Kids college visits non unc

[Reddfoxx00]

THdad talking about his daughter's journey to unc got me thinking.

My kids are 10th and 8th grade. We took our first unofficial visit last week to Boone.

I was impressed. I have never liked the mountains. Visited friends and say trips many times. My daughter loved it.

Being truthful if I were under 30 still would not go. As an over 40 guy I loved it. I could definitely see my daughter there.

Was wanting advice and story's about visits and the decisions.

Really more interested in non unc story's as well love unc and talk about unc all the time.

We are in central NC and I doubt she is leaving more than 3 hours away.

 

[UNCBornandBred]

My son is at UNC as a freshman. He really wanted UNC so the visits were a farce. His mom and I both went to UNC but we felt he should see other schools.

We went to Duke, NC State, ECU and UNC.

The best tours were (in order) ECU, State, UNC and Duke.

Duke was classic Duke. Snobby

UNC seemed to phone it in as they know folks want to go there.

State and ECU are just so much newer. ECU has a prettier campus. I think the takeaway we are very lucky to live in this state. All were fine.

 

[Reddfoxx00]

I have heard uva official tours are bad.

 

[heelblue82]

WCU is a terrific school and Cullowhee is gorgeous. I highly recommend checking it out. I love the mountains and have nothing but great memories from my time there 2000-2005

I took a tour of Clemson and that was amazing. They have a great Wildlife Management Sciences and animal science majors. Was planning on transferring there after a year at WCU but never did because I fell in love with Cullowhee.

 

[TarHeelDad]

I have heard uva official tours are bad.

Yep. Pretty much a waste of time. When we went the only building that we went in was a library. Plus it’s almost a waste of time if you are out of state. We went there because she wanted to tour Liberty and we hit them both on the same trip. Liberty has a gorgeous campus. Pitt was a good tour. Beautiful campus and great academics. Just it’s in Pittsburgh. If you don’t want your daughters to want to move to Alabama don’t let them tour Auburn. Hands down the best tour we took. Really nice campus and very welcoming people. Science buildings were top notch. If my daughter hadn’t got into UNC that is where she was going to go. Clemson is also nice and pretty close.

 

[IslanderHeel]

I have heard uva official tours are bad.

Yep. Daughter and wife said uva was the worst. I have two in college (Clemson, UNC -out of state humble dad brag). My two cents:
-tour junior year (colder months) and summer before senior year and take your younger one along when you can
-be realistic. Have 2 reaches, 3-4 good chances, 2-4 safety
-first UNC tour was ho-hum. Second was grast
-tour and tour guide make or break it (and weather).
-go back to the main ones senior year and maybe add 1-3 new ones
-if need help outside school and has lofty goals, engage a college prep advisor and SAT instructor January junior year.
-can “rah-rah” anywhere.
-can always try to transfer
-don’t push. Kid has to want it (why outside advisor is nice -not mom and dad). You can ask thoughtful tactical questions to make sure child sees all angles.
-let student take it in without your opinion. They will figure it out. My daughter knew in 15 minutes NW and Vandy were no-goes. We left the NW campus immediately. Stuck out the day at Vandy.
-college experience will be what child makes it. Find a place that feels comfortable and has study interests.

 

[mpaer]

WCU is a terrific school and Cullowhee is gorgeous. I highly recommend checking it out. I love the mountains and have nothing but great memories from my time there 2000-2005

I took a tour of Clemson and that was amazing. They have a great Wildlife Management Sciences and animal science majors. Was planning on transferring there after a year at WCU but never did because I fell in love with Cullowhee.

I had a talk once with a prof about General "all colleges "stuff
He talked about places like WCu can have Profs that are every bit as good as the bigger schools-but maybe they were not good as others at the "politics " of big school tenure processes.......

 

[ronjon]

-let student take it in without your opinion. They will figure it out. My daughter knew in 15 minutes NW and Vandy were no-goes. We left the NW campus immediately. Stuck out the day at Vandy.

Curious about your negative thoughts on Northwestern? It's been a long time, but I used to have a friend who lived in Evanston and liked the area and walked through campus. I didn't tour or talk to anyone. It just seemed nice being on the lake. Of course I never went in the winter either.

