Ha. The guy did say when I asked about the ease of getting there that you choose to fly into Des Moines or Cedar Rapids and rent a car. Initially, they sent her some good email marketing about how tight knit of a community they are. I think to someone who is scared about going away, that really resonated with her. She really enjoyed the virtual tour and talk they gave. I spoke with the representative last night from Grinnell and he helped put my mind at ease a bit. He talked about how only 8% of students at Grinnell are in-state so the rest are out of state and international students. Most everyone there are in the same boat of not knowing people. Since the campus and town are small, they rely more on each other. I haven't verified this but he said Harvard did a study on friendship bias which is how do students over different socio-economic and cultural classes interact with one another. The study found Grinnell had the lowest amount of this of all the colleges they surveyed. We talked about if she was accepted, we would take a visit there in the winter. He actually encouraged that as he completely gets that Iowa is not what a lot of people think of when they're thinking their ideal college destination. I think the vibe of it really felt good to her. We had a discussion on the car ride home about each college and what going to that city might mean. For Colorado College, you have a tremendous playground that I would be mad if she didn't take advantage of. For Grinnell, your college is your world there so you have to be sure that you're good with not having much else to do outside of campus.
We had a good time at the small college fair. It was poorly attended which was sad for the reps who flew in for it but it allowed us to meet with the ones she was interested with and not compete for time like the other fair we went to. I don't know why they thought Duncanville was a good location as you cut off a lot of Northern Dallas which is more their target audience. I think maybe 20 people were there. Each one had a 5 minute presentation about their college which was helpful. We're already onboard with Colorado College who was there and I wanted to hear more about Grinnell. We also talked to Macalister College in St Paul, Minnesota which interested her. We've been to the Twin Cities before as she had a friend that lived there but she previously hadn't given that area much thought. There were some others there like Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY that were interesting to hear from but I'm not sure she's that interested in heading east if it's not NYC she's attending school in. They're about 30 minutes north near Yonkers. Connecticut College was there. Very pretty campus right near the Long Island Sound. Some others we ruled out that were there were Claremont McKenna in California, Haverford outside of Philly, and Kenyon which is in Ohio. She has at least 3 she would like to apply for now and we had a nice talk about applying with Colorado College.
Still nothing from our college guy. Just so weird.