Anonymous
10/29/2025 10:57
Subject: Schools you toured that you were surprised you liked or didn’t like?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Takeaways from this- (have just seen multiple people report in this thread)
Schools that surprised people in a positive way:
Pitt
UMD
Columbia
Schools that surprised people in a negative way:
Tufts
Carnegie Mellon
Duke
Schools that went both ways- both exceeding expectations and falling short for different families:
Chicago
Northwestern
VTech
William and Mary
Takeaways from this
1. Schools that spurned my kid were much worse than we thought when we toured.
2. Schools that admitted my kid were just wonederful and much better than anticipated. Kid loved it!
BRAVA! Especially true re UVA bashing .. no surprise.
Why are criticisms of other schools valid but criticisms of UVA are bashing? It's ok that not everyone likes every school.
Baffled with this too. People are different. For example, my 10th grader really liked UVA and my 12th grader wasn't crazy about it.
To DD, UVA just gave off this creepy party-school vibe, which she didn’t get from her other top choices we toured (Michigan, Carnegie-Mellon, Case Western, and Pitt.
Omg. Same! I thought my boys would love it. They both hated it. We were there on a Thursday-Friday in April admitted day (not spring break) and our hotel had a pre-sorority mixer going on and everyone was sh@tfaced. The corner was a mess. Now, personally, I loved the vibe (lol) and I’m a Hokie. But- my kids did not. They preferred the mid-size schools in Urban areas.
What kind of boy sees a bunch of hot sorority chicks partying and thinks it's a bad thing?
As a gay “boy” myself, it would be a turn off for me.
Anonymous
10/29/2025 10:51
Subject: Schools you toured that you were surprised you liked or didn’t like?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Loved William and Mary.
Anonymous wrote:Loved William and Mary.
We didn't at all although we really wanted to! It just seemed very depressing and frankly run-down.
Tour guide didn't seem to like the school herself which didn't help.
How long ago was this? The school is si beautiful and has so many new buildings that still fit into the campus. We were surprised T how neaut
Anonymous
10/29/2025 10:50
Subject: Schools you toured that you were surprised you liked or didn’t like?
Just want to remind people that each tour guide is still a kid just a year or few older than your kid. They have bad days.
I was a tour guide at my SLAC. I was super happy there and I loved the tour guide group, but we signed up for tours weeks in advance and we gave our tours no matter what was happening in our lives. Today, I can compartmentalize and perform at work regardless of what's happening at home, but am I certain that I gave amazing tours despite stressful, disappointing, and downright tragic events that happened in my college years? I doubt it.
Give these kids a little grace.
I was a tour guide at my SLAC. I was super happy there and I loved the tour guide group, but we signed up for tours weeks in advance and we gave our tours no matter what was happening in our lives. Today, I can compartmentalize and perform at work regardless of what's happening at home, but am I certain that I gave amazing tours despite stressful, disappointing, and downright tragic events that happened in my college years? I doubt it.
Give these kids a little grace.
Anonymous
10/29/2025 10:49
Subject: Schools you toured that you were surprised you liked or didn’t like?
Anonymous wrote:Well, the country as a whole is about 65% white, so that means the school is balanced and fairly representative of society.
Your other 2 examples are hardly white AF.
What is the unaccounted 40% at UW?
How about the close to 30% at Cal Poly?
80-90% white is white AF. That was a point against one of my daughter’s choices. And I think is the current situation at my Alma mater, which isn’t great.
Look, lady, I'm not gonna educate you on the history of this country and how blacks were brought here in bondage and generally stayed within a couple hundred miles of where their ancestors were emancipated, but if you think the University of Georgia or Alabama or North Carolina is as white as Oregon or the central coast of California, you are just a fool. Be my guest being one.
Anonymous
10/29/2025 10:33
Subject: Schools you toured that you were surprised you liked or didn’t like?
Well, the country as a whole is about 65% white, so that means the school is balanced and fairly representative of society.
Your other 2 examples are hardly white AF.
What is the unaccounted 40% at UW?
How about the close to 30% at Cal Poly?
80-90% white is white AF. That was a point against one of my daughter’s choices. And I think is the current situation at my Alma mater, which isn’t great.
Your other 2 examples are hardly white AF.
What is the unaccounted 40% at UW?
How about the close to 30% at Cal Poly?
80-90% white is white AF. That was a point against one of my daughter’s choices. And I think is the current situation at my Alma mater, which isn’t great.
Anonymous
10/29/2025 10:15
Subject: Re:Schools you toured that you were surprised you liked or didn’t like?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Georgetown
+1. I'm class of '95. My wife is class of '97 under grad and class of '01 for grad school.. My father went there for undergrad and law school and my FIL taught medicine there for 27 years. Five diplomas between us all.
