A college tour on the East Coast: three cities, 5.5 days, 12 schools. The colleges seem so different on paper, ranging from an undergraduate population of 1,400 at the Eugene Lang College of the New School in New York City to 18,000 at Boston University. But one day, as yet another set of student guides takes the stage, those differences start to blur …
“Hello, my name is Nicole, Gabi, Kevin, Ken. I’d like to welcome you to NYU, NEU, BU, PU … uh … Fordham.
“Today we’ll be starting with a slide show, a video, a $3 million multimedia presentation underwritten by John Hancock Financial Services. This will be followed by The Tour.
“There are 1,400, 8,000, 18,000, 22,000 undergraduates here. The faculty-to-student ratio is 9:1, 11:1, 12:1, 14:1, and the average class size is 15, 20, 25, 40. Because, even though we are a small, big school, college, university, you’ll never, rarely, only sometimes find yourself in large lecture classes.
“All of our classes are taught by professors. We have no TAs, our TAs only grade papers, the TAs teach the ‘recitations,’ in which they’ll answer questions and go over the lectures, all of which — by the way — are taught by our professors.
“Our professors are the best in the country, and they put students first, know the names of their students, are required to hold a certain number of office hours each week. You’ll run into them outside the classroom, at Starbucks. One professor came in on a Saturday to meet with a student, at Starbucks. One professor bought a coffee for each student in his class — all 162 of them — at Starbucks. We have five Starbucks on this campus.
“This is the future site of our freshmen residence hall, a typical dorm room containing actual students (don’t worry they won’t bite, ha-ha), a tiny closet decorated by Crate and Barrel that in no way represents the size of our real dorm rooms.
“Students here live in traditional, suite, apartment-style dorms, residence halls, towers. As a freshman, you’ll be required to, lucky to live in the dorms. Upperclassmen live in luxury apartments with dishwashers and wide-screen TVs, are kicked off campus to find their own housing.
“If you live on campus, you will be required to put at least $700, $800, $900 on a meal plan. The food in the cafeteria, cafe, pizza place is great, healthy, edible, um …
“This is an urban campus, a vertical campus, looks like a traditional campus even though we’re in the middle of the city. You’ll see, never see people throwing Frisbees on the quad.
“We think of the city as our campus. Our campus is actually the city. We have a really big fence.
“Speaking of security, this is a very safe campus, neighborhood, police precinct. Look for the blue lights; they’re everywhere, and all you have to do is press this button to call the cops. I always feel safe, I never go off campus, I happen to know the police will get here within 30 seconds.
“One of the most important, awesome, amazing programs here is the global outreach, community service, study abroad, internship, co-op program. It’s required, 96 percent of students participate, a quarter of the student body is involved, if you can afford it, go for it.
“As you’ve probably noticed, this is the home of the Huskies, the Rams, the Terriers (Go, Terriers!). If you’re into sports, we’re Division I, Division 3, we have club and intramural sports, including Quidditch. We also have dozens, 124, 250 clubs, including Cookies and Milk, Chicken and Rice, and People Watching.
“In conclusion, I’d like to speak personally. We say the student doesn’t pick the school — the school picks the student. (Because obviously, with 10 times the number of applications as there are places for freshmen, we’re in the driver’s seat.)
“But don’t worry, feel discouraged, wonder which city you’re in. See if you can picture yourself here: going to class, living in the dorm, eating in the cafeteria, caffeinating at Starbucks, playing Quidditch. This may not be the school for you, or maybe it is; it may not feel like a good fit, or maybe it does.
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“What you need to remember is you’re an individual. And every school is different.