Sunday, July 12, 2009

During the 2nd Sunday

[A lot of trees and grass around the campus. The dorms are the white buildings]


Back to back college visits are pretty tiring; first Penn and now Bard College. There was a big difference compared to the city. For one, there were no taxis when we came off Amtrak! It may have just been some weird schedule, but it was really quiet and empty when we went to the small parking lot. One could hear birds chirping clearly, and it reminded me of Vassar. Though Bard is located about 10 minutes away from Vassar, the location felt very isolated. When trying to get to the college, all I could see were green trees, grass, and plants. The sun was out and a nice cool breeze could be felt. The air is hardly humid at all! (This could be due to the fact that there are a lot of plants.)
[A very interesting fountain that we saw during our guided tour]

When everyone was at Bard, we were introduced to Katie, a senior and tour guide at Bard College. For every location we went to, she would evaluate and add general details about the school structure as well as her experiences. I thought she did a great job in showing us around and the information was very useful. One could get the feel of the school life at Bard. She went into housing, classes, extracurricular activities, food, music, programs, financial aid, building types (we got to see the new science building), and many more. Like Vassar, I like the Bard College, but I do not know if I can see myself there for four years.

Nevertheless, I really believe that the college tours are very helpful in understanding at least the basic structure of the colleges. During both Vassar and NYU, we did a self guided tour and I found it hard to actually feel attached to the schools. However, with both Penn and Bard, as well as Brown and Columbia, I think that I am able to get a better sense of what kind of college I prefer as well as what makes me excited about a certain college.
For dinner, we went to Porter's Steakhouse. This fancy restaurant was very delicious and fulfilling. All these tours and visits are such a memorable experience, and it would be impossible without all the supporters of the Ivy League Connection. Thank you all so much for everything!

I also would like to say that my class has a hands-on activity through Black Rock Forest for 3 days. I will unfortunately be unable to blog, but I shall give my updates when I return! Thank you once more!

2 comments:

Charles Tillman Ramsey said...

Thanks Jessica for your insightful comments. We will ensure that next year we have tour guides at the sites we choose to visit. This was our first year doing college tours and we have learned a great deal by your experience.

I do hope that you will give Bard College full consideration. It is ranked very high and has a great core curriculum. Sometimes the unfamiliar can become something that ends up well. I am just glad that you got a chance to see UPENN and Bard during the past two days. When you return to El Cerrito High School you will have a full compliment of information that will help guide you through the next four months prior to you ultimately having to turn in your college applications.

Remember to keep it simple. Applying to more than five or six schools will just stress you out and have you run up an enormous bill for application fees. In the end you can only attend one school. Please enjoy your three day excursion out to the wild. I know that we will not hear from you and so you are excused from blogging. However, take a lot of great photos and be sure to share them on your return on Thursday.

Thanks again and I am glad that you had a lovely dinner with the other ILC students.

Take care.

Charles T. Ramsey, Esq.
School Board Member
West Contra Costa
Unified School District

Don Gosney said...

Jessica,

Your comments about the taxi service should alert you to the remoteness of Bard.

I recall a few years back when my car broke down in Coalinga (about 210 miles south of Richmond along I-5). When I called for a taxi, the lady that answered said she would be right over as soon as she finished feeding her kids. There was only one taxi in town and it was actually the family car. When it arrived, there were two child safety seats strapped into the back seat.

Later, I tried to rent a cart so I could finish my trip to LA. The guy that answered the phone told me they only had one vehicle to rent—a pickup truck—and it was already rented for the month.

Coalinga isn’t a small hick town at all (they have their own prison!) but it reminded me very quickly that I wasn’t in the Bay Area any more.

Sounds like Katie was a great tour guide for you. She seemed to know her stuff and was enthused to tell you about it.

Bless you, Jessica, for posting the photos of the fine meal you enjoyed. That’s a pretty healthy chink of meat on your plate. As I recall, aren’t you only about four foot something and about a hundred pounds or so? And you have a chink of meat LIKE THAT placed in front of you? Tell me again where you put it?

You should be thankful, Jessica, that Charles isn’t all that tech savvy. Because he’s not, he gave you a pass on the blogging. If he was the least bit tech savvy he might have insisted that you bring along a satellite phone to plug your laptop into so you could blog from the wilds.

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