Touring Colleges
Our trip to the US to tour colleges was finally here. After months of planning and figuring out where to look, we were on our way!
How did we come up with the list? Well, Andreas really wanted to be in the West. We have spent most of our summers at Lake Tahoe and Andreas really loves it up there, playing tennis and enjoying the outdoors. And of course being there in the summer is glorious with the weather always perfect in July. So he was enamored, which is fine, he doesn't have to be rational to a fault. I wasn't.
I think about what lured me to Penn. I remember looking through a guidebook at my high school and saw that Penn was ranked the #1 business school. I remember touring colleges with my mom. We went to UC San Diego, Georgetown, Princeton and Penn. I remember distinctly yawning like crazy at the Princeton tour, my mother scolding me, but it looked so boring. I couldn't put it into words but pastoral was not what I was looking for. I got into Penn, Georgetown and UCSD, and I remember classmates being stunned I wasn't going to Georgetown, which was/is better known, probably because of basketball. Penn? What's that? You mean Penn State? I'm convinced I got in to Penn because I was from California (geographic diversity) and that I was senior class president fall semester of Senior year. My grades were very good, my SAT meh, but I think I was only the 2nd person from my high school to go to Penn. Other people were much more accomplished than me at Penn. I was the unsophisticated suburbanite, not street wise to the ways of West Philly by any definition, the kid who, out of a high school class of 150, had gone to kindergarten with 50 of them. Tight circle. Penn had more undergraduates than my entire town.
To me, touring colleges was very important because you are going to spend 4 very important years of your life somewhere, you just can't choose a place from the catalogues if you have the economic means to get on the road and get a real taste of the places.
We flew from Madrid to Los Angeles. Our flight arrived about midnight and we rented a car and drove to the Venice Suites Hotel. I hadn't been to Venice before and thought it would be good to stay on the beach, especially as I had built in a recovery day before touring. The one thing I was worried about was Andreas liking it too much. I was kind of born with the Northern California bias against Southern California, and I did my best to put on a brave face. Venice was cool, the hotel was chill. We spent the morning walking around, having breakfast, and enjoying the sunshine and goofy stores.
In the afternoon we drove to San Pedro to meet family friends I hadn't seen in decades, Anki og Jarl. It was great catch up with them, and their son, Christian, happened to be in town with his daughter. Anki has always made me laugh, she is a force to be reckoned with! We chatted on and on and she whipped up some mean corned beef sandwiches. Since my mother died I have tried to keep in contact with her friends that meant so much to me, I want them to know what an impact they had on my life. Unfortunately, one has passed already, Lona Norden in Oslo, and even just typing this brings tears to my eyes.
In the evening we met up with a friend from New York, Elaine, who had recently started working at USC. We were kind of desperate for good Asian food because we have yet to find really good Asian food in Madrid. We met Elaine at Yang Chow. The place was packed and the food was great. We really over-ordered but it was so good, and it was great to see Elaine, to catch up with a friendly face. She was really enjoying her time at USC and thought we should visit. It wasn't on our list, but we would squeeze it in the next day.
Monday morning was here and our first tour, UCLA:
As we would learn on the tours of other schools, we start with an orientation session and then go out on a walking tour. UCLA's orientation was a bit intimidating. More than 100,000 applications per year, and a 16% acceptace rate. Egad. More than 30,000 undergraduates. Egad. This wouldn't be the right place for me, but I'm trying my best to look for the best place for him, and not for me (easier said than done).
The tour was a joke, really. All I remember from the two extraordinarily perky tour guides was that Modern Family was filmed here, here, and here, and Beyonce had her babies there. Lots of anecdotes about the rich and famous. Academics, not so much. Or it didn't sink in. The campus is also massive, it seems like there is a football field of grass between each building, and getting from A to B would take ages. Andreas also noted an almost complete lack of black faces on the campus; he isn't really interested in going to an all-black school, but he doesn't want to be the only black kid on campus either, a good racial mix is important to him.
