sucks, and by the way, it's a d**k move to violate campus security intentionally.

[Anonymous]

Oh great the board now has resident logicians who can't get passed an ad hominem. Who invited the redditor^?
For the future all we'll hear about is what fallacy is causing this poster great peril, instead of contributing something useful

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a rising senior and have been doing the rounds of many top 25 schools (universities and colleges). We started with safety schools last year and then junior year grades came back so this summer we've been touring some top schools. My kid is trying to figure out an ED.
We have a rising junior as well so we have a couple of kids with us.

The more of these schools we tour, the less impressed I am. They're sort of all a bit falling apart, poorly maintained, with pretty odd students (tour guides, summer students and especially touring students alike--don't jump all over for for saying this--being brutally honest), little sense of community, same-old, same-old stuff about study-abroad, etc. Many have very large class sizes, etc.

I feel like we're (kid and parent alike) are supposed to love these schools and want to pay $90K for them and my kids can't find one they really like. I very, very, very much feel like we're being sold a product that we're supposed to want to buy because of prestige and name but when we see the product up close it doesn't look great and I feel like a sheep lining up to say "yes sir. let me put my kid through mental/emotional twister for a 5% chance of being admitted to your school and then I will gladly pay you $90K for the honor. Yes sir." It just feels... gross. Maybe not gross but yucky. My kids are like, "well I didn't really like this or that here but I could probably make it work." They too feel the pressure to LIKE these places. The Almighty XYZ or ABC school! It's supposed to be their dream!

Please don't jump on me. I know it's summer and we're not seeing the universities at their best but ugh. They're all kind of disappointing. I can't be the only one who feels this way? (I'm not going to name university/college names because then this post will turn into a giant thread about whatever school(s) I name.

Dumpy? Unimpressive, meaning structurally, academically, what? As you looking at colleges or real estate to purchase?

She is buying a service for $360k and expects the quality of the service to reflect the price paid.

When did people start thinking of education in this way?

You must be behind. Professors have been complaining about the service industry that is modern academia since the 90s.

+1. Not sure I understand why university costs have ballooned so much while profs still plug away in spartan offices and labs as they always have.

I could think of a few reasons: the admin bloat directly follows with colleges attempt to cover services that really aren't educational and often aren't necessary, such as student health offices with vaccinations, study abroad offices, title XI coordinators/sexual health staff, academic resource centers (very important but typically over staffed), Junior/Senior dorms with luxury suites increasing the size of the housing staff, higher sustainability and green initiatives that tend to create whole new departments of sustainability and more facilities workers to maintain the campus, massive in-house HR departments, queer/poc resource centers, and outdoor education programs.

These are all just from noticing things during my visits at DC's college, but I'm sure there's many more examples.

My friend who works there, told me that the staff pool at BU has a lazy river.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Picking a school based on thinking you'll be doing high level research as an undergrad is a mistake.

Disagree.

At my kid’s (non-elite) SLAC, she published multiple peer reviewed papers as a undergrad, which likely helped her win two fully funded admissions to graduate programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will never understand people who tour schools in the summer. You aren't getting to see them other than the buildings. It's a waste.

I don’t understand tours. Just go on campus and enter buildings after people. Ask people on the quad questions. The tour guide is just a student doing their job and giving you lies about the school.

....and also:

If random campus visitors are able simply to "enter buildings after people," then that campus has a security problem. What an idiotic post.

DC has definitely just entered buildings. Kids have little to lose attempting and they look like college students. It's not really a security threat to have an 17 year old listen in on an intro bio class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Picking a school based on thinking you'll be doing high level research as an undergrad is a mistake.

Disagree.

At my kid’s (non-elite) SLAC, she published multiple peer reviewed papers as a undergrad, which likely helped her win two fully funded admissions to graduate programs.

Yes, but did she do REUs or other research programs to get there? I think the person is just emphasizing that it is not typical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will never understand people who tour schools in the summer. You aren't getting to see them other than the buildings. It's a waste.

I don’t understand tours. Just go on campus and enter buildings after people. Ask people on the quad questions. The tour guide is just a student doing their job and giving you lies about the school.

This is not possible at Columbia, Dartmouth, Yale, Penn, Princeton and many more.

We did this exact thing at Penn, Columbia, and Dartmouth. Their security isn’t crazy, just walk behind someone.

Then their security sucks, and by the way, it's a d**k move to violate campus security intentionally.

