New York (Area) College Visits

Though we have had a lot of fun and spent time with friends this trip (more on that later), the main reason was COLLEGE VISITING and we hit that out of the park!

We started bright and early Wednesday with Sarah Lawrence, which is where we learned not to trust how long Maps says it takes to get somewhere because east coast traffic suddenly gets a lot longer while you are driving (I had kind of forgotten about that). We arrived late, but still within the info session. When we started on the tour we realized how magical this lovely little campus is (perhaps right around the time we turned the corner to see the deer grazing on the hillside). We loved the thoughtful way the school goes about scheduling and the great social sense. It was a wonderful way to start college visits!

After a delicious sushi lunch, we headed over to Hofstra, which was quite a contrast. I know many refer to it as a hidden gem, but after our guide had never heard of Minnesota and had trouble subtracting 5 from 7 when calculating residence halls, we decided Beatrix's foot hurt too much to continue to the looooooong tour and beat a hasty retreat.

Thursday morning was Fordham, which had some nice parts but was another place that Beatrix could just not picture herself. It's a compact campus, and going to school right off Columbus Circle might be nice, but just not the vibe she was looking for.

Barnard did not have a tour available, but we did a self-guided one (which our friend Kate, an alum, supplanted). It's a beautiful campus and people seemed very friendly, but hard to get much of a sense. 

Then we went across to Columbia and HOLY COW was that an Ivy League industrial complex tour! The group was huge, the guide whipped us through the gigantic campus in 45 minutes, and wow was it intense. We all left thinking Columbia was Way Too Much in all sorts of ways.

(Also, in both places, the protests are still very much apparent, enough so that we had to show email confirmations for the tours to get on campus and at Columbia the tour kicked off with a prepared statement).

Thursday morning Beatrix was not happy to be woken at the crack of dawn to drive up to Middletown, CT to tour Wesleyan — but that turned out to be the big hit of the trip. She really vibed with the whole atmosphere, especially the open curriculum. We stayed for the info session and after that she especially loved it; it's a very competitive school but Beatrix liked it so much I think it will be very high in consideration.

We had meant to spend some time in New Haven and bum around Yale, but since we spent so much longer at Wesleyan than we expected, we ended up having to book along the Taconic Parkway in order to hit Vassar (and we were still late). Both Vassar and Wesleyan were ones I really pushed Beatrix to consider (I flat-out told her we had to visit Vassar), and I'm so glad for that, because it was another top competitor. Our tour guide in particular (Sarah) was absolutely amazing.

So this trip has been incredible in that we have really learned what appeals to Beatrix in colleges: small liberal arts schools (well, we knew that already), historic campuses, ones that don't require ACT/SAT scores, a wide curriculum with few set requirements, warm social interactions with many ways to get to know your classmates and professors, not far from big cities but not necessarily in the middle of them, established traditions, and a big push for curious learning.

All in all, I'm so glad we did this!