Anonymous wrote:DC wanted Michigan very badly, but hadn't visited before acceptances. We went to another admitted students day closer to home first to get the experience and then went to AA a month later. Within the first hour, I could see on their face that I was going to be canceling the two other visits we had planned. The campus, the town and the program were exactly what my kid had imagined. We got really lucky and I am grateful that it wasn't a hard choice.

If you can handle BIG, Ann Arbor has it all.

DC wanted Michigan very badly, but hadn't visited before acceptances. We went to another admitted students day closer to home first to get the experience and then went to AA a month later. Within the first hour, I could see on their face that I was going to be canceling the two other visits we had planned. The campus, the town and the program were exactly what my kid had imagined. We got really lucky and I am grateful that it wasn't a hard choice.

DS picked our flagship. His friend told him it was the best school he got into. Was sort of true. He also got into a pretty good SLAC but nobody cares or thinks about a SLAC in our circle. The rest were more regional schools (both public and private) or much more expensive (I'm looking at you Kentucky).

Everyone says don't focus on rankings: Get to know the schools and pick the one that's best for you.

My child visited four very similar colleges they were accepted to and felt that although there slight differences, they were fundamentally all the same, so ended up just choosing the one that was ranked highest/had the lowest acceptance rate. Not the best reason, but no worse than "The three students I talked to seemed cool." (To be clear, all the options would have been fine, but they had to pick one.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC loved loved loved the vibe of Pitt - loved being in the city, the new honors dorm, collaborative feel of engineering school. Assumed he’d go here.

Ruled out other schools that were very cold and required buses to get from engineering campus to main campus.

At a school that gave him full ride instead. Not in city but takes public transport in many weekends. Surprisingly happy.

Can I ask where? And doing engineering?

UMd engineering. Only applied under pressure from girlfriend at the time. He’s not into watching sports so that wasn’t a draw. But he bikes to the gym to rock climb and play squash, loves the food (South cafeteria), and the honors college dorm/facilities are amazing. Plus very easy to get into DC, which he does every week or two. Been a wonderful surprise to all of us.

Anonymous wrote:DC loved loved loved the vibe of Pitt - loved being in the city, the new honors dorm, collaborative feel of engineering school. Assumed he’d go here.

Ruled out other schools that were very cold and required buses to get from engineering campus to main campus.

At a school that gave him full ride instead. Not in city but takes public transport in many weekends. Surprisingly happy.

Can I ask where? And doing engineering?