Taylor and I arrived last night for our visit to KU. We picked up Andrew and we had a nice dinner at Free State Brewery and ice cream at Sylas and Maddy's. Massachusetts Street is the main area downtown with cute shops and fun restaurants. These 2 were happy to be reunited and Andrew couldn't wait to show off Kansas!
We had lots of official tours set up with KU today, but Andrew wanted to be the first to show up around. We met him in front of his fraternity house at 7:15am. Yes, this is his fraternity house!
Directly across the street from his house is this gorgeous view of Potter's Lake and a beautiful grass area across campus.
At the top of the hill is the Campanile...a WWII memorial. It is also tradition that students are not allowed to walk through it until graduation day, so he wouldn't let Taylor go in!
View of Memorial Stadium
There are bus stops all over campus and make stops every 6 minutes.
Fraser Hall is probably the most photographed building on campus. It is the highest point and can be seen from miles away. Andrew pointed out that the flag on the right is the game day flag and is only up on game days. I love the tradition here!
Watson Library
Strong Hall
Budig Hall...home to many of the large Bio and Chem 1 classes that are in the auditorium.
Andrew is a business major and many of his classes are in this new business building. It is absolutely spectacular!
This was the highlight for me. Allen Fieldhouse! Where Jayhawk basketball takes place.
Attached to Allen Fieldhouse is the DeBruce Center. It was recently built to house the Original Rules of Basketball that were written by James Naismith. We watched the documentary on Netflix a few months ago, so this was so cool to see in person!
David Booth (a KU booster) spent $4 million at the Sotheby's auction to bring these back to KU.
Sitting at the James Naismith statue in front of the DeBruce Center
We headed back to Andrew's house because he had work and class. He introduced us to Abby, a freshman who is a Sigma Kappa. Her house is right next door to Andrew's so she gave us a quick tour. She was so sweet and she made Taylor feel so comfortable!
We then took the bus to the Visitor Center to begin the official tour. We are so grateful to Heidi! She is a personal friend of Andrew's family and the Director of Recruitment at KU. She rolled out the red carpet for Taylor and made her feel so special.
Upon her arrival, she received this personalized not and California pin with the Jayhawk logo.
She gave her an itemized itinerary and sent us off to the Biology department for a meeting with one of the professors. Dr. Berg was very nice to us and spent about an hour discussing the curriculum and opportunities within Biology.
Then Heidi met us for lunch at the Oread. It is a stunning hotel/restaurant on campus.
She took us to the 9th floor for a view of Lawrence and Jayhawk Blvd.
Cat joined us for lunch too! She is a senior from Del Mar and is a KU Student Ambassador. She talked to Taylor all about KU, greek life, studying abroad, etc. It was perfect!
After lunch, Heidi dropped us off for the 1:30 meeting with Dr. Wiles, the Asst. Dean of the Engineering department. What an experience! He shared so much information on the major and I could see Taylor's enthusiasm growing by the minute. The building was spectacular and the lab facilities were state of the art. The credentials of the program were impressive and I could see Taylor really feeling like this is where she belongs! I have a feeling she will be doing a lot more research on this program once home.
We had about an hour until the housing tour, so Heidi picked us back up for a inside look at Allen Fieldhouse. This place is magical! We toured the museum
and even got to go inside! I think I was the most excited about this! I can only imagine what it feels like on game day!
Our last official tour was the housing tour up on Daisy Hill. It is an area with 6 dorm buildings all sharing a centralized quad. We toured a dorm room and then snuck out because we were officially wiped out, but they all looked very nice.
We ended the day on campus with a visit to the Student Union to pick up some KU gear for us and Matt and Allison. We have visited a lot of schools, but both Taylor and I agreed none have come close to this one. The traditions, the buildings, the kindness of the students and staff and everything in between made it a great tour. I'm sure the personalized treatment from Heidi didn't hurt either!!
We picked Andrew up at the business building and headed back to Massachusetts Street for dinner so Taylor could tell him all about it. She had fun going back to his house to watch the KU vs. Indiana basketball game with his friends (she said they were all so nice!), although the unexpected KU loss wasn't the ending they had hoped for!
