{"id":6773,"date":"2017-06-25T20:57:45","date_gmt":"2017-06-26T02:57:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=6773"},"modified":"2017-06-25T20:57:45","modified_gmt":"2017-06-26T02:57:45","slug":"campus-tour-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2017\/06\/campus-tour-1.html","title":{"rendered":"Campus Tour #1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3AMarquette_University_campus.jpg;<\/p>\n

So we went on our first campus tour yesterday, to Marquette University<\/a>. \u00a0To be honest, it was underwhelming. \u00a0And I don\u2019t know to what extent it\u2019s really anything about Marquette vs. our newness to this process as parents.<\/p>\n

As a mom, I\u2019m looking for two things: \u00a0I want to know that the university is being a good steward of our tuition money, and I want to know that my son is being taken care of. \u00a0Yes, I know those two things are a bit contradictory, but bear with me.<\/p>\n

We started off in an auditorium, where an admissions counselor showed us a powerpoint deck and gave us an overview of All the Great Things About Marquette. \u00a0In the question-and-answer period, tuition was asked about, but with little more of a reply than just citing the number. \u00a0I suppose they figure that the details are best dealt with in a brochure. \u00a0How many of the parents there were planning on writing a large check? \u00a0How many were counting on financial aid? \u00a0How many figuring that they\u2019d qualify for a merit scholarship? \u00a0No way to know.<\/p>\n

We were then sent out in small groups with tour guides. \u00a0Ours led us to a math-and-science building, where she pointed out the office for free* math tutoring, the location of the free tech support for students\u2019 personal computers, and the \u201ccafe\u201d where food could be obtained with meal card \u201cswipes.\u201d \u00a0We walked past the free health clinic. \u00a0We saw the library, the big selling point of which was the extended hours of the study spaces. \u00a0We saw the student rec center, with its free pool, and tennis courts, and cardio equipment, and postings of intramural sport tournament winners. \u00a0We saw the chapel, imported from France, where daily mass is said, and the student union, and a dormitory. \u00a0We learned that, if you can find two like-minded students, you can get \u201cfree\u201d money for any student activity you want.<\/p>\n

(* free = included in tuition. \u00a0Interestingly enough, she was careful enough to say \u201cincluded in tuition\u201d each time rather than free.)<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what we noticed:<\/p>\n

My husband asked about the Catholic character of the school, and she was almost apologetic. \u00a0She said that about 60% of students \u201cidentify as Catholic\u201d (I guess it\u2019s just become routine to use the \u201cidentify as\u201d phrasing for just about everything) but that it was totally OK not to be Catholic, and the main way in which the Catholicness of the school manifested itself was in how it encouraged everyone to \u201cdo service.\u201d<\/p>\n

The campus was much more compact than I expected. \u00a0To be sure, it\u2019s a smaller university than the Big 10 colleges I\u2019m used to, but there also seems to be proportionately less green space. \u00a0Of course, it\u2019s hemmed in by the interstate interchange, but it seemed to have grown quite a bit in student body size after its boundaries were fixed, judging by the fact that many of the student dorms were high-rises.<\/p>\n

The entire financial \u201cdeal\u201d seemed to be wholly-bundled. \u00a0I couldn\u2019t quite figure out how it worked, but the meal plan is described<\/a> as \u201ceat when they want, as much as they want, as many times as they want\u201d, though I couldn\u2019t quite figure out how far that goes. \u00a0Can you indeed have breakfast, lunch, midafternoon snack, dinner, dessert, and bedtime snack? \u00a0It seems that, similar to a cruise where the basic option is included, there are limits imposed when you chose other more restaurant (or fast food restaurant) style eating options.<\/p>\n

One oddity was that the dorm we toured was one that was slated to be closed and torn down by the time these potential students would be entering. \u00a0It was 50 years old, but seemed more old-fashioned than that, at least in comparison to the similarly-aged dorms I recall from my college years \u2014 the dorm really seemed to consist of fairly-small double rooms, a basement laundry, and a cafeteria, with minimal \u201ccommunity building\u201d features other than a common area on each floor. \u00a0But why would they put a to-be-eliminated dorm on the tour list? \u00a0Is this representative of all the others? \u00a0Do they figure that dorms aren\u2019t relevant to the student\u2019s decision?<\/p>\n

The other surprise was that freshmen and sophomores are required to live on campus, but juniors and seniors must leave campus (or live in an on-campus university-run apartment). \u00a0And, so far as I understand the system, there are freshmen-only dorms and dorms for freshmen and sophomores. \u00a0I had the definite impression that one landed in a dorm freshman year, then found a friend to be a sophomore-year roommate, and relocated elsewhere the next year.<\/p>\n

Now, perhaps my expectations were formed too much by my experience at Michigan State, and my observation\u00a0of the Notre Dame dorm system while a grad student there, but I expected the norm to be that the dorm forms the basis for community life and your first source for friendships. \u00a0True, this is rather extreme at Notre Dame, where very few students live off campus and each dorm celebrates its own traditions, but it seemed quite the opposite at Marquette \u2014 dorms really seemed to be for sleeping, and that\u2019s about it, perhaps reinforced by the fact that they are split off from the rest of the university by Wisconsin Avenue. \u00a0Throughout the tour, our tour guide emphasized the places students study, as if studying doesn\u2019t really happen in ones\u2019 own dorm room, or in in-dorm study spaces. \u00a0I was also accustomed to daily, or frequent mass, taking place in the dorms at Notre Dame, and this wasn\u2019t the case at Marquette.<\/p>\n

Oh, and the dorm that was slated to be torn down? \u00a0It\u2019s being replaced by a new dorm that is or will be under construction; then, on the site of the existing dorm, they\u2019ll put in a new rec center.<\/p>\n

So did I feel like the university is a careful steward of the money it takes in? \u00a0Not really. \u00a0It seems to figure that parents will resign themselves to the tuition rate, whatever it is, and will, in the end, assess the value by how much is \u201cincluded in the price.\u201d<\/p>\n

And will my son be \u201ctaken care of\u201d? \u00a0One thing that I realized, in learning about Marquette, is that I\u2019m not as concerned about how many \u201camenities\u201d the college has as whether there will be a community there, and, so far as I can tell, for a kid that does have a hard time making friends, that really seems to start in the dorms. \u00a0So, on this mom\u2019s checklist, even if not on my son\u2019s, is some feeling that there\u2019s that sense of community.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Image:\u00a0https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3AMarquette_University_campus.jpg; By scottfeldstein [CC BY 2.0 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So we went on our first campus tour yesterday, to Marquette University. \u00a0To be honest, it was underwhelming. \u00a0And I don\u2019t know to what extent it\u2019s really anything about Marquette vs. our newness to this process as parents. As a mom, I\u2019m looking for two things: \u00a0I want to know that the university is being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":6787,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nCampus Tour #1<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"So we went on our first campus tour yesterday, to Marquette University. \u00a0To be honest, it was underwhelming. \u00a0And I don't know to what extent it's really\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2017\/06\/campus-tour-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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