tell me about colleges that didn't make your kid's list

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lawrence because it was too remote and Clark because it was too “gritty.”
For second kid, Chicago and Northwestern because it was FREEZING the day we toured, Hopkins because it was too STEM/pre-med focused, Dartmouth and Amherst because, well, he didn’t really articulate. Then COVID shut all the touring down and he had to fly blind. Maybe a good thing given how easily turned off he was being.

Weather is what did MHC in, in the mind of my DC. The school is very strong academically, and really graduates leaders...but the weekend we visited (Accepted Students Day), it was bitter and sleeted. In May.

That closed the door for her. (It was a bit of a fluke, but not unheard of.) That morning, she had seen kids in shorts and hammocks at a SLAC in PA. That school is where she wound up!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lawrence because it was too remote and Clark because it was too “gritty.”
For second kid, Chicago and Northwestern because it was FREEZING the day we toured, Hopkins because it was too STEM/pre-med focused, Dartmouth and Amherst because, well, he didn’t really articulate. Then COVID shut all the touring down and he had to fly blind. Maybe a good thing given how easily turned off he was being.

Weather is what did MHC in, in the mind of my DC. The school is very strong academically, and really graduates leaders...but the weekend we visited (Accepted Students Day), it was bitter and sleeted. In May.

That closed the door for her. (It was a bit of a fluke, but not unheard of.) That morning, she had seen kids in shorts and hammocks at a SLAC in PA. That school is where she wound up!

LOL - if MHC is Mount Holyoke - it happens for sure! I attended a May graduation (years ago) in Boston where the weather was sleet and high winds in the 40's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have to say Georgetown was on the list and we love the area but almost stepping on a dead rat on the sidewalk led to some more google research and finding out about the widespread rat and cockroach problem. That was enough for my DS to take it off his list haha

Georgetown is one of those schools that looks great from the air but looks really dingy and, dare I say, ugly from the ground. There are only one or two beautiful buildings on campus and the rest are quite shoddily built.

I agree. I thought it was some sort of gorgeous campus after attending concerts there. Nope! Ugly, ugly.

[Anonymous]

It's precious that you're talking about your kids not wanting to go to school in a state that is actually growing and attracting rather than losing residents and jobs. Sure it will be so much better if they go to school in New York or Massachusetts and have to figure out later on their own why people are leaving those states.

NP I disagree, but would love to hear your thoughts.

[Anonymous]

DC thought Amherst and Wake Forest were beautiful but too precious/insulated.

[Anonymous]

The bigger question is why the F don’t most schools give tours on weekends? Makes me crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The bigger question is why the F don’t most schools give tours on weekends? Makes me crazy.

Agree. Some of them do but they fill up fast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC thought Amherst and Wake Forest were beautiful but too precious/insulated.

Loved Williams (almost went there) but had the same reaction to Amherst.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have to say Georgetown was on the list and we love the area but almost stepping on a dead rat on the sidewalk led to some more google research and finding out about the widespread rat and cockroach problem. That was enough for my DS to take it off his list haha

Georgetown is one of those schools that looks great from the air but looks really dingy and, dare I say, ugly from the ground. There are only one or two beautiful buildings on campus and the rest are quite shoddily built.

I agree. I thought it was some sort of gorgeous campus after attending concerts there. Nope! Ugly, ugly.

LOL. Okay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC thought Amherst and Wake Forest were beautiful but too precious/insulated.

Driving into Wake felt like entering a country club, complete with a guard house and gate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The bigger question is why the F don’t most schools give tours on weekends? Makes me crazy.

Because their student tour guides don't want to give tours?

I was a tour guide in college and admissions was always asking us to offer more, more, more. Giving tours on the weekend was annoying. People assumed they could monopolize you because you didn't have to get to class and sometimes the tours times meant you were either waking up earlier than you wished OR they stopped us from going to things with our friends. We were volunteers and a lot of tour guides still area.

So maybe you can tone down the anger and be grateful that students are willing to give you a few hours of their time whenever they are able to do it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bigger question is why the F don’t most schools give tours on weekends? Makes me crazy.

Because their student tour guides don't want to give tours?

I was a tour guide in college and admissions was always asking us to offer more, more, more. Giving tours on the weekend was annoying. People assumed they could monopolize you because you didn't have to get to class and sometimes the tours times meant you were either waking up earlier than you wished OR they stopped us from going to things with our friends. We were volunteers and a lot of tour guides still area.

So maybe you can tone down the anger and be grateful that students are willing to give you a few hours of their time whenever they are able to do it?

When I was a tour guide in college it was a paying job. It's not a charity.

[Anonymous]

Dickinson was too small and remote for ds

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anyone roasting you for this is a moron. I completely agree with you. "Diversity" isn't even on our list of most important things to look for in a college. Fit is everything, and there are so many more relevant qualities to weigh, such as the ones you listed.

Diversity, which if course is much more than skin color, is one of the top 5-6 considerations for my DD's fit matrix.

Its of significant importance to one of my kids who is white but stands out with a visible physical difference and he's much more comfortable in einvironments where not everyone looks the same (even if they don't have the same difference he as). So, if it's not important to you, fine, it matters to some others so I appreciate knowing this about BC.

I didn’t pay attention to diversity and ended up transferring after a year at W&L. My experience there reminded me of the old Eddie Murphy SNL skit where he goes undercover as a white person and is shocked at how differently white folks act when there are no black people around. I actually met people who considered Jews and Catholics to be non-white and took total enmity between ethnic groups absolutely for granted. It really shook me because those people acted totally different (nice, considerate, PC) when they were around non-whites, but as soon as they perceived themselves to be alone, this whole other culture came out. I was actually dancing with a girl at a party when she suddenly started loudly singing along to the song that was playing with alternate, racist lyrics. It was pretty shocking - she had been acting totally normal up to then.

I should add that I’m from a working white class family in the South, and I had never encountered this. I have lots of relative who talk in non-PC ways, but they played sports with black people, have black friends and generally live much more integrated lives than lots of people in the north. But the creepy secret racism at W&L was totally new to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter did an overnight with her cousin at Santa Clara and she didn't feel like she'd fit in there

If our world ever returns to normal, I also recommend overnight visits. They are less scripted than Admissions tours. My daughter really found them to be informative.

I would never do an overnight again. We got a bitter crazy person who did drugs in from of my kid. Not cool.