Decisions pre-Internet??

[julieanne]

As I sit here obsessing over my decision - school website gazing, perusing discussions here, booking flights on travelocity, etc. - I had a thought:  how in the WORLD did people make informed decisions about schools before the information floodgates opened via the world wide web?  Must have been some pretty thick "pamphlets" floating around...


Just thought I'd throw that out there.

[brooklyn]

edited:  not so different, just different media.

[chonralda]

that post just made my day!

[Capt. Nick]

I also selected my undergrad pre-internet.  On a recent trip to my parent's house I discovered the MASSIVE box of all the crap that I had to go through to decide on a school.  I remember having to call to get answers to questions and having to have my applications typed.  I remember getting a postcard a few weeks before classes started informing me of my school's brand new website!  When I looked it up it was only the name of the school and a campus map.  It does seem so strange now that if I cannot find every drop of info about a school on it's webpage my interest level drops a bit.

[check01]

I'm old enough to be in the post-word processor but pre-email days, and I've always wondered how people ever wrote papers without word processors.  I understand it had something to do with "outlining" and "drafts" and other such archaic nonsense.

However, as an older person, I can personally attest that in the pre-web days there were certain circumstances under which, as an undergraduate, visiting the library was mandatory.  Now it seems as weird a pooping in an outhouse.

[lightessenz]

I sucked at choosing my undergrad...Seriously...I made the mistake of choosing based on a field rather then a reputation. Then I changed fields! Damnit.

[SanchoPanzo]

I sucked at choosing my undergrad...Seriously...I made the mistake of choosing based on a field rather then a reputation. Then I changed fields! Damnit.

This is a very good point to keep in mind even for LS.

[ScoopNY]

Ha! I applied to undergrad pre-WWW (we had internet accesss my freshman year). Let's see, I read (okay not really) I flipped through some guidebooks, brochures, etc. I, um, visited some schools and then I just applied to a bunch of really random places from UNC to Cornell to Wesleyan. I really wanted to go to Yale, but they dinged me. Cornell was the last place I visited, I knew a bunch of people there already, I really wasn't feeling UVA or UNC (where the admission lady asked what sport I played. I was like, "Um, debate team?").

What I do remember because it was pre-interent. I had to type the application ON A TYPEWRITER. My family hadn't owned a typewriter since 1980 at least. So we had to go to the store to buy one. It was awful. Thankfully I was able to write my essays on computer.

This time around I read a bunch of guidebooks, flipped through a lot of brochures, surfed the internet (boy was it a bad idea to check out XOXO) and then applied to a bunch of random places (mostly thanks for the god of the fee waiver). It's probably the reason I applied to Northwestern over say Duke and Michigan over UVA (I can be bought, which is really not surprising since I'm applying to law school. That's sort of implicit at this point, right?). So the main difference - way too much information. I didn't really realize there were just so many fine gradations of ranking from HYS to CCN to MVP. I'm not so sure I'm glad I know now.

I work for a newspaper I have no clue how they would have put out a paper everyday without computers. Some of the older folks mention this magic thing called carbon paper but I haven't a clue what they're talking about.

[The Poster]

These brave souls did it: