While on the phone making a reservation at the Carnegie House, the on campus inn at Davidson College, as I was just about to hang up, I realized something… “Wait! You haven’t asked for my credit card information.” “Oh, we don’t take credit cards for reservations. We’re on the honor code at Davidson.” I have to say this blew me away. I book a lot of hotels and never has someone said that. But what I would learn over the next 24 hours that we spent at Davidson, the honor code is a very big deal.

As I’ve said before in my college tour blogs, we love making plans with students that are already attending the campuses we visit. We were super lucky at Davidson because not only was Grace (Davidson, Class of 2016) available, a great friend from the Tokyo American School, her mom, Mary Beth, one of my closest friends was there too! We started our visit with a great girls lunch at Toast on Main Street.

That night we had an unbelievable dinner at Kindred. This spot is so hot, it’s getting national attention and was voted one of the top ten best new restaurants in the US in 2015 by Bon Appetite. The restaurant is across the street from campus (I love a place you can walk home to after a few glasses of wine) on a tiny main street with a handful of other shops and restaurants. It’s just so unexpected.

So back to the honor code. It’s taken very seriously here, and you sign it as a freshman, and they hang it in the academic building. The trust is so strong on campus, that you can leave your laptop and walk away from it.  If students or faculty find money on campus they tack it up with a note nearby.  Teachers allow take home closed book timed tests. And according to everyone I spoke to on campus it really works. That is pretty amazing. 

Davidson is a Division 1 school that feels more like a Division 3 – in the best way. Most Division 1 football stadiums are not located in front of the dining hall. 

After our tour ended we knew we had a lot of miles to go before we slept, so we wasted no time and got on Route I40 – a straight shot from Davidson to Nashville. Annie did some research in the car, trying to find a place for us to stop for lunch somewhere around Asheville. Using the iPhone app TV Food Maps she found 12 Bones Smokehouse, which only took us a few miles off course. It’s in the middle of an industrial area, but when we pulled into the parking lot, we knew we hit pay dirt.

7 hours after we started our road trip, we pulled into Nashville, TN. We are staying at the Hutton Hotel, which is about a 15 minute walk to Vanderbilt Admissions. It’s a very nice boutique hotel that isn’t too expensive. We had reservations at Husk, one of my favorite restaurants on the planet (Sophie and I had an amazing meal in Charleston when we were visiting College of Charleston). Unfortunately, Annie didn’t feel the same way and literally gagged when I made her try the fried pig ear sliders. I don’t know what her problem was.

Saturday morning we had our last info session and tour of the week. I realize that admissions counselors need to give their presentation as if they are speaking to a person who has never listened to an information session before and this is their first college visit. But there is so much repetition it can become mindnumbing. At some point, you feel like you can get up and give the presentation yourself. Most of the schools these days have similiar things to brag about. If I hear one more obscure example of the breadth of research opportunities available to freshman, I might just scream – and usually these all include some on the brink of extinction animal from the Antarctic or the Amazon.  I also feel like taking the time to have each student in a room stand up and introduce themselves and give one fun fact about them is just embarrasing for the student and it’s hard for me to really see the purpose and it takes a LOT OF TIME. All schools these days draw students from across the US and around the world. We get it.

Can you tell it’s been a long week?

I forgot to mention we had a dog on our last college tour today. That was different.

We ended the week with a fun lunch with another friend from Tokyo – Julie!

And in this photo it looks like I’m sitting on her lap. #longtorso

Annie and I are having dinner at Puckett’s Grocery tonight and then going to hear country music at The Listening Room – yes I said Country Music.

All in all, it’s been a great week, and we’ve learned a lot. It’s just as important to winnow your school list as it is to find schools to keep on it. It’s a process, and college is a big investment, so it really is important to walk on campus, meet the students, eat the food, ask the questions. One third of all freshman college students in the US do not graduate from the school they started at. Transferring can be expensive (lost credits) and can prolong graduation. Doing all you can up front to make sure a school is the right fit is important. And these days, most schools want to see demonstrated interest, and there really is no better way to show that than to show up.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to take notes at the info session. Your child will most likely need to write a supplemental essay that answers the question “Why Us?” It will be so much easier to write if you have a nice list of reasons why you liked it when you visited.

Stay tuned for next month when we visit San Francisco!

My husband was born while his father was in Iowa, coaching Bob Griese and Purdue to victory. His mother should have been given the game ball, but it went to the head coach’s wife (it was her birthday). That’s just one of those family fables I’ve heard many times since becoming a member of his family. Having a father as a college football coach, most of Tom’s family’s stories involve an 11-inch pig skin ball. Flash forward 50 years and it was obvious what I would get Tom for a birthday gift. Two tickets on the 50-yard line to a sick college football game.

Last year, over dinner on a Saturday night, when it was just the two of us, I asked Tom what was on his bucket list. It was one of those questions that could spark a long, interesting conversation. He thought about it for awhile and then said, “Death Valley”. Hmmm… Death Valley? I didn’t want to seem clueless about the bucket list item of the man I’ve spent most of my adult life with, but I honestly couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. “Is that somewhere in Arizona?” “Lis, really? Come on. You should know where Death Valley is. It’s the football stadium where the LSU Tigers play. I want to see a game in Death Valley.” I smiled and changed the conversation.

