When my son was applying to college there was a school our guidebook referred to as “the caring college.” I have to admit that I loved the sound of that – it conjured up comfy images of school personnel following my son around with chocolate milk and warm cookies, encouraging him to get enough rest and talk about his feelings. My son ended up attending that college and he was very happy there – he got a wonderful education, had lots of fun and made lifelong friends. But did he find the school to be unusually caring? Not so much. And yet seven years later, as my daughter is getting ready to apply to schools, the updated version of that same guidebook is still referring to it as “the caring college.”

Which raises the question of reputations – the “buzz” that some schools generate.  What are they based on and how much of it should you believe?

Some of the buzz does originate in guidebooks – those massive  manuals that many college-bound families still pour through often contain lists that rank schools on criteria such as whether they’re “party” schools,  as well as drug use, academic pressure, liberal attitudes, and the quality of food.

But much of the buzz that surrounds some schools never appears in print – it seems to materialize from thin air and sink into the collective consciousness of prospective students. The high school students I work with often claim to somehow “know” that a particular school is monopolized by drunken frat boys, or stoned hippies – despite never setting foot on the campus. I have heard schools described – and dismissed – as too conservative, too artsy, too lame, too granola, too preppy or too alternative.  It troubles me that kids are willing to buy into these generalizations based on nothing but buzz – and the perceptions can be hard to dispel.

My daughter’s guidance counselor recently recommended we look at a school that seemed to meet every one of her college criteria. It is an excellent mid-size university that would be a perfect target school for her. It’s the right distance from home, in a populated area, it has a well regarded theater program and exactly the right amount of Greek life.  And yet my daughter has consistently resisted visiting this school because she believes it to be populated exclusively by “hipsters.”

I have no idea if this is true or not and it would be hard for me to verify since I’m not precisely sure what a hipster is. When we finally visited the school, the students we saw on campus looked perfectly fine to me. In dress and demeanor, the kids we saw in the library and on the quad seemed like regular kids – no different from the students we’d seen at another college the day before. But the minute we drove off campus my daughter turned to me and said “I told you so….hipsters.”

Clearly, I don’t understand the prevalence and staying power of these perceptions– but if your child is applying to colleges you should know that he or she will be hearing and absorbing and believing in the rumors and myths that surround these schools.  It’s unfortunate that what might be an excellent school choice may not be considered because of hearsay and misconceptions. The best you can do is visit the schools – maybe even more than once. Attend tours and information sessions and spend as much time as you can on campus, speaking to a variety of students. An overnight visit may dispel (or confirm) what your child already thinks of a school. Take everything you hear with a grain of salt – and good luck fighting the buzz.