More College Tours: SUNY New Paltz and Bard

This past Saturday, despite the threat of 3" of snow, Jeremy and I ventured north to see two new (for him) schools. It was my second visit to New Paltz, but my first to Bard. We lucked out weatherwise-there was no accumulation of the flurries we experienced and the sun came out in the afternoon. My cousin Beverly and her family accompanied us caravan style, and the whole outing was lots of fun.

SUNY New Paltz is a university comprised of 5 schools in New Paltz, NY, about 2 hours north of NYC, right on the Metro North Line. New Paltz, I saw for the first time, is a cute little Woodstock-like town.

The info-session at New Paltz has greatly improved since I was there with Elsa in 2009. Our admissions representative, Alcia, was clear, thorough and confident. She used a power point to speak about New Paltz and made the school seem very appealing, desriable and flexible. The average grade of the admitted student is A-, sort of tough for us!

Our tour guide, Raj, is a bio and pre-med student. We couldn't understand why Jeremy, Mr. Anti-science, was paired with him, but whatever. Raj was personable and humorous, and is also an RA, as is Elsa. He showed us his dorm and his room.

Capen Common Room

I was disappointed that Raj didn't make a bigger deal about the athletic center. I thought this building might hook Jeremy.

The Dining Hall

This is my favorite view of New Paltz: The Atrium

Here are the second cousins by the entrance sign.




We left New Paltz and drove into Poughkeepsie where our friends Jenny and Adam have the coolest restaurant, Soul Dog. Yum! We stuffed ourselves...

From Poughkeepsie, we drove about 40 minutes north on Route 9 to Annandale on Hudson, to Bard. The admissions office at Bard was closed on this day, but we secured a private tour with Elsa's dear friend and junior, Sophia. She showed us the student center, the admissions office, the althletic center and her suite in "The Village." Thanks, Sophia!!

Below is the famous Fisher Center whichwe did not see in daylight, so I took this photo from the internet.

Bard is by far the hippest school we have see so far. The students look like city kids, not suburban kids, which is what we have seen a lot! The majors and the curricula are artsy, for sure. The campus is woodsy and spread out. James, poet and creative writer that he is, felt immediately at home there. Although Bard is SAT optional, those that do submit their scores have scores that range between 650 and 740-a little out of our league. Sophia added that Bard students who do not submit scores do not do so because their scores are low... It was important to see the school, though, to see if this is the KIND of school Jeremy would like to find. IMHO, we already have, but that one is a bit far from home.

The search continues in April...