All Good Things Must Come To An End . . . . .

 . . . . .  even Mary's college visits.  Last week we visited her last four schools.  After visiting 19 schools, I'm not sure whether to be sad it's over, or to jump for joy.  Either way, we went out with four fantastic visits.  And Peter joined us, as we combined the trip with his return to DC to start his senior year.

Here are Peter and Mary at Haverford College, which is in a suburb of Philadelphia. 

The next day we visited Swarthmore College, also in a suburb of Philadelphia.

As you can imagine, this was Peter's favorite college.  Mary did an "official" information session and interview, but relied on Peter to be her guide for the tour of campus.

AU has it all - even pandas on campus.

Her last school was Georgetown, but I forgot to take a photo on campus.  So this is Brad and Mary in the Georgetown neighborhood, near campus.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's Philadelphia photos!

Another New Haven Day

Mary had an admissions interview at Yale yesterday morning, so we made a day of it.  

Hither and Yon

On Tuesday, Mary and I headed due north up to Northampton, MA to visit Smith College.  It was over 100 degrees, which is pretty unusual for this part of the world.  But we still had a great day at the college. 

It's a beautiful campus, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, of Central Park fame. 

The town of Northampton is an idyllic college town, and it has perhaps the best-ever locale for an Urban Outfitters, which is inside an old and cavernous bank building. 

Afterwards we drove over to Boston (two hours to the east) to see John.  When I insisted on taking a picture on the way to dinner, John and Mary decided on a walking photo.  We had a good Thai dinner, then settled in for the 100+ degree evening in John's dorm room. 

 

While we were walking after dinner, we came across this historical marker.  I thought it was worth a picture.  If you can't read it in the blog, click on the picture and you should get a bigger image.  If you still can't read it, it says, "Near this spot Samuel Whittemore, then 80 years old, killed three British soldiers April 19, 1775.  He was shot bayoneted beaten and left for dead, but recovered and lived to be 98 years of age."  Now, I found that rather inspirational!

And finally, here's Mary this morning at LaGuardia, about to board her flight for Milwaukee.  We had an early start (4:00 a.m.) for her early flight, and she's already in Wisconsin.  Needless to say, she's really excited to be spending some time in Shorewood!

Midsummer-Night, and also a Day, in Boston

Summer finally started yesterday in more ways than one. It was the official first day of summer and the longest day of the year, and Mary finally had her last day of school. This means she's officially a senior!  As soon as she was done we headed up to Boston to see John and for yet another college visit.

This is Wilson House, where John is living this summer while he works on campus at Tufts.  Mary and I stayed the night with him.  Here are Mary and John walking to the dorm.

For dinner we headed over to the Harvard Square area of town.  We got there too early for dinner, so . . . .

. . . . . we stopped at a coffee shop to have a drink and we ran into Katherine Coin, a family friend from Iowa who was in town for a visit.  Talk about a small world!  We all had some spare time so we had a coffee and a nice visit with Katherine.

This morning Mary went on a tour of Boston University, so John drove over with us.  He hung out in a bookstore while we saw the university.  This is Mary and John on BU's campus.

After our tour John and his friend Nick (who took this picture) joined us for the token noodle lunch on BU's campus.  We had to get back home for an appointment so we left after lunch.  A short but very sweet visit to Boston.

Stanford, the Final Frontier

Mary's fifth college visit in five days was at Stanford. She and Brad flew out on Thursday, saw the campus on Friday, and arrived home late Saturday night. It was a whirlwind trip but they had a great time, and Mary loved it there.

Although they went on the official Stanford tour and information session, Brad was Mary's own personal tour guide on this visit to his alma mater. As you can see, it was a beautiful day to be back on campus. They not only did a lot of walking, but they also rented bikes and rode all around too. And with side trips to In N Out and Rubios, both their souls and their stomachs were well fed.

There are a lot of pretty sights to see on the Stanford campus, but I think it's hard to top the Stanford Memorial Church.

The guidebook made for fascinating reading.

Although the noodles at an on-campus eatery were apparently nothing to write home about, they didn't dampen Mary's enthusiasm for Stanford in general.

This is Mary and her friend, Clare, who is a sophomore at Stanford. They became fast friends last summer when Clare was one of Mary's counselors at Concordia Language Villages. On Friday night Clare joined Mary and Brad for dinner in Palo Alto, and afterwards they caught the end of the Stanford-Cal baseball game. Stanford won, so Mary was properly initiated into the Stanford-Cal rivalry. A highlight of the game for Mary was spotting one of the outside hitters for the Stanford womens' volleyball team in the stands.