 

[IslanderHeel]

Curious about your negative thoughts on Northwestern? It's been a long time, but I used to have a friend who lived in Evanston and liked the area and walked through campus. I didn't tour or talk to anyone. It just seemed nice being on the lake. Of course I never went in the winter either.

Spent time driving and walking around before tour. Evanston cool town and feel. End of October = Way too cold. Student body felt like dook.

 

[GregBarnes]

Boone is a good spot, just gets miserably cold in January/February. My parents used to send my brother rent money for a house he was sharing with some buddies after they moved out of the dorms. We went up there one winter weekend and arrived at the house to find that the gas range was on and the door was open to heat the house since they had lost power due to lack of payment. Spent the rent money on other things.

The other thing about App is that they have a housing shortage. Only freshmen are guaranteed rooms, iirc.

 

[Nittany Tar Heel]

I have heard uva official tours are bad.

Can confirm.

The only visit of the 10 we went on where we each separately just felt elitism oozing through the walls. It was weird, because we expected to love it there.

 

[TarHeelDad]

Boone is a good spot, just gets miserably cold in January/February. My parents used to send my brother rent money for a house he was sharing with some buddies after they moved out of the dorms. We went up there one winter weekend and arrived at the house to find that the gas range was on and the door was open to heat the house since they had lost power due to lack of payment. Spent the rent money on other things.

The other thing about App is that they have a housing shortage. Only freshmen are guaranteed rooms, iirc.

They don’t even guarantee freshman housing anymore I don’t think

 

[Heel1988]

Years ago when my son was in the college search I was really impressed with State’s tour. Wake’s was terrible….you could just feel the “we are better than you” vibe. Carolina‘s was ok…..he chose UNC.

The one that was excellent was Davidson. He was more into it than any of the others….and he really didn’t know much about the school. He was waitlisted there….if he would have been accepted I would have had to try to figure out how to pay for it.

 

[TarHeelDad]

UGA and UTK have nice campuses. UGA is a lot like UNC in feel in my opinion. UTK is in downtown Knoxville so it has a different vibe. My daughter got into both, which is increasingly difficult to do, but the OOS tuition is a killer. She ended up having lots of nice options honestly. She got into every school she applied, but she also didn’t apply to schools like dook and Wake as she couldn’t see paying that much for an education. I wholeheartedly agree with her on that. The in state public universities are always going to be your best value and when one of those is as highly ranked as UNC it is sort of a no brainer decision if you get in to go there.

 

[BlairP]

Years ago when my son was in the college search I was really impressed with State’s tour. Wake’s was terrible….you could just feel the “we are better than you” vibe. Carolina‘s was ok…..he chose UNC.

The one that was excellent was Davidson. He was more into it than any of the others….and he really didn’t know much about the school. He was waitlisted there….if he would have been accepted I would have had to try to figure out how to pay for it.

Interesting. My daughter is a junior and we were schedule to visit Wake a few weeks ago, but the weather prevented us from going. She wants to reschedule so I will be interested to see if she gets the same vibe. Hopefully, it will be a moot point because she really wants to go to UNC.

 

[Reddfoxx00]

Hitting Tennessee while at dollywood next week.

 

[Reddfoxx00]

College of Charleston while on vacation. She was speechless. Oh my how nice

 

[BlairP]

College of Charleston while on vacation. She was speechless. Oh my how nice

CofC is a great school. My brother transferred there after giving up on basketball at Methodist. It is an expensive place to live, but a great town for college life.

 

[kik84]

I remember visiting a school in the Northeast, and when the tour went into the library, a group of students were sitting at a table working on a project. One of the students at the table told us not to take that course, giving the specific name and number of it. Lol.

 

[Heelz2315]

I have heard uva official tours are bad.

I went on a recruiting trip up there when they wanted me to play baseball for them. Let's just say it was bad...and I wanted NO part of Uva

 

[mpaer]

A young friend of mine visited dook-wanted to be an Engineer (today he is indeed a PE )
He was totally taken a back by the lack of "Diversity" He went to a very diverse HS in SE wakecounty