Schools you toured that you were surprised you liked or didn’t like?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UCLA and USC tours on the same day.

Expected to prefer USC but UCLA was more impressive in every way. Blew past expectations

UCLA is a gorgeous campus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Williams is s-t-u-n-n-i-n-g and tour was well run and informative, no wonder it's the #1 ranked LAC. Williamstown was also cuter than I expected too.

Wiliams, Mount Holyoke, Scripps and Princeton are possibly the 4 most beautiful campuses in the US. Just dreamy. Not that the looks of a campus should have any major influence on where DCs choose to study.

Maybe you just love the environment, but I don’t really see how Williams is a top 4 college campus…it’s pretty meh. Agree with the others but swap Mount Holyoke with Smith.

Smith's campus is really special. Campus designed by Olmsted and library by Maya Lin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We no longer live in DC, but when our daughter was contemplating going back for college, we were surprised at how much she liked American.

The admissions’ presentation was just the right length, and the AO gave subtle tips for getting in. We were randomly split into tour groups, so it would have been nice to have been with a guide who was in the same school or program that DC was interested in, but the guide we ended up with was terrific. She was enthusiastic and involved and had taken full advantage of her time at American and in DC. The tour covered most of campus, and our daughter walked with her several times to ask questions in between formal stops.

My husband and I are both Georgetown grads, and our daughter had been on campus multiple times, but it just never grabbed her the way it did us. We did the formal tour during a week when many East Coast high schools were on spring break, so the entire ICC auditorium was full. The presentation was fine, and the tour guides were also fine, but our group was really too large to get a very intimate tour experience, which didn’t help our cause. Both my husband and I knew the moment we stepped onto campus (many years ago) that Georgetown was “our” school, but it just wasn’t the right fit for our daughter.

The school she hated was GW. Boring presentation, and the school was just too urban and lacking a campus for her taste. A totally checked out (second semester senior) tour guide sealed the deal, and we bailed on the tour before it was finished. I thought she might like the fact that GW is right in the heart of everything, but boy, she did not.

Yes, Georgetown's giant tour group was a huge turnoff. I couldn't even hear the guide talk, and it gave the impression that they just didn't care enough to hire enough tour guides to give reasonable sized tours.

[Anonymous]

We didn't like JMU. We couldn't get a tour on the day we went so we ended up wandering around campus on a hot summer day on a self guided tour. For some reason, we couldn't find any academic buildings. The highway that cuts through campus was a big turnover.

The climbing wall and the little robots that deliver food were cool though.

[Anonymous]

sorry meant turnoff!

[Anonymous]

Georgetown was really run down and even their very new building looked so blah right in the middle of campus. What a swing and a miss. Also I think someone else noted so very boring Georgetown (neighborhood) is now. Not oriented to the college at all

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Georgetown was really run down and even their very new building looked so blah right in the middle of campus. What a swing and a miss. Also I think someone else noted so very boring Georgetown (neighborhood) is now. Not oriented to the college at all

Agree about the campus but Georgetown itself is a great location, and while you may think it’s a shadow of its former self, students from all over the country will be enamored by its history and energy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Georgetown was really run down and even their very new building looked so blah right in the middle of campus. What a swing and a miss. Also I think someone else noted so very boring Georgetown (neighborhood) is now. Not oriented to the college at all

Agree about the campus but Georgetown itself is a great location, and while you may think it’s a shadow of its former self, students from all over the country will be enamored by its history and energy.

I think this is true and obviously GU still has a lot to offer, but I couldn't help but wonder why they ignored their campus upkeep? Rats and mold in dorms was not appealing at all to us. And their were broken glass bottles strewn on roofs that we could clearly see from the tour.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UCLA and USC tours on the same day.

Expected to prefer USC but UCLA was more impressive in every way. Blew past expectations

UCLA is a gorgeous campus.

Once off the main quad, not so much. But that part is very pretty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We didn't like JMU. We couldn't get a tour on the day we went so we ended up wandering around campus on a hot summer day on a self guided tour. For some reason, we couldn't find any academic buildings. The highway that cuts through campus was a big turnover.

The climbing wall and the little robots that deliver food were cool though.

My husband and daughter abandoned their JMU tour. :O They were on one side of the highway and realized the tour guide wasn't going to take them to the other (prettier) side. They left and walked around by themselves.

[Anonymous]

We love JMU’s campus. Not too big and not too small. My son wants to major in business so would spend most
Of his time of the “pretty” side of campus though!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We love JMU’s campus. Not too big and not too small. My son wants to major in business so would spend most
Of his time of the “pretty” side of campus though!!

What's the pretty side? Bluestone quad and Lake or new buildings and arboretum?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Georgetown was really run down and even their very new building looked so blah right in the middle of campus. What a swing and a miss. Also I think someone else noted so very boring Georgetown (neighborhood) is now. Not oriented to the college at all

Agree about the campus but Georgetown itself is a great location, and while you may think it’s a shadow of its former self, students from all over the country will be enamored by its history and energy.

I just find it scrubbed of all personality. the housing is charming, but it's all chain stores now. I think there's even a Chick Fil A on Georgetown's campus. like in the middle of it.

[Anonymous]

Ithaca - gorgeous campus, great town. But decided not to apply because the school is really five distinct little colleges and unless you are planning to study something like music or broadcast journalism it didn't seem like a great fit. very hard to change majors and not the place for a kid who doesn't know exactly what they want from day 1.

Hobart - beautiful campus, really great tour. very impressive to parents. kid found it way too remote and wasn't interested

RIT - way more than an engineering school. lots of interesting majors but turned off by the location. Rochester is really dreary for months at a time and the campus is far removed from town

Bowdoin - very boring presentation that went on for too long. the actual tour was good though. this school has done a lot to shed its "bro culture" that it carried for long after it went coed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted above about wake. Yes, the students are more “religious” than I was used to (and I attended a parochial HS), but unless it has changed a ton since the 90s, it doesn’t really permeate. It is still a work hard, play hard school. And the actual “churchy” kids do their own thing. Most talk a big game at first, but they are likely sleeping off a hangover on a Sunday morning.

I think Wake is very different now with NY, MA, NJ and CA sending lots of kids. Just as Duke and Vanderbilt are much less southern than a few decades ago.

To be fair, there were lots of kids from those states when I was there. That’s not a new thing. I grew up in the northeast, so I was one of the non-southern folks.