I'm sure the underpaid workers do not care that a student is looking into an academic building. There is nothing special that needs to be hidden about the CS department lounge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will never understand people who tour schools in the summer. You aren't getting to see them other than the buildings. It's a waste.

I don’t understand tours. Just go on campus and enter buildings after people. Ask people on the quad questions. The tour guide is just a student doing their job and giving you lies about the school.

This is not possible at Columbia, Dartmouth, Yale, Penn, Princeton and many more.

We did this exact thing at Penn, Columbia, and Dartmouth. Their security isn’t crazy, just walk behind someone.

Then their security sucks, and by the way, it's a d**k move to violate campus security intentionally.

I'm sure the underpaid workers do not care that a student is looking into an academic building. There is nothing special that needs to be hidden about the CS department lounge.

I misspoke. The coffee machine is quite sacred.

[Anonymous]

Funny, because I feel the same way but my kid has toured about 15 schools and loved all of them!

Anonymous wrote:I have a rising senior and have been doing the rounds of many top 25 schools (universities and colleges). We started with safety schools last year and then junior year grades came back so this summer we've been touring some top schools. My kid is trying to figure out an ED.
We have a rising junior as well so we have a couple of kids with us.

The more of these schools we tour, the less impressed I am. They're sort of all a bit falling apart, poorly maintained, with pretty odd students (tour guides, summer students and especially touring students alike--don't jump all over for for saying this--being brutally honest), little sense of community, same-old, same-old stuff about study-abroad, etc. Many have very large class sizes, etc.

I feel like we're (kid and parent alike) are supposed to love these schools and want to pay $90K for them and my kids can't find one they really like. I very, very, very much feel like we're being sold a product that we're supposed to want to buy because of prestige and name but when we see the product up close it doesn't look great and I feel like a sheep lining up to say "yes sir. let me put my kid through mental/emotional twister for a 5% chance of being admitted to your school and then I will gladly pay you $90K for the honor. Yes sir." It just feels... gross. Maybe not gross but yucky. My kids are like, "well I didn't really like this or that here but I could probably make it work." They too feel the pressure to LIKE these places. The Almighty XYZ or ABC school! It's supposed to be their dream!

Please don't jump on me. I know it's summer and we're not seeing the universities at their best but ugh. They're all kind of disappointing. I can't be the only one who feels this way? (I'm not going to name university/college names because then this post will turn into a giant thread about whatever school(s) I name.

[Anonymous]

I am familiar with Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Brown, Stanford and Carnegie Mellon campuses. They are all special and beautiful. Not sure what you are looking for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will never understand people who tour schools in the summer. You aren't getting to see them other than the buildings. It's a waste.

I don’t understand tours. Just go on campus and enter buildings after people. Ask people on the quad questions. The tour guide is just a student doing their job and giving you lies about the school.

This is not possible at Columbia, Dartmouth, Yale, Penn, Princeton and many more.

We did this exact thing at Penn, Columbia, and Dartmouth. Their security isn’t crazy, just walk behind someone.

Then their security sucks, and by the way, it's a d**k move to violate campus security intentionally.

I'm sure the underpaid workers do not care that a student is looking into an academic building. There is nothing special that needs to be hidden about the CS department lounge.

The entitlement and the "rules don't apply to me or my kid" attitude is not the flex you think it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will never understand people who tour schools in the summer. You aren't getting to see them other than the buildings. It's a waste.

I don’t understand tours. Just go on campus and enter buildings after people. Ask people on the quad questions. The tour guide is just a student doing their job and giving you lies about the school.

This is not possible at Columbia, Dartmouth, Yale, Penn, Princeton and many more.

We did this exact thing at Penn, Columbia, and Dartmouth. Their security isn’t crazy, just walk behind someone.

Then their security sucks, and by the way, it's a d**k move to violate campus security intentionally.

I'm sure the underpaid workers do not care that a student is looking into an academic building. There is nothing special that needs to be hidden about the CS department lounge.

The entitlement and the "rules don't apply to me or my kid" attitude is not the flex you think it is.

Some consider it flex, others just realize that these are ivy league doors and everyone around is privileged and pretentious. The department lounge is still a lounge, even if President Gerber wants to sell me something else about my alma mater.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh great the board now has resident logicians who can't get passed an ad hominem. Who invited the redditor^?
For the future all we'll hear about is what fallacy is causing this poster great peril, instead of contributing something useful

Hit a nerve with you, clearly. But so glad you got to show off "ad hominem" and "fallacy" from your SAT word bank.