School Trip

So, last Wednesday and Thursday, J1 and I took a quick trip down to Athens and Marietta to visit OU and Marietta, respectively.

J1 toured Miami in August and was very impressed, but it was time to get a couple other schools officially viewed before application time really hit (past time, really, but I've been unexpectedly busy). Our OU tour guide seemed pleasant, but somewhat disinterested and not actually particularly knowledgeable about Ohio University. We rambled through the campus, getting a cursory look at "stuff" while our guide competed with leaf vacuums to be heard. In contrast, our Miami tour was led by some bizarre Miami savant who had information available on any question asked. The OU tour featured approximately two thousand fewer "what nots" than Miami's. Miami's tour guide added "what not" to sentences the way other people breathe.
The movies / presentations at Miami and OU can be summed up by "school is GREAT! All other colleges pale in comparison! Look at our Alumni! Look at our students studying abroad! Look how to apply!"

Thursday's trip to Marietta College was completely different. Marietta is a tiny Liberal Arts College sitting in the thriving metropolis of Marietta, OH. After I made a series of missteps getting out of Athens, we arrived 15 minutes late, missing our scheduled tour (even though it is an individual tour, our guide was scheduled for a class). The called our interviewer and had him arrive early. We then had an hour long interview that felt a lot like the OU / Miami presentations, but personalized.

We were then walked to lunch and given free lunch in the main cafeteria.

After lunch, we found our way to an English Professor's (Dr. Bland) office for our scheduled meeting. No luck - she just wasn't there. After a bit, we walked back to the Admissions House for our rescheduled campus tour. Hearing about Dr. Bland's no-show, the very nice people at Admissions assured us they would fix the problem and sent us on our tour. The campus was small, but very nice. Our guide seemed interested and excited to be at school and she had answers to our questions.

Returning to Admissions we were informed Dr. Bland was out with the flu and the head of the English Department would talk with us instead. The downside to this was Dr. Bland is focused on creative writing while Dr. Sullivan is all about the literature. The upside is Dr. Sullivan is head of the department, faculty head of the Anime Club, and had lived in Japan for a while. All perfect for J.

I think Miami is still edging out Marietta, but Marietta definitely opened J's eye to some options.