On Saturday morning before leaving for the airport, Brad and Mary had breakfast with our friend Annelise, as she now lives in Palo Alto. Annelise and Brad worked together at SCJ for many years, and she has known our kids since we first moved to Racine. Translated, this means she remembers when Mary was born. So Brad and Mary had a wonderful morning with Annelise and her three kids and her husband. Next up: after a solid week of visiting schools, it's time to rest.

Aaah, Ithaca!

On Wednesday morning, Brad, Mary, and I left for our trip to Ithaca to visit Cornell.  It's 250 miles from here, so an early departure allowed us to have pretty much all day exploring campus.  Mary had never been there, I hadn't been back in 18 years, but Brad's been back lots (for work) over the years.  All in all, it was a magical day and an excellent and thorough college visit for Mary.

After the university's college tour, we met up with Mary's friend Laura (from Shorewood), who is a sophomore at Cornell.  We had lunch with her, and then she walked us through many more parts of campus.  We saw a lot of campus, and given how large Cornell is, that's saying a lot!

You have to see Cornell to believe how pretty its natural beauty is.  Here is a photo of one of the many gorges that runs through campus.  This is a small gorge.  I didn't/couldn't take photos of the larger gorges because, unfortunately, the bridges over the deeper gorges have had tall (8-10 foot) chain link fences installed over the standard railings.  This is to prevent anyone from jumping into those gorges as, sadly, many students did this year.  We were told that there are plans to take the chain link down eventually - so thankfully it's not permanent.

Me, Mary, and Laura on our walk through the Cornell Plantations.  Laura is a Landscape Architecture major, so she knew a lot about the plants in the plantations.  She also took us to the building that houses her major and showed us around, including her studio space.  It was really interesting for Mary to get such an in-depth understanding of Laura's major, how she discovered it, what classes she takes, etc.

After we said so long to Laura, we took a breather on the main part of campus, where there are many beautiful brick and stone buildings.  And, as you can see, spring was in full bloom in Ithaca.

Of course, no visit to Cornell would be complete without stopping by the Johnson Graduate School of Management.  When Brad was an MBA student there, the JGSM was housed in a very dumpy building.  A couple of years after he graduated the renovation and remodeling of Sage Hall was completed and that's where the JGSM is now housed.  (This is Brad and Mary in front of Sage Hall.)  It's a beautiful space!  While there, we popped in on one of Brad's professors - someone he's kept in touch with over the years.  We were lucky that she was in; she pulled up chairs for us all and we chatted about Mary's college search.  Hearing her thoughts on the admissions process and her views on the schools Mary's looking at added another interesting facet to Mary's overall search and to Cornell in particular.

As terrific as our day at Cornell was, the icing on the cake was our absolutely delightful visit with Jim and Dorothy Spencer.  They are the parents and parents-in-law, respectively, of our dear friends Sue and Harry (classmates of Brad's at Stanford), and we have known them for many years.  They too were able to offer some great insight to Mary's thinking about Cornell, given their deep lifetime involvement with the university.  We also enjoyed getting to see their new home in a retirement community in Ithaca.  We thought it was the most ideal retirement environment we'd ever seen.  The residences, grounds, and facilities were top-notch.  But it was the residents we found most fascinating.  Many of the people who live there are past professors and administrators of Cornell - even a couple of Nobel laureates - as well as other professionals.  (Mary said she had never been in the same room with so many people who had buildings named after them.)  It's hard to imagine a more stimulating community of people - retired or not - to live in and around . . . . . And our visit ended with a stay at a bed and breakfast outside of Ithaca.  I chose it because the owners are Polish.  We were asleep before our heads hit the pillows, but after so much walking the previous day, we woke up very hungry!  We enjoyed a delicious Polish breakfast in our hostess' Polish kitchen, and we reminisced about Poland for the entire time we ate.  It was the perfect way to end a perfect visit to a place that is now so special to all three of us.  Next up:  Stanford!  (Brad and Mary are on their way there now.)

New York, Day Two

The spring break trip continues.  Last night Mary spent the night at Barnard College with her friend Franny (from Shorewood), who is a freshman.  She also got to go to a class with Franny and have a couple of meals on campus.  Barnard is an all women's college and it's across the street from Columbia.  Barnard and Columbia share a curriculum and a whole lot more.  This morning I took the train back to the city; Mary and I toured Barnard, went to an info session, and then we had lunch with Franny.  It was a beautiful day in New York City. 

