So, here's an update....
My son and I flew down to North Carolina. We flew into Charlotte, because it's cheaper than flying into Greensboro, and drove the 90 or so miles to the Greensboro/Winton-Salem area. First, let me say that I have a lot of experience in going to North Carolina. My sister-in-law and father-in-law live in Asheville (it is SO not me) and we have made the drive from Charlotte to Asheville probably 20 times in the last 20 years with stops at just about every exit along the way. It's very Southern in that part of the state, except for Asheville proper which has a lot of transplants from the North, so I was unprepared for central North Carolina. There are a lot of very nice corporate headquarters-types of places along the highway and we saw a lot of towns that would look familiar in New England. Probably more transplants from other parts of the country.
Our first stop was High Point University. The campus is absolutely beautiful, almost too beautiful. There are marble entranceways in the buildings, with antique-furnished sitting areas in the various academic buildings. It was almost creepy. The well-intentioned guides, three students, told us that the school was built to be beautiful so that students would feel comfortable when they went on job interviews in upscale places. Uh-huh. There were fountains designed by the guy that created fountains at some hotel in Las Vegas. There's music playing 24/7 on the main walkway. "It stimulates the mind", says one of our guides; it would make me batsh!t crazy in less than a week. There's an arcade and a steakhouse on campus, for crying out loud, and the steakhouse is part of the meal plan, you know, so that students know how to eat in upscale places. We saw pools (there are 17!)and pinball machines, chandeliers and dorm rooms with kitchenettes but only one academic building. One guide waved at some building and said, "If you're a chemistry major you'll spend half your time there" but we never went in. We never spoke to anyone that told us about placement %, academics, or how the school is different from any other school, steakhouse aside. To me, High Point University screamed Place For Rich People To Put Their Underachieving Darling That Can't Get Into Wake Forest. My son told me he'd crossed it off his list before we left the campus.
Next we went to Elon University, about 35 minutes west. It's a very nice campus, parts have been rebuilt due to a fire some years ago. There are some lovely traditions, like breakfast every Tuesday morning that's open to students and professors alike. All get together in a nice outdoor area and just talk over coffee and muffins. There's also a nice tradition of giving an incoming freshman an acorn (Elon means "oak tree" in Hebrew) and graduating seniors get an oak sapling. Anyway, we visitors met with the Dean of Admissions who went over all the pertinent stuff that High Point neglected - majors, ease of adding a minor, academic props, graduation & retention rates, etc etc. The guide was from Boston (nice job matching the guide with the visitors) and she gave a terrific tour. And yes, we saw the Chemistry & Biology building to get an idea of the resources available. The introduction by the Dean was professional, but personal, and the tour was informative and helpful. Big thumbs up from my son, especially since Elon has a nice Music Dept and I suspect he'll end up with a Music minor. (Yes, there's a marching band)
Wake Forest is also on the list of schools to apply to. It is also a very lovely campus and has the feel of Academia with a capital A. We didn't get the full tour and only limited information as we were there on a weekend. It's a great size for my son, the academics are irreproachable, and there is a marching band, a very good one. He's hoping that the marching band might factor into admissions and you never know. But my husband actually got angry when he found out that Wake Forest University is $59,000 tuition, room & board only, other costs (books, travel, etc) push the cost over $60,000 a year. Yikes.
So, my son will apply to Loyola Maryland, Elon and Wake Forest. He needs a safety school - still looking....