We took our son there a dozen times over the years since we live in Arlington. Did the official tour, and, I'll take heat for this, but he felt very out of place as the only white boy in the 20 person group. It came across more like a business presentation than a campus tour. So bland and uninteresting. Our son left completely underwhelmed. He applied anyway and was rejected, which floored us given the huge legacy.
So, screw Georgetown. They'll never see another dime from any of our families.
Try not to vacation in CA. And most schools out here, there is a real risk that he would find himself in similarly uncomfortable situations.
West cost schools tend to be waaaaaay whiter than east coast schools on the whole.
Uh, only if you consider Asian kids white.
Nope.
University of Oregon is 65% white and 6% Asian
University of Washington is 40% white and 20% Asian
Calpoly is 55% white and 17% Asian
All three are less than 4% black.
Like I said, they are white af.
Anonymous
10/29/2025 09:53
Subject: Schools you toured that you were surprised you liked or didn’t like?
For better or worse, tour guides and admissions reps are the face of a school for many people. It is amazing that many schools do not focus much effort on vetting them more. Just because someone was accepted to a school doesn't mean they are suited for this role. Obviously different kids will click with different tour guides but too often there are guides where you want to say "what were you thinking?"
Similarly, some AO's should be left to reading apps and kept far away from information sessions.
Similarly, some AO's should be left to reading apps and kept far away from information sessions.
Anonymous
10/29/2025 09:53
Subject: Schools you toured that you were surprised you liked or didn’t like?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Most impressed by Colorado State. Great campus, kids seem so happy, pretty town and area plus it just has a fun vibe. I can't explain it but we visited it on vacation randomly and now we compare all schools to CSU.
I loved that school, too. I wish one of my kids had attended. Do you see the aquatic center?
“The Rec” was really nice- pools, lazy river, elevated track, climbing wall,etc… campus as a whole was nice- compact and easy to get around but tons of stuff. I am sure it helped that the weather was gorgeous and our tour guide was great.
Anonymous
10/29/2025 09:52
Subject: Re:Schools you toured that you were surprised you liked or didn’t like?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Georgetown
+1. I'm class of '95. My wife is class of '97 under grad and class of '01 for grad school.. My father went there for undergrad and law school and my FIL taught medicine there for 27 years. Five diplomas between us all.
We took our son there a dozen times over the years since we live in Arlington. Did the official tour, and, I'll take heat for this, but he felt very out of place as the only white boy in the 20 person group. It came across more like a business presentation than a campus tour. So bland and uninteresting. Our son left completely underwhelmed. He applied anyway and was rejected, which floored us given the huge legacy.
So, screw Georgetown. They'll never see another dime from any of our families.
Try not to vacation in CA. And most schools out here, there is a real risk that he would find himself in similarly uncomfortable situations.
West cost schools tend to be waaaaaay whiter than east coast schools on the whole.
Uh, only if you consider Asian kids white.
Anonymous
10/29/2025 09:50
Subject: Schools you toured that you were surprised you liked or didn’t like?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Takeaways from this- (have just seen multiple people report in this thread)
Schools that surprised people in a positive way:
Pitt
UMD
Columbia
Schools that surprised people in a negative way:
Tufts
Carnegie Mellon
Duke
Schools that went both ways- both exceeding expectations and falling short for different families:
Chicago
Northwestern
VTech
William and Mary
Takeaways from this
1. Schools that spurned my kid were much worse than we thought when we toured.
2. Schools that admitted my kid were just wonederful and much better than anticipated. Kid loved it!
BRAVA! Especially true re UVA bashing .. no surprise.
Why are criticisms of other schools valid but criticisms of UVA are bashing? It's ok that not everyone likes every school.
Baffled with this too. People are different. For example, my 10th grader really liked UVA and my 12th grader wasn't crazy about it.
To DD, UVA just gave off this creepy party-school vibe, which she didn’t get from her other top choices we toured (Michigan, Carnegie-Mellon, Case Western, and Pitt.
You should do another visit. My DD's first visit at UVA went poorly but it was because it was summer, hot, few students and the tour guide was having an off day. Second visit was the opposite. She loves it there.
I'll never understand why people put so much weight on the quality of the tour guide. Why would you assume that the tour guide is representative of the school? Or that a poor tour guide means that the school must be poor.
Because the school hires these students to BE representatives of the school. This is who the school has chosen to represent it. So I think it bears SOME importance.
This is always my complaint about the tour guides. When you look at the group of tour guides as a whole, they aren't really representative of the whole university.