When the tickets went on sale, I used my past experience buying excellent seats for Broadway shows (more of my type of bucket list item). I bought two seats in the middle of the stadium three rows back from the field. Since it was in Baton Rouge, LA, a 90 minute drive from New Orleans, I decided to make the weekend more palatable for me and planned a stay in NOLA including delicious meals and interesting city walks.  Several months ago, I told him to take Friday October 16th off from work as I was taking him away for a birthday surprise weekend. When I gave him his gift, and told him where we were going, he was extremely happy. Especially because I had chosen the best game of the season (according to him). Two undefeated teams, LSU and Florida in Death Valley on a Saturday night. He couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate.

Friday night we walked down Bourbon street, taking in all sorts of crazy and then had an incredible dinner at Peche (James Beard Winner – Top 10 Restaurants 2014). Saturday we started the day with breakfast at the Camellia Grill followed by a walk on Tulane’s campus, a visit to Lafayette Cemetery and the Garden District and a long walk down Magazine street to Shaya (James Beard Winner – Best Chef in the South 2015) for lunch.  And then… it was game time.

We arrived in Baton Rouge around 3 for a 6:10 kickoff. I’ve been to tailgates, but not like this. Here are a few fun pictures…

The stadium holds 102,321 people, and they were all there grilling burgers and drinking beer. It was surreal. People didn’t just set up tables and grill a few hot dogs. They had double flat screen tv’s on moveable walls with couches. Each tent had a generator with a trailer hitched to their truck to bring all the equipment. And I’ve never seen prettier girls all dolled up for a football game. Cute short dresses with cowboy boots were de rigueur.

We entered the stadium about 90 minutes before kickoff just to take it all in. What I found was that unlike Broadway, the 3rd row is not necessarily the best location to see over the heads of the players standing on the sidelines, however, we were so close to the action it felt like we were sitting with the team. When Leonard Fournette (Tom’s pick for the Heisman) came running into the sidelines I, felt like I could reach out and give him a high five. When a ball flew into the crowd Tom and I both got our hands on it. We watched the ESPN guy go back and forth on the moving ladder chasing the ball, and we watched athletes get taped and players get coached.

Watching football is something I’ve always done while I’m doing something else (except when my boys played – then I really paid attention). But this game was something totally different. I had no idea that the entire stadium would stand during the game. The only time people sat was during TV time-outs. Imagine 102k people standing on their feet, chanting the same cheers in unison. It was hypnotic. I loved it all and I’m torn about where we’ll see a game next year; the Grove, The Horseshoe or The Big House – I’m open to suggestions!

Our last school visit on the eleven day college tour was at the College of Charleston and after having spent a nice weekend in the city we were primed to love it and love it we did. It’s honestly the best of both worlds, a 10,000 undergrad university smack in the middle of an amazingly historical city, one hour by plane from new york and it’s warm! The campus is beautiful and one of the oldest in the nation.

The fine arts building is gorgeous, centrally located (we found that most of the schools we visited stuck their fine arts building at the edge of campus) and the student art work was very impressive. So after a very long trip, covering 5 states and 7 different colleges I can honestly say it was a successful trip. Sophie liked all seven schools – all for different reasons and she will apply to all of them. I asked her to put the schools in order from most desired to least and she did but she said not to hold her to it as the order is subject to change. Good for her. I think there is a lot to marinate on after a long trip and to really think about everything each school has to offer. We collected tons of materials and they are in our large accordian folder for reference…

Here are a few things we learned about making a college trip successful:

1. When making your college list (for visiting) take a lot of time beforehand deciding whether or not this is a school you would seriously be interested in attending. The last thing you want to do, is drive or fly long distances, arrive and take one look around and say “no way”. The best way to do this is to ask friends who’ve visited, read up on all their stats and spend time on their website. Even then it’s not always going to work out but at least you’ll feel like you tried your best for a good fit.

2. Do research the night before attending the info session and tour to come up with some good questions to ask  – not to impress anyone, but to really find out what you need to know. Most of our questions had to do with art portfolios and the gen ed requirements for an art degree. Each school was different.

3. Food is important. One of the ways we got to know the city or town that the school was in was through it’s restaurants. My daughter would not be happy going to college in a place where she could only eat fast food or cafeteria food. If you have a child like that, you might want to consider where the school is located. I have a friend who recently toured a great school that they were really impressed with but the fact that it was “in the middle of nowhere” and they had to stop at subway for lunch was a deal breaker.

4. After the info session and tour, go back to the Admissions office and ask for the business card of your area admissions rep. This is a great way to reach out directly to the person who will be reading your child’s application and the perfect person to contact with additional questions you may have.

5. Take notes. As mentioned in another posting, most schools want the student to write a “why this school” essay. It’s so much easier to write the essay if you’ve taken notes during your tour about why you really liked it. You will most likely forget the small details months later when it comes time to write it.

6. Bring bandaids. Walking for 1.5 hours every day takes a toll.

And here are some things I learned about myself on this trip (with the help of my daughter)…

I’m terrible at taking pictures, I don’t know how to put makeup on properly, I can’t multi-task, I’m terrible at zooming in, I don’t know how to drive, I have zero sense of direction, i’m too loud in restaurants, I nag way too much about doing homework, I need better strapless bras, and I don’t walk fast enough.

Here’s a photo I took on the last day of Sophie walking way ahead of me (not because we were fighting, she just doesn’t have patience for the pace at which I walk).

Thanks for reading along, it’s been quite the trip. Best of luck to all those parents out there who will embark on college tours soon! It actually was a really great opportunity to spend one on one time with my daughter, the last time we spent this much alone time was the week she was born. The fact that this time next year she will be getting ready to move on is so bittersweet. I’m sure this trip will get even better with age.