I think it's safe to say Mary is a veteran college tourer.  In addition to all the schools she saw with Peter and John over the years, she's visited 11 schools this semester, with two more to go yet this week.  This is a picture of Mary on the Barnard campus. 

Mary and Franny on campus.

We had lunch at another noodle shop and took the train home.  Brad gets home tonight and the three of us head back on the road tomorrow.  Our next destination:  Cornell.

New York, First Day

Mary's on spring break this week so - you guessed it - we're going to visit more colleges.  We're starting the week in New York City.  Today we visited two schools, and tonight Mary is staying overnight with a Shorewood friend at Barnard.  I go back tomorrow and we'll visit another school.  After that . . .  Brad joins us and we go Upstate. 

We visited NYU this morning, and wouldn't you know it, I forgot to take pictures on campus.  We stopped for lunch near campus, so we decided that would be a good substitute for a campus photo.  Burrito Loco was mmm mmm good!

I didn't forget to take pictures at Columbia.  The campus was so pretty with the trees all with fresh green buds.  Here's Mary in front of the old library.

More at Columbia.

Glorious Easter Sunday . . . And Another College

It was fun to see the Tolans of Shorewood over the weekend. They stopped in Woodbury for a couple of nights during their week of East Coast college visits. We all took advantage of the chance to compare notes, as Mary and Casey are looking at a similar list of schools. But mostly it was nice to be together and enjoy each other's company. Priscilla, Tom, and Casey left this morning for the rest of their weeklong odyssey. As for us, we feel we have done our share of college visiting for awhile, so no more until Mary's spring break later this month.
The weather on Easter was magnificent. After an early outdoor Easter service in the chilly and misty morning, we drove over to Middletown, Connecticut and visited Wesleyan University. Here are Priscilla, Casey, and Mary at Wesleyan.

Priscilla, Tom, and Casey at Wesleyan.

More at Wesleyan.

On the way home from Wesleyan we stopped at Choate-Rosemary Hall (it's in Wallingford) to take a look at their I.M. Pei-designed theatre (thanks to Casey for the suggestion and no, that's not it in the picture). We took a walk around the school and were amazed to think that this large, well-maintained, beautifully designed, historic -- and obviously well-endowed -- campus was just a prep school.

If This Is Saturday, It Must be Wellesley

Over the years, we have been to a lot of college campuses, but I think Wellesley could be the prettiest campus I’ve ever seen. Brad and Mary loved it too. It’s simply gorgeous and the architecture is perfect. It's in the town of Wellesley, Massachusetts, which is about 12 miles west of Boston. The town is as beautiful as the college. Brad and I are ready to move there. (Just kidding, Mary.)

Me and Mary, on the tour.

An example of the architecture.

You probably heard about all the rain in New England last week? From the looks of this submerged bench (I think it's supposed to be next to the pond, not in the pond), Wellesley got its share of rain too.
This is bound to be a classic! (I only wish I had thought of it myself, especially the subtitle: "Even When They're Wrong . . They're Right.")

After the tour and info session we went into town to try out Wellesley's noodles. We had an absolutely delicious Thai lunch in Wellesley. Next stop: home.

Fun Day in Boston

We spent this Friday and Saturday visiting colleges in Boston. Here are some pictures from Friday. Tomorrow I'll put some up from Saturday.
First stop: Harvard. We had been in and around Harvard, but never gotten an official tour around campus. That all changed yesterday. Here are Brad and Mary after our tour and info session.

Guess which school we went to next?! Yes, it's TUFTS! Of course we are all partial to this one!

After the Harvard tour, John met us in Davis Square, which is the college-town area near Tufts. We had lunch outdoors and walked back to campus together. John is not in this picture because he saw the handwriting on the wall (otherwise known as the camera in my hand) and walked on ahead to avoid the inevitable photo-op.

John knows he can run, but he cannot hide from the camera! Here are John and Mary in front of Goddard Chapel, which is on Tufts campus. Mary made her Tufts visit official with a tour and info session. On the tour, we ran into the Eders from Shorewood, so Mary and Andrew walked on the tour together while Debbie and I hung out in the back and chatted. (Brad shushed us as needed.)

We enjoyed spending a lot of time at Tufts, and the best part was our time with John and some of his friends. In the evening we went out for Indian food in Davis Square. This picture was taken after dinner.