Anonymous wrote:chicago answer - I thought it was great and the AO was the best of any tour we did. Thought DS would love it. But the tour guide, although very outgoing, struggled to give answers to what - other than studying - the kids did socially. Stayed for the whole tour, but when we got into the car he said no way. Just like others have said, the kids are thinking - is this what I want?

amazing school, just not what he wanted

It is one of the hardest schools. I know people who transferred to Yale because it was so hard.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any poster who (or whose kid) writes a school off because the student tour guide didn't sit well with them is just plain silly.

Are you the parent of a teenager?

Sure am. Of several, in fact. And none of them is so foolish to write off an entire institution on the basis of a single person.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pre-COVID:

John's Hopkins - he thought it was a fun city school
Georgetown - too close to home and the tour guide was condescending
UVA - it was raining. Literally, that was his complaint

Lesson learned - 18 years are going to act like 18 year olds and they may pick a very superficial reason during a visit not to like a school. Just go with it.

You didn't know where Georgetown was before you visited?

Lord some of these responses are just nonsense.

Of course I knew. DS just realized exactly how short the drive would be between us. My bad - I guess I thought this thread was about what *kids* thought after a visit - and some of the random things that can influence their impression of a school. You must be one of the parents that makes your child's decisions for them - carry on with your no-nonsense college advice!

The question was "what school did they think they'd love but then were turned off after a visit?" That Georgetown ended up being too close to home has nothing to do with the visit itself. Just the car trip. Such an unhelpful and useless comment.

Ohio state. Oops, sorry, THE Ohio state. We stopped by for a self-guided tour. Very nice student union, but the joke about Michigan that our family friend dropped in the admissions office as a test drew daggered looks from all 6 people there. Saw similar intensity about hatred of Michigan touring the campus. Just a little too intense of a sports focus for both of our DCs.

Harvard. The campus is just sprawling throughout Cambridge. DC didn't like the scattered dorms, where the athletic facilities were, and the hodgepodge for different parts of the school. Liked the Law School area.

Princeton had a highly desirable program, and the campus was nice enough, but the whole eating clubs and academic plan just weren't what was expected. And then being in the middle of nowhere was not appealing to my DC. 1 hr train to either Philly or NYC wasn't a benefit.

Yale - as previously said, nice campus, surrounding area severely lacking.

UPenn actually rose on the list, but I can see why it would drop off some people's lists. It was more compact and dense than expected, with good access to the city, which was a plus for my DC.

I think there are two main things that can come from a visit - obviously the actual campus and campus feel, but also some nuances about student life and academics that are hard to tell from the website and online tours. Better if you whittle the list before you apply, but sometimes after you have admission offers, the tour ends up being the deciding factor.

chicago answer - I thought it was great and the AO was the best of any tour we did. Thought DS would love it. But the tour guide, although very outgoing, struggled to give answers to what - other than studying - the kids did socially. Stayed for the whole tour, but when we got into the car he said no way. Just like others have said, the kids are thinking - is this what I want?

amazing school, just not what he wanted

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College Park and NC State were the two schools we visited that DC found oppressively ugly.

unfortunately have to agree. But great schools.

Hahahah! Wtf with NC State campus. We tried to visit while on the way to vacation one year. Must've circled the campus twice trying to figure where/if there was student center. Sprawling and no focus at all, considering it's the only thing there.

UMD-CP is changing - parts of campus are starting to have a nicer feel with the new buildings, and all of the new building along rt 1 is improving the off-campus feel. But it still has many years to go to have a sense of cohesiveness and a college town.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rice (very surprised...expected to absolutely love it but didn't like it at all), UT-Austin, and UVA

Why didn't you like those places after the visits?

We'd been to a lot of schools (was fortunate to be able to visit pre-COVID), so we had sense of comparison and we wanted to look at all types.

The campus and facilities at Rice and UVA were very underwhelming: library, student center, dining, fitness center, just everything. But other campuses seem to care so much about having everything much more state-of-the-art and making a student's life better. With regard to culture, Rice was super small...felt like summer camp and felt a little too introverted. People were very nice though. UVA felt to too material and fratty.

UT-Austin on the other hand did have great facilities like so many other campuses we visited. But, it's big, and it felt big!...felt like it was too big for kids to know each other. Everywhere we went, students were by themselves...they didn't congregate like on most campuses. Whereas, we didn't get that same sense from other schools of comparable size (ASU and Texas A&M). Other large school were able to make themselves "feel small."

BTW...DC fell in love in with Texas A&M. But was impressed with many schools. After visiting many schools, became partial to state schools...better funding and better facilities (at least for engineering).

Hope that helps.

I'm actually from Texas and went to Texas A&M for engineering!

Speaking of tour guide influence - 20+ years ago I was very interested in Northwestern so I drove all the way out there with my mom. For the entire tour my mother kept disparaging the school and the “airhead” tour guide. She really would not drop it. It’s not why I didn’t apply there but I bet it affected me. Well, I found out years later the tour guide physically reminded my mother of a rival she hated in high school!!!

Duke - seemed industrial. Besides the cathedral, ugly

Grinnell. Great school but too remote, too much of a culture shock for my dc that grew up in NW DC.

Anonymous wrote:Any poster who (or whose kid) writes a school off because the student tour guide didn't sit well with them is just plain silly.

Are you the parent of a teenager?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pre-COVID:

John's Hopkins - he thought it was a fun city school
Georgetown - too close to home and the tour guide was condescending
UVA - it was raining. Literally, that was his complaint

Lesson learned - 18 years are going to act like 18 year olds and they may pick a very superficial reason during a visit not to like a school. Just go with it.

You didn't know where Georgetown was before you visited?

Lord some of these responses are just nonsense.

Of course I knew. DS just realized exactly how short the drive would be between us. My bad - I guess I thought this thread was about what *kids* thought after a visit - and some of the random things that can influence their impression of a school. You must be one of the parents that makes your child's decisions for them - carry on with your no-nonsense college advice!

Any poster who (or whose kid) writes a school off because the student tour guide didn't sit well with them is just plain silly.

Anonymous wrote:Pre-COVID:

John's Hopkins - he thought it was a fun city school
Georgetown - too close to home and the tour guide was condescending
UVA - it was raining. Literally, that was his complaint

Lesson learned - 18 years are going to act like 18 year olds and they may pick a very superficial reason during a visit not to like a school. Just go with it.

You didn't know where Georgetown was before you visited?

Lord some of these responses are just nonsense.

Anonymous wrote:chicago

can you say more about why?