This year my nephew Eric is a senior in high school.  Since his mom and dad are both extremely busy in their jobs at the moment, I told him I would take him on his college tour visits this Spring break.  He already knows that he wants to major in communications so that gives him quite a few options to choose from.  I told him to give me four colleges and we will tour all of them within the week he has off.  It is going to be hectic but since two of the colleges are in California, I think it is doable.  The four colleges he wants to tour are:

• Northwestern
• UC Santa Barbara
• Stanford
• Cornell

Eric is studying for midterms currently so I told him I would take care of all the details and find out interesting facts about the college and surrounding areas which may help him in his decision making.

I started with UC Santa Barbara since that will be our first stop.  If the surfing and sunbathing isn’t enough to lure him there, it is also the Number 1 Green school among public universities.  Some buildings on campus are actually the “greenest” buildings in the nation.  Aside from that, it is a very good school for communications.

From Santa Barbara, we will be traveling north to Stanford University.  Stanford is situated between San Francisco and San Jose.  It is in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley one of the most culturally diverse areas of the nation.  I have been there once before and I remember how beautiful and historic the campus was.  Even though Stanford is not considered Ivy League, it is on par with Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.

From Stanford, we will be flying across the country to Ithaca, New York to visit Cornell University.  I have never been to Ithaca so I was curious what there is to do there.  I found out that they have some beautiful state parks such as Buttermilk Falls State Park and Robert Treman State Park.  Both have hiking and Robert Treman State Park has a fun waterfall where you can jump off of into the water.  Aside from the surrounding area, Cornell being an Ivy League school pretty much speaks for itself.

Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest university on our list to visit. Home of Willie the Wildcat, Northwestern is in Evanston, IL.  It was founded by nine men who wanted to build a university that would serve the Northwest Territory.  Northwestern has 3 campuses, 12 schools and colleges and over 500 student organizations and clubs.

With some of the above information, I am going to use the Idea Board feature of the Penless App to comprise an organized list of each campus with pros and cons.  Since these are four stellar schools, I think I will have a lot more pros.  The Idea Board is a great way to get organized and keep all your ideas in one place. I will share my Idea Board with Eric and have him add to it once we get to each of the schools.