University of Colorado at Boulder

We visited the University of Colorado, Boulder, which is a large public university, and is considered Colorado’s flagship public research university.  The University is an easy 45 minute drive from the Denver airport. 

The University is large, absolutely beautiful, and bustling with energy.  The 600-acre campus is located right in the heart of Boulder, which is at the base of the Rocky Mountains.  From almost anywhere on campus you can view the mountains.  Boulder boasts having 300 days of sun a year. 

Despite its large size, the campus was easy to navigate, and was full of friendly and enthusiastic students.  The University has everything, and is home to approximately 25,000 undergraduate and 4,600 graduate students.  Boulder offers 85 majors at the bachelor’s level, 70 at the master’s level, and 50 at the doctoral level. It is a Tier 1 research institution and receives more than $280 million in sponsored research awards, which places it 13th nationally and 6th among all public universities. Boulder is very proud that 18 of its aeronautical program graduates have been sent into space. 

Although the undergraduate class is huge, most undergraduate classes have 19 or fewer students, and 85% of classes have 50 or fewer students.  There are also a number of residential academic programs in the dorms that foster connections through common interests. 

The town of Boulder is wonderful, in and of itself, and reminded me, on a smaller scale, of Ann Arbor, where the whole town is full of young people, lots of great places to eat, to shop, and things to do.  It also reminded me of Marin County, because there’s such a focus on outdoor living.  Boulder has miles and miles of trails for hiking and biking.  And last, but certainly not least, the campus is about a 1-½ hour drive to some great skiing at Keystone, Breckenridge, Copper Mountain; it’s not much further to Vail.

Some real pluses:  tuition is guaranteed – first year tuition is locked in for all four years, so there are no increases!  Free tutoring is available for any student living on campus (freshmen are required to live on campus).  Students get free bus transportation anywhere in Boulder, free bus transportation to Denver, and free bus transportation to the Denver Airport. 

When we visited, my son had already been admitted to Boulder; by the time we left, he was so impressed that he committed to attending! 

Contributed by the Jordan family - Thank you!

University of Puget Sound

The University of Puget Sound is located in Tacoma, about 20 minutes south of downtown Seattle.  Tacoma is a port town with lots of shipping and a downtown that has been somewhat upgraded.  The entrance to the town features the Glass Museum where you can see glass blowing demonstrations.  The town is known for this because of the famous glass artist, Chihuly, who was a student at UPS.  The campus is located outside of the quaint downtown, in an upscale neighborhood not far away. The campus is attractive brick, reminiscing of small east coast colleges.  There is a great student center with extensive food service and an award winning radio station that students run.  The campus has a small redwood grove, state of the art athletic fields and facilities and nice dorms.  

Our tour guide was from the Bay Area and said she loved her experience there.  The school newspaper was one of the better examples we found on our college tour.  All campus tours were full of Bay Area kids last week, with maybe one token kid from the east coast.  There is an amazing library on campus with great reference librarians who are very helpful for term papers.  The curriculum is characterized as a broad liberal arts curriculum with an emphasis on study abroad.  There are more Californians here than any other state (30%).  The average GPA for admitted students is 3.52.  Junior year abroad program are very popular among students.  Required courses include Writing and Rhetoric as well as Seminars in Scholarly and Creative Inquiry.  Writing has a very big emphasis here.

Contributed by the Sandell family.  Thank you!

Marist College

I visited Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York with my family during the February break.  Before we visited, all I knew about Marist was what I had gleaned from The Princeton Review guidebook.

The admissions director gave a little speech about Marist, then showed a video, and then did a longer presentation about the school and all the opportunities it provided. This presentation was very impressive. The school’s best major is Communications (they offer many branches of communications as well) which is something I am very interested in. It seemed like the school really wanted the students to be able to explore prospective jobs by using their alumni to provide an endless number of internships to both freshmen and upperclassmen. This is great for me because I enjoy learning a lot more when I can apply it to something useful like a job or an internship. Marist’s location allows them to have a lot of internships in NYC and Albany. 

Marist also had very impressive statistics as far as returning students (I believe it to be about 88%), percent of students admitted to Law School (100%) and accepted to Medical School (I think 97%). I like that the school really focused on getting their students out there in the world and providing them with a well rounded education. 

The school did not have anything like FYE (Skidmore) or Minerva’s (Union) or any freshmen seminar like other schools. Aside from the first introduction week you are somewhat on your own. But this did not seem to be a problem because the school really encourages its students to get involved. They do this by having a point system, for clubs or sports, or anything where you are being a part of the community you get points which add up and determine if you will get your first choice housing after freshmen year. This seems like a good idea because you are being rewarded not just for being a part of the community but also for being a student in good standing. 

I was very impressed and excited by Marist. Every student I spoke to, even those not affiliated with admissions, seemed to be really excited about the school and they were all being set up with amazing internships.

Contributed by the Smith family.  Thank you!

Drew University

After visiting colleges in New York, we moved on to New Jersey.  Drew University started the morning off with  a campus tour. These tours are usually my favorite part because I can get a feel for the student body and the “vibe” on campus. However, I did not particularly like the tour guide we had as she was not able to answer a lot of questions outside of her area of study (Drama). Also, seeing as it was early Friday morning there was not much going on around campus. There was nothing special about the campus. The buildings were nothing special like Union and Skidmore but they were clean and were not rundown. I was feeling only so-so about the school. 

Our day seemed to get a bit of a lift when the admissions office helped us get a hold of the captain of the equestrian team (the only other school we looked at that had an NCAA D1 team) and set up a time for us to meet her. We got along great, I really enjoyed what the team was all about and also being able to hear about her time at Drew. Speaking to her allowed me to get a different view about Drew that did not come from the tour guide. I was already starting to like the school a lot more.  The admissions office also set up an informal interview where I was able to talk to a current student and ask questions about the school. He was also great to talk to. He gave me great advice but was also able to touch on all my concerns about social life, academics, and opportunities at Drew.  

Drew has a great location because it is 45 minutes to NYC by train. Drew takes advantage of this with programs in Manhattan where there are opportunities to work with the UN and on Wall Street. 

By the end of the day I felt pretty good about Drew and I think it will be a top contender in this college adventure. 

Contributed by the Smith family.  Thank you!

Note from Susan - You won't "click" with every tour guide nor will they be able to answer all your questions.  This family did a wonderful job being persistent and looping back to the Admissions Office in an effort to get their questions answered and get the most mileage out of their time on campus.

The Evergreen State University

Evergreen is located on the Olympic peninsula in a rain forest reserve!  It snowed while we were touring there - the first time it had done so in over 10 years.  Evergreen is known for its unique curriculum which allows students to create their own major.  One class, called a program of study, is taken at a time and is taught by multiple teachers from different disciplines, each looking at the subject from their respective specialties.  Study abroad is offered but the impression was not as many students took advantage of it as at some of the private colleges.  The buildings were unattractive cement and in the winter weather, did not look the best.  A free bus runs every 15 minutes into Olympia, which is just 10 minutes away.  Housing on campus was pretty run down and we wondered if many students lived off campus.  The average student age was old at 26.  Tuition for out of state students was cheap as compared to other schools, just under $30,000.  Very hands on teaching supposedly, but in our tour, we never saw much of this, actually, there were very few classes we were shown with students in them.  No grades are given but instead, lengthy narrative evaluations are written.  They told us that graduate schools get the grades but also like to have the narratives.  Evergreen is well known for their media and film departments and the campus radio station, located in the large student union building. Two athletic coaches were in the info session to meet perspective students.

Contributed by the Sandell family.  Thank you!