So, I’m a high school senior, and I’m currently going through the fun process that is applying for colleges. While I have a ton of factual info on all the colleges I’m applying to (Yale, Northwestern, Tufts, Boston U, Brandeis, Wesleyan, NYU, Clark, and SUNY Stony Brook), I haven’t heard much from people who have actually gone to these schools. What did you like/hate? Would you go there again?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Hmm. That is a seriously vague question you’re asking there. You’d be sure to get a better response with some more specifics (looking at any particular careers or majors? Get along with a certain class of people best? etc.)
I’m a HS senior too, so sorry, not much help :o
Interesting list. What do all those schools have in common/ why did you choose them? If we understand your reasoning for choosing these schools, it might help direct the responses.
I hope you’re planning to visit, since that is really the only way to know for sure. I went to MIT cough cough years ago, and know BU quite well, at least a while ago. My daughter got into Northwestern, and chose U Chicago instead. I’m from New York, and have been around NYU.
What are you looking for. A lot of these are urban schools, and have very different cultures. BU is very, very big.
BTW, proud parental hijack - my younger daugher just got into one of her first choice schools today (none of the ones you listed.) 
Sorry for being so vague :smack: I seem to be having issues verbalizing my thoughts right now. I guess what I’m trying to ask is how your overall experience at these schools was, and if you enjoyed going there. For instance, I’m kind of shy and I was wondering if it was easy to make friends at a school like BU, which is freaking huge, or NYU, which has no real campus.
I picked schools with good psych and music programs, and those that were in or near a major city (I’m not sure how wesleyan snuck onto my list). I’ve visited about half the schools on my list over the summer and I take piano lessons at NYU, but due to lack of time and my mom’s unwillingness, I don’t think I’ll be able to visit schools during the week when there are classes until spring or so.
And congratulations on your daughter getting into her top choice school 
This is the next four years of your life! Make time! You can get to some of those schools easily by train. You can head out Thursday after school, spend the night in the dorm (I’m pretty sure most schools let you do this), go to classes Friday, and come home that night or Saturday morning. Yes you will have to miss a few things, but unless it’s something so vitally important that it will keep you from getting accepted by any of these schools, it’s really important that you know what you’re getting into (IMO).
Now as for the schools on your list, I can only tell you a little about Yale, where I am a grad student. I TA an undergraduate lab class. I know nothing about the psych or music programs here. The undergrads seem pretty happy. They’re way obsessed with their grades, which are ridiculously inflated. For some of these kids it is a Very Bad Thing to get an A- here, whereas at my undergrad school (Swarthmore) we always joked that the alphabet started with B+. They seem pretty happy. You get attached to a residential college (why can’t they just call it a dorm?) as a 1st year, and you stay attached until you graduate (although you could move off campus if you wanted). There seems to be lots of stuff for the kids to do. The booze policy is pretty lax (if you’re into that). For halloween they had “liquor-treating,” which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. The political climate is pretty liberal.
Hmm that’s all I can think of. Anything in particular that you’d like to know about? I reallize knowing what questions to even ask can be hard.