College Visits

This past week I went to visit four colleges around the Washington D.C. area. The four were American University, University of Richmond, University of Maryland-College Park, and Johns Hopkins University. Here is my view of each of the colleges I visited.

American University

                                             



             

American University is located in Washington D.C. They are well known for their International Studies program, which is one major that i am interested in. They are also located right in Washington D.C., which is great for an international studies major, as internships are easy to find and many major government agencies are located there. Many students have 3 or 4 internships by the time they graduate.

 

I went to American University's Preview Day on Monday, February 18. They did a mock class, which I honestly did not think was great. Then, I got to go to a student panel which answered any questions we might have about American. That was very good and positively influenced my opinion about American. Then I went on a tour, which was pretty good.

 

Overall, I was iffy about American. It was not one of my favorites, but it is not off my list of colleges that I want to apply to. It was a very political campus, which is what you are probably going to get with any college in Washington D.C. I am not really interested in politics, so I was not that happy with that. Also, like I said before, the mock class was not that good.

 

If you are interested in American University, here is the link to their website. Unfortunately, you missed Preview Day, but there's always next year.

 

www.american.edu/

 

Oh and one more thing. If you do go visit American, please don't ask this question: "Why should I come to American University vs the American University of Paris, or a university like that?" American University in Washington D.C. is not affiliated with any universities like the American University of Paris. The American University of Paris, or the American University of Berlin or any university like that are just universities in foreign countries that have adopted an American style of college. 

 

Wow that was long. And that was just the first one! Three more to go!

 

University of Richmond

 

 

The University of Richmond is the next college that I visited. This is a small, liberal arts college located just outside of Richmond, Virginia. It has about 3,000 undergraduate students. I will say right now that I personally did not like it, but my brother, who is in 8th grade, loved it, so my parents may be going back.

 

We went to the university and got an information session and a tour. The campus is quite large, more than a mile from one side of the campus to the other. That was not one of the things I disliked, however, there seemed to be nobody there! The population of the university was so small that we walked from one side of the campus to the other and we saw like 5 people.

Here is the link to the university's website:

www.richmond.edu/


University of Maryland-College Park

 

The third college that I visited was the University of Maryland at College Park. This university is located just outside of Washington D.C., but it does have its own Metro stop. The campus is pretty big, but so is the population of the college. This was my favorite college that we visited on this trip.

I loved the whole feel that I got from the school. It is a big state school with a lot of school spirit. There are lots of intramural and club sports, as well as varsity sports. They also offered all the majors that I might be interested in, which is a good thing, going to a college that offers the major that you are interested in. Also, the tour guide and the information session admissions officer were both very good, which probably didn't hurt when I was forming my opinion of the school.

Here is the link to their website:

www.umd.edu/

Johns Hopkins University

 

 The fourth and final university that I visited was Johns Hopkins University. Those of you who have been reading through the whole blog post are probably thinking "thank God, he's almost done." Here we go. Johns Hopkins University is located in Baltimore, which, in my opinion is not the greatest city. Johns Hopkins is mainly a research institution, with a lot of engineering and pre-med students. However, their International Studies program is ranked number 3 in the nation, I think. Which is surprising to almost everybody who reads or hears that.

I did not like this university much either. It was somewhere in between the University of Richmond and American University for me. I did not like the location (Baltimore) at all. This was also another college with a fairly large campus and only about 5,000 students. All the campus buildings were these big brick buildings that I did not like. Also, their biggest sport is lacrosse! I was like, "Oh my God, I  would be going from one lacrosse school to another." That actually didn't factor into my opinion of the school very much.

Here is the link to their website:

www.jhu.edu/

Thank you to anyone who actually read all of that. I know it was a lot of reading of something that may not be extremely interesting. Also, please note that these opinions all reflect my views of the colleges. If you are serious about applying to any of them, you need to go visit and form your own opinions of the schools.