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Here's the whole journal of our trip. Some of this may be a repeat of things I said earlier, but I wrote it for another board first.
We are back from our college visits to Cornell and Brown and I am beyond exhausted. That was brutal and I don't know how some people do 5 or 6 colleges in a week.
We flew to Providence and stayed there Saturday night. We drove around Brown's campus a little bit Saturday night and it was lively and busy. We had dinner and went back to the hotel where we just chilled out a bit. Sunday morning, we checked out of the hotel, drove around Brown and downtown Providence again and then hit the road to Ithaca. If you haven't been to Cornell, it's not easily accessible by Interstates. The last hour and a half of the drive was through dark, curvy, mountainous roads. Because of the time change and cloudy weather, it got dark really early. I found driving those roads in the dark to be very stressful. It was total blackness all around us except when we came to small towns. We did get to the hotel, which was on the outskirts of Ithaca so it still seemed like we were in the middle of nowhere. We settled into the hotel, watched some TV and then got hungry. We drove into downtown Ithaca for dinner and then found the campus and drove around a bit to get a feel for it. It seemed much less remote once we found downtown!
Monday morning, we had a general info session at 9 am, a tour at 1:25 pm and an info session for the college he wants at 2:45. The general info session was good- typical of others we've attended. After the general session, we meandered around campus, figuring out where the other sessions were going to be, went to The Cornell Store (to get warm! It was below freezing there yesterday!), ate lunch in the student union and sat in a busy spot to people watch. Then we had the walking tour which was also typical of most we've attended. Blue lights anybody?
We met another Mom and son at the morning info session and they were at all the other sessions with us. They were from Manhattan so we talked about my D's love for NYC and Barnard. We discussed other schools the boys had on their radars. She was a Cornell alumna. They were in tour group also and her son was interested in the same college that my son is interested in so they were also in the specific college info session with us. In fact, that info session was just us- the two boys and us two moms. That was probably the most valuable session. The director of admissions for that college sat went over the curriculum for that major and shared some tips for the essay too. Although they don't do interviews, that personalized time was probably more valuable than an interview. He was very specific about the approach they should take with their essays, which was great.
We hopped in the car and started driving back to Providence around 4:30 pm. I was hoping to get through that first hour and a half of tough mountain road driving before dark and succeeded with that, but the rest of the drive was still hard for me. Even on the interstates, it was very dark. I don't see as well in the dark so I had to concentrate very hard. There were a lot of times I didn't feel I could do the speed limit because there were no lights, no moon- just very dark and hard to see where the road was going to be. We didn't get to our hotel until around 11:30. We went to bed right away. I was so wiped out. My son did like Cornell a lot more than he thought he would. The views of the mountains and water from certain spots on campus were breathtaking! So were the all the hills- more literally- breathtaking... lol. I wouldn't want to be climbing all those hills all the time, but S was totally cool with it. Then again, he's a Boy Scout- he loves hiking.
Tuesday morning, we had a 9 am tour at Brown immediately followed by an info session. The tour guide was very personable and made note of some things that really piqued my son's interest. We got lucky and the adcom for our area did the info session. We talked with him a little bit after the session. He wasn't familiar with our high school and we told him that we are pretty sure my D was the only kid from our high school to ever apply to Brown and she didn't get in. He asked where she ended up and I told him she was at Barnard and absolutely loves it so she ended up where was meant to be. I also noted that most of the top kids go to the University of Michigan and are happy with that, but that my children wanted to reach a little further. My S shocked me and told the adcom that he wished he would have visited earlier because he would have applied ED if he had. The adcom said that a solid candidate would get in whether ED or RD and not to stress out because of that. Then we wandered around the student center for a little bit, again, observing students. We went to Thayer street and grabbed some lunch. We had about two hours before we had to head to the airport so we found a beach, walked around a bit looking at shells, sat on some benches to just enjoy the peaceful beach, found the TAPS office (we're Ghost Hunters fans) and then had a snack before heading to the airport.
I asked him if he really meant it that he would have applied ED if we had been able to visit earlier and he said yes. He loves it. So, he is now stressing about how to get into Brown. Before, his top school was one he would probably get into. Now it's a whole 'nother ball game. He's thinking about how he can update his application to make it stronger and what to write in that essay "Why Brown?"
April 1st just got a lot farther away, I think.
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