Anonymous wrote:I have a rising senior and have been doing the rounds of many top 25 schools (universities and colleges). We started with safety schools last year and then junior year grades came back so this summer we've been touring some top schools. My kid is trying to figure out an ED.
We have a rising junior as well so we have a couple of kids with us.

The more of these schools we tour, the less impressed I am.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Np.

We’ve been touring as well. Have found most Ivies and SLACs to be the most run down.

Duke, Northwestern, WashU and Vandy and Emory all looked beautiful.

We had similar observations. The non-Ivies tended to be more interesting. Vanderbilt, Rice, Stanford, Notre Dame, Duke, and Chicago all seemed more impressive than the Ivies we visited.

Anonymous wrote:Np.

We’ve been touring as well. Have found most Ivies and SLACs to be the most run down.

Duke, Northwestern, WashU and Vandy and Emory all looked beautiful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Quite frankly I don't care if the buildings are beautiful or up to date. These schools aren't ranked highly because they won a beauty contest. I care about the intellectual rigor, student culture, research opportunities, etc. If different factors are important to OP and OP's kid, that's perfectly fine! It's better if people really prioritize what is important to them, rather than just looking at rankings and piling up to compete for the same schools regardless of their interests or priorities.

I don’t know why, but I just can’t agree with this. If you want to sell a brand of this beautiful groomed environment for students to be with the best, you should be a…beautiful groomed environment. These are status symbol colleges and pretending they aren’t is very strange. I also disagree with OP— most colleges are exceptionally beautiful and are well planned environments. If Harvard was dumpy looking (beyond Harvard Yard, the campus is pretty gorgeous), it would be an embarrassment for Harvard’s brand.

I have just the opposite opinion of Harvard...love the old part. Rest is a mish-mash of different artitecture. Very surprised. MIT has their older, traditional campus and their downtown looking area of metal and glass

Anonymous wrote:Np.

We’ve been touring as well. Have found most Ivies and SLACs to be the most run down.

Duke, Northwestern, WashU and Vandy and Emory all looked beautiful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will never understand people who tour schools in the summer. You aren't getting to see them other than the buildings. It's a waste.

I don’t understand tours. Just go on campus and enter buildings after people. Ask people on the quad questions. The tour guide is just a student doing their job and giving you lies about the school.

Tours are a good idea because then the admissions office knows you were there and thus you have demonstrated interest.

OP. None of the top schools track demonstrated interest.
We're touring schools in the summer because we and kid(s) have the time. The tours are packed so we're clearly not the only ones.
We don't view top25 schools as safety schools. Read my post. We toured other safety schools last year. These are non safety.

I do think it's good to keep in mind is that you are paying for the education and not the facilities. But are you really? Do you actually have contact with world renowned faculty as an undergrad? And does it matter whether the guy teaching your organic chemistry class is also doing tertiary research in organic chemistry (vs someone who is just really competent at teaching organic chemistry to college sophomores)? I would say no.

It feels like you are paying for the name on your diploma and for being adjacent to greatness.

Anonymous wrote:I sort of liken it to how the truly wealthy often drive old cars and have expensive but possibly tattered interiors, generational wealth that whispers.

Anonymous wrote:I have a rising senior and have been doing the rounds of many top 25 schools (universities and colleges). We started with safety schools last year and then junior year grades came back so this summer we've been touring some top schools. My kid is trying to figure out an ED.
We have a rising junior as well so we have a couple of kids with us.

The more of these schools we tour, the less impressed I am. They're sort of all a bit falling apart, poorly maintained, with pretty odd students (tour guides, summer students and especially touring students alike--don't jump all over for for saying this--being brutally honest), little sense of community, same-old, same-old stuff about study-abroad, etc. Many have very large class sizes, etc.

I feel like we're (kid and parent alike) are supposed to love these schools and want to pay $90K for them and my kids can't find one they really like. I very, very, very much feel like we're being sold a product that we're supposed to want to buy because of prestige and name but when we see the product up close it doesn't look great and I feel like a sheep lining up to say "yes sir. let me put my kid through mental/emotional twister for a 5% chance of being admitted to your school and then I will gladly pay you $90K for the honor. Yes sir." It just feels... gross. Maybe not gross but yucky. My kids are like, "well I didn't really like this or that here but I could probably make it work." They too feel the pressure to LIKE these places. The Almighty XYZ or ABC school! It's supposed to be their dream!

Please don't jump on me. I know it's summer and we're not seeing the universities at their best but ugh. They're all kind of disappointing. I can't be the only one who feels this way? (I'm not going to name university/college names because then this post will turn into a giant thread about whatever school(s) I name.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Picking a school based on thinking you'll be doing high level research as an undergrad is a mistake.

True. But many schools do provide research with a professor for every student who wants it. We were impressed with the first school that said it; by the dozenth time it was old news and we realized getting to do research as an undergraduate is not for only 1 out of 3 premeds as it was in my day. My own undergrad school was the most braggy about it, adding that not only will all who want if find a lab, funding exists for about half who apply for it. They made it clear they were keeping up with top-endowed ivies.

Anonymous wrote:Picking a school based on thinking you'll be doing high level research as an undergrad is a mistake.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Quite frankly I don't care if the buildings are beautiful or up to date. These schools aren't ranked highly because they won a beauty contest. I care about the intellectual rigor, student culture, research opportunities, etc. If different factors are important to OP and OP's kid, that's perfectly fine! It's better if people really prioritize what is important to them, rather than just looking at rankings and piling up to compete for the same schools regardless of their interests or priorities.

I don’t know why, but I just can’t agree with this. If you want to sell a brand of this beautiful groomed environment for students to be with the best, you should be a…beautiful groomed environment. These are status symbol colleges and pretending they aren’t is very strange. I also disagree with OP— most colleges are exceptionally beautiful and are well planned environments. If Harvard was dumpy looking (beyond Harvard Yard, the campus is pretty gorgeous), it would be an embarrassment for Harvard’s brand.

Anonymous wrote:I have a rising senior and have been doing the rounds of many top 25 schools (universities and colleges). We started with safety schools last year and then junior year grades came back so this summer we've been touring some top schools. My kid is trying to figure out an ED.
We have a rising junior as well so we have a couple of kids with us.

The more of these schools we tour, the less impressed I am. They're sort of all a bit falling apart, poorly maintained, with pretty odd students (tour guides, summer students and especially touring students alike--don't jump all over for for saying this--being brutally honest), little sense of community, same-old, same-old stuff about study-abroad, etc. Many have very large class sizes, etc.

I feel like we're (kid and parent alike) are supposed to love these schools and want to pay $90K for them and my kids can't find one they really like. I very, very, very much feel like we're being sold a product that we're supposed to want to buy because of prestige and name but when we see the product up close it doesn't look great and I feel like a sheep lining up to say "yes sir. let me put my kid through mental/emotional twister for a 5% chance of being admitted to your school and then I will gladly pay you $90K for the honor. Yes sir." It just feels... gross. Maybe not gross but yucky. My kids are like, "well I didn't really like this or that here but I could probably make it work." They too feel the pressure to LIKE these places. The Almighty XYZ or ABC school! It's supposed to be their dream!

Please don't jump on me. I know it's summer and we're not seeing the universities at their best but ugh. They're all kind of disappointing. I can't be the only one who feels this way? (I'm not going to name university/college names because then this post will turn into a giant thread about whatever school(s) I name.