{"id":18869,"date":"2022-08-13T21:45:46","date_gmt":"2022-08-14T02:45:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/?p=18869"},"modified":"2022-08-13T21:53:11","modified_gmt":"2022-08-14T02:53:11","slug":"rpi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/?p=18869","title":{"rendered":"RPI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We visited Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) this afternoon. Our third in-person college tour. It’s interesting to see how each school greets prospective students, what information they focus on at the visits, what parts of the campus they show, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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RPI is apparently a pretty prestigious engineering school, but we all kind of agreed that they didn’t put their best foot forward. The tour started with a luke-warm welcome at the admissions building, an old building with even older white guys pictures hanging on the walls. It was clear their heritage was important, however the dirty\/broken bathrooms and abundance of sticky sanitizer everywhere did nothing to enhance the perception of prestige. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The student leading the tour was friendly and knowledgeable about many things, but she glossed over the two areas of interest for my group, comp sci and physics. She was a chemistry major and apparently knew little about the other majors. The campus is sprawling and full of old, old buildings. The school was founding in 1824 and the buildings look the part. Many have their build date carved above the entrances. She took us through dark hallways and into a basement-ish classroom. She showed us a dorm that was very institutional looking, small and dark, and not at all inviting. One of the parents asked if it was an older dorm and the tour guide said “Yes, our newer dorms are bigger and air conditioned.” Umm… why are you showing us this scary prison dorm then?!?<\/p>\n\n\n\n