In the afternoon we toured Cal State-LA. My sister-in-law Liz really recommended that we look at a wide variety of schools - private, public, community - so we wanted to see all the options. Cal State-LA was out near Alhambra. Andreas like the place a lot more than UCLA, the mix of kids was better and it didn't seem so intense. The tour started out in a dank basement which wasn't great, but the campus is nice and the tour guide was excellent.
Late in the afternoon we drove to USC to meet Elaine. We didn't have time for an official tour but Elaine showed us around some buildings and the campus. Wow. I was stunned. When I was applying to colleges the only thing I knew about USC was that it was in a rough neighborhood. Maybe it isn't rough anymore, or what I consider rough has changed dramatically, or both. Campus was beautiful and dense and urban, we both really liked it. There wasn't a great racial balance, but Andreas seemed to like the place. Being with Elaine was much better than any tour, and not hearing any anecdotes of Modern Family helped a lot too.
After the tour we jumped in the car and drove to Santa Barbara, we had a tour at UC Santa Barbara the next morning. We stayed at the Harborview Inn. It was fine for just one night, but it was a blast from the 1980s. There were bottles in the bathroom labeled "$5", the furniture and carpets needed serious updating, and the bathroom lighting was overwhelming; it felt like a convert nursing home, or a soon to be converted into a nursing home. I probably wouldn't stay there again, there seemed to be a cuter place, the Hotel Milo, just down the street. We had dinner at Rusty's Pizza Parlor, pretty much a dump with prices to match, and breakfast the next morning at Sambo's, which was great. Eggs benedict isn't so easy to find in Madrid.
UC Santa Barbara wasn't what Andreas was looking for. The orientation session wasn't great and there were more black kids in the catalog than what we saw on campus for two hours; when the catalog said "5% African American" I was sure the percentage sign shouldn't have been there. I had been told that UCSB was gorgeous from different people, but really it wasn't. Surely a great school for other kids, but not Andreas. I think he is also recognizing that he needs some sort of urbanity. On that note, we have a tour of UC Santa Cruz the next morning...
After the Santa Barbara tour, we drive up to Carmel and spend the night with Jeff and Liz. It was great to see them, to catch up, and to consume a meal in a kitchen and not in a restaurant.
Wednesday morning we head out for our tour at UC Santa Cruz and it was pouring rain. Not a good omen. It takes a while to find the place, but we arrive and the orientation is great. We get rain ponchos and jump on a bus to get to campus, which is really spread out.
This isn't what Andreas is looking for either. It is a beautiful campus, no doubt, but it is the antithesis of urban. Racial diversity is also sorely lacking. But a beautiful place.
After the tour we get into the car and drive to Oakland to leave the car at Hertz, and then Uber to Piedmont and spend the night with my dad, who looks as great as always. He has a new dog, Piggy, who is absolutely adorable, and is quick to sit with my dad wherever my dad is. Piggy has the run of the place already, having moved in less than a month ago. My sister scored big finding Piggy.
Thursday morning we have a tour at UC Berkeley, where my dad went to school and where both Jeff & Liz went. The rain continues. The orientation is great, Cal is an amazing school. But it is huge and intense, too intense for Andreas. Racial diversity is still a problem. In the afternoon we get a tour at St. Mary's College in Moraga, and Andreas is really impressed. Unlike the 30000 undergraduates at both Cal and UCLA, there are fewer than 3000 undergraduates here. The campus is beautiful, the weather clears up, Andreas likes it a lot.
That evening we have a great dinner with our amazing friends Anya & Dave, and their kids Zoe and Cleo. I'm really glad Andreas wants to go to school where we have famliy and friends.
We spend another night in Piedmont and then off on more college tours. First, we have arranged a visit at Diablo Valley College. We were encouraged to see some community colleges in case Andreas's grades aren't good enough for 4-year schools. There was no tour that day, so we were supposed to meet someone to show us around. When we arrived we went to the information desk and asked for our contact person, but they had never heard of him. The email said to wait in the commons area, which we did. We waited and waited and waited, and only one other person was there. This person might have been our contact but he was more focused on his phone that anything; he didn't seem very interested in us. We walked around campus a bit and it was fine. California Community Colleges are great because they are designed to prepare kids to move to the UC system for their junior and senior years. I think Andreas has the grades and scores to go right to a 4-year college.