Anonymous
10/29/2025 09:47
Subject: Schools you toured that you were surprised you liked or didn’t like?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Takeaways from this- (have just seen multiple people report in this thread)
Schools that surprised people in a positive way:
Pitt
UMD
Columbia
Schools that surprised people in a negative way:
Tufts
Carnegie Mellon
Duke
Schools that went both ways- both exceeding expectations and falling short for different families:
Chicago
Northwestern
VTech
William and Mary
Takeaways from this
1. Schools that spurned my kid were much worse than we thought when we toured.
2. Schools that admitted my kid were just wonederful and much better than anticipated. Kid loved it!
BRAVA! Especially true re UVA bashing .. no surprise.
Why are criticisms of other schools valid but criticisms of UVA are bashing? It's ok that not everyone likes every school.
Baffled with this too. People are different. For example, my 10th grader really liked UVA and my 12th grader wasn't crazy about it.
To DD, UVA just gave off this creepy party-school vibe, which she didn’t get from her other top choices we toured (Michigan, Carnegie-Mellon, Case Western, and Pitt.
Omg. Same! I thought my boys would love it. They both hated it. We were there on a Thursday-Friday in April admitted day (not spring break) and our hotel had a pre-sorority mixer going on and everyone was sh@tfaced. The corner was a mess. Now, personally, I loved the vibe (lol) and I’m a Hokie. But- my kids did not. They preferred the mid-size schools in Urban areas.
What kind of boy sees a bunch of hot sorority chicks partying and thinks it's a bad thing?
Anonymous
10/29/2025 09:27
Subject: Re:Schools you toured that you were surprised you liked or didn’t like?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Georgetown
+1. I'm class of '95. My wife is class of '97 under grad and class of '01 for grad school.. My father went there for undergrad and law school and my FIL taught medicine there for 27 years. Five diplomas between us all.
We took our son there a dozen times over the years since we live in Arlington. Did the official tour, and, I'll take heat for this, but he felt very out of place as the only white boy in the 20 person group. It came across more like a business presentation than a campus tour. So bland and uninteresting. Our son left completely underwhelmed. He applied anyway and was rejected, which floored us given the huge legacy.
So, screw Georgetown. They'll never see another dime from any of our families.
Try not to vacation in CA. And most schools out here, there is a real risk that he would find himself in similarly uncomfortable situations.
West cost schools tend to be waaaaaay whiter than east coast schools on the whole.
Anonymous
10/29/2025 09:14
Subject: Re:Schools you toured that you were surprised you liked or didn’t like?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Georgetown
+1. I'm class of '95. My wife is class of '97 under grad and class of '01 for grad school.. My father went there for undergrad and law school and my FIL taught medicine there for 27 years. Five diplomas between us all.
We took our son there a dozen times over the years since we live in Arlington. Did the official tour, and, I'll take heat for this, but he felt very out of place as the only white boy in the 20 person group. It came across more like a business presentation than a campus tour. So bland and uninteresting. Our son left completely underwhelmed. He applied anyway and was rejected, which floored us given the huge legacy.
So, screw Georgetown. They'll never see another dime from any of our families.
Try not to vacation in CA. And most schools out here, there is a real risk that he would find himself in similarly uncomfortable situations.
Anonymous
10/29/2025 09:13
Subject: Schools you toured that you were surprised you liked or didn’t like?
Anonymous wrote:Hated Boston as a whole. Such a dirty, dreary, depressing city.
MIT alum. I'll admit I didn't love Boston as city, but I did love the Boston area as a place to go to college. I had good friends at MIT, Harvard, Wellesley, Tufts, and BU by the time I graduated.
Anonymous
10/29/2025 09:05
Subject: Schools you toured that you were surprised you liked or didn’t like?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Takeaways from this- (have just seen multiple people report in this thread)
Schools that surprised people in a positive way:
Pitt
UMD
Columbia
Schools that surprised people in a negative way:
Tufts
Carnegie Mellon
Duke
Schools that went both ways- both exceeding expectations and falling short for different families:
Chicago
Northwestern
VTech
William and Mary
Takeaways from this
1. Schools that spurned my kid were much worse than we thought when we toured.
2. Schools that admitted my kid were just wonederful and much better than anticipated. Kid loved it!
BRAVA! Especially true re UVA bashing .. no surprise.
Why are criticisms of other schools valid but criticisms of UVA are bashing? It's ok that not everyone likes every school.
Baffled with this too. People are different. For example, my 10th grader really liked UVA and my 12th grader wasn't crazy about it.
To DD, UVA just gave off this creepy party-school vibe, which she didn’t get from her other top choices we toured (Michigan, Carnegie-Mellon, Case Western, and Pitt.
Omg. Same! I thought my boys would love it. They both hated it. We were there on a Thursday-Friday in April admitted day (not spring break) and our hotel had a pre-sorority mixer going on and everyone was sh@tfaced. The corner was a mess. Now, personally, I loved the vibe (lol) and I’m a Hokie. But- my kids did not. They preferred the mid-size schools in Urban areas.
UVA boosters are worse then vegan bicyclists.