Counselor Sarah Hart conducts a tour of prospective students at Vanderbilt.

Our son Turner is a junior at Christ School and had his fall break over Columbus Day weekend. We took the opportunity to complete a pretty ambitious college tour…ambitious not because of the number, but because of the distance between the school. We started with Vanderbilt University in Nashville, on the short list  for Turner in the beginning stages of his search. We had a beautiful fall day on this hometown campus (for me). I grew up in Nashville, and Vandy was the school of choice for a number of my classmates from Montgomery Bell Academy, my high school. Lots of Strayhorns have attended, including my dad and his family. His dad and brother served on the faculty of the Med School, and my first cousin-in-law teaches in the med school as well. Turner is very science-oriented with an interest in engineering and computers, so he left motivated to keep his grades up as Vanderbilt is very competitive. On our very full prospective tour, we ran into another group led by Counselor Sarah Hart, a Vandy tour guide.

We left Nashville (by plane) and are currently in Chapel Hill planning to tour Carolina this morning. I’m confident that we will run into more Illahee girls as Carolina is a popular destination for college. It is a rainy day today. Hopefully that will not influence the impression. Our nephew is a sophomore here. We had a great dinner last night, and Turner is going to join him in a few minutes for Geology class before the tour. I better go up and make sure he is awake and ready to go.

Laurie and I are headed to the Big Apple this weekend for a camp show at the Grier’s. Join us if you are in the neighborhood!