From there we drove to UC Davis. What a great school. Certainly not as intense as UCLA or Cal. Not urban, but we didn't feel we were in the woods. Better racial balance, and the orientation and tour were both great. It is right on I-80, so getting to the Bay Area or Tahoe would be easy. Big, but not overwhelming. Great vibe.
Off we go again, this time to Sacramento. We spent the night at the Larkspur Landing hotel which was fine, but my expectations weren't very high. Sacramento seems to be just an endless sprawl of nothing. We had dinner at a barbecue place, Buckhorn BBQ, which was good. I don't think personally I could live in Sacramento, but I'm trying to keep my mouth shut and not influece Andreas too much. In the morning we toured Sacramento State, and we were both impressed. It was a Saturday so there weren't many kids on campus, but the diversity that we saw was good, the tour was very good, and the facilities were nice. The gym was amazing. I think Andreas could see himself going to school here.
From there we drove up to Tahoe. As usual on this drive we stopped at Ikeda in Auburn, a killer burger place. We ate well but it started to snow up the hill and we sat on our hands a bit to see if chains would be required. We had two nights booked in Reno and we could have spent the first night somewhere else if we had to (I'd rather spend the night at a hotel in the woods than put chains on). Things looked good and we started driving up, but the snow was really coming down, thankfully no chain requirements. We stopped to visit my sister Kristen in Truckee, and saw her kids, and my beautiful dog who was very happy to see me!
Kristen also took us to Truckee Roundhouse where they do all sorts of wood- and metal-work. She showed us how to use this laser gismo to replicate drawings in wood. It was really cool. Hopefully we will come back in the summer with Markus as well to explore and learn new things.
We drove over to Reno and spent the night at the Grand Sierra Hotel, an over the top place not in the center of town. The place is crazy and usually packed with people. Reno is kind of fun, but I know fun things to do there. We went to my favorite thrift shop, Savers, where I never fail to find a handful of great shirts for a few dollars each (see below). We went to the Meadowwood Mall to buy some shoes. Kristen and her boys came over the mountain in the evening and we had dinner at the Bab Café, which was cool. Reno seems to be booming, lots happening.
Monday morning we had a tour at University of Nevada-Reno, and Andreas loved it. The campus is really nice and dense, the racial mix was the best we had seen so far, by far. We saw the dorms which were good, and the school isn't overwhelmingly big, about 18000 undergradutates. I think this is the best fit by far for Andreas, and he will be close to Tahoe which will be great.
After the tour we drove back down to Piedmont, spent one night with my dad, and then flew to Philadelphia. Andreas didn't want to go to school on the East Coast, but for purely selfish reasons which I readily own up to I wanted to see Penn. We stayed at a beautiful new hotel right near campus, The Study, and wow has West Philadelphia changed a lot. The tour the next day impressed me a lot. I kept asking myself how I was ever accepted to such a prestigious place? I'd never get in now. Campus was amazing, dense and full of energy, and the best racial mix of any school that we had seen. It reminded me of what an amazing experience I had in college, and how through dumb luck I ended up at Penn and found amazing friends, and myself. I wouldn't have traded that experience for anything. Andreas, he wants to be on the West Coast, which is great for him, but Penn for me was the ultimate.
We jumped in the train and spent a couple of nights in Brooklyn. I had dinner with Yael, and wine with Lisa and Wanda, breakfast with Hannah, visited Drew & Erika, and popped in to see Alan & Randy. We spent our last day in New York with Sam and Shoki in Oyster Bay. I really tried to cram as many friends into my two days in Brooklyn as I could - I really miss these wonderful people in my life. I have amazing friends Ana & Murat here in Madrid, and I'm slowly starting to create a circle of friends in Madrid as well, but man I miss my crew from BK. Andreas also did something that was very important to him - he got a haircut from Buju at On Point.
It was a great experience these two weeks, and before I know it I will be doing the same with Markus.
