first campus visit done

[regentrude]

and a bit underwhelmed. It was all rather generic.

The one hour presentation by the (very nice, very enthusiastic) admissions official contained little information that could not be obtained from the website. The only relevant new-to-me fact was that the school starts using the common app this coming year. Other than that: yes, students learn, it's a campus with lots of opportunities, the weather is nice, students are active in clubs, colleges have x numbers of studuents enrolled - this kind of stuff. I privately asked about homeschoolers and was told that they have a lot of those and do not want any extra documentation.

The take-away from the 90 minute student led campus tour: the guides are very enthusiastic about their school. Campus is very pretty, lots of green. Dorm room looks like a dorm room. Lecture hall looks like a lecture hall. There are small classes and large classes, lectures and recitations - well, it's a university, so that was expected. I asked a few questions and was pleased to hear that students mainly can get into classes as scheduled and rarely are waitlisted, that the retention rate to 2nd year is 81%, that our guide was happy with her academic advisor.

 

I am glad we went, but I am not sure about the value of more of those tours, especially since we would have to fly far to any of the other schools DD is interested in. DD liked it, but it has not affected her opinion of the school much: she'll be happy there, but it is not her top choice.

[Pawz4me]

We're headed to our sixth and seventh campus visits next week with oldest DS.  Far and away the most useful thing we get out of them is an answer to the livability question -- Do you (DS) feel you'd be happy living on this campus for four years?  'Cause that's a very important consideration for both him and us, and not something that can be deduced very accurately from a website or brochure.  For one top college we visited recently, a tour proved that the answer to that question was a surprisingly emphatic "NO!"  Mark that one off the list.  One other top college has resulted in a (not too surprising) "iffy" feel for livability.  Which means he'd need a lot of merit money to outweigh the iffy livability factor.  And a not-so-top college got moved way up the list due to the livability rating.

[FaithManor]

Regentrude, do you mind if we ask which university?

 

I do think that "student tours" can be very "rah, rah, rah" and not particularly down to earth or even helpful. We've done them, but we've always scheduled a private appointment with the financial department, plus had ds sit in on at least two classes as part of the day, and have an interview with a professor in his major. This has given us a much better feel for whether or not the uni would be a good fit or if there were good reasons to bump it up or down the list.  At the next two schools, the ds's will be spending a night on campus in the dorms with the students. I think that may also help.

 

All but the worst of campuses can generally make themselves look exciting for a day so it's good to be cautious.

 

Sorry it wasn't more exciting.

[Vida Winter]

One of the purposes of the visit is to make sure there is no terrible "ick" factor that could not otherwise be determined. A visit may serve to cross a choice off your list right off the bat.

 

Another thing you may consider is visiting a college during a different event (anything but a tour).

[regentrude]

Regentrude, do you mind if we ask which university?

UC Boulder.

 

I do think that "student tours" can be very "rah, rah, rah" and not particularly down to earth or even helpful. We've done them, but we've always scheduled a private appointment with the financial department, plus had ds sit in on at least two classes as part of the day, and have an interview with a professor in his major.

I am not entirely sure what sitting in on classes is accomplishing: if one student were observing my class and another the equivalent, same content, class taught by my colleague, they would come away with diametrally opposed impressions.

What did your kids find helpful about observing classes?

[Starr]

Regentrude, I rather felt the same way on our college visits. Nothing really new was told that wasn't already on the website. And of course everything has spin.  It seems like students like the visit based on liking the student who gave the tour. 

[creekland]

We're headed to our sixth and seventh campus visits next week with oldest DS.  Far and away the most useful thing we get out of them is an answer to the livability question -- Do you (DS) feel you'd be happy living on this campus for four years?  'Cause that's a very important consideration for both him and us, and not something that can be deduced very accurately from a website or brochure.  For one top college we visited recently, a tour proved that the answer to that question was a surprisingly emphatic "NO!"  Mark that one off the list.  One other top college has resulted in a (not too surprising) "iffy" feel for livability.  Which means he'd need a lot of merit money to outweigh the iffy livability factor.  And a not-so-top college got moved way up the list due to the livability rating.

 

:iagree:   The livability factor is a big one for us too.  Granted one CAN live anywhere for just 4 years and make the best of the situation, but when there are oodles of choices - all good for the student if selected correctly to begin with - then why go with a "yucky" or "iffy" one when there are better options?  Money can make the difference, but that's only to be considered at the end in our house.  Iffy ones actually stay on.  Yucky ones drop off before application.  (NOTE:  What is yucky to one student can be absolutely perfect to another - it's a fit deal.)

 

UC Boulder.

 

 

I am not entirely sure what sitting in on classes is accomplishing: if one student were observing my class and another the equivalent, same content, class taught by my colleague, they would come away with diametrally opposed impressions.

What did your kids find helpful about observing classes?

 

I always have my guys sit in on classes when they can and we're purposely not doing visits over the summer with youngest so he can sit in on classes in the fall.  My guys like seeing not only what the prof is presenting, but also the reactions of the other students.  Are they all there on their cell phones?  Are they talking (among themselves or with the class if applicable)?  Are they sleeping?  What sort of atmosphere is it?  Schools differ.  Can they get a few words in with the prof after class?  This often depends upon the busyness of the prof/class and schedule, but usually they can.

 

Again, one can put up with almost anything if it comes down to it, but it does help to rank schools when they have choices.

 

My guys also like to talk with other students (not during class!) to get a feel for the place.  Granted, their perception of the school will depend upon who they talk with, but... there are 3000+ colleges out there, so you have to cut in some way, shape, fashion, or whatever.  As long as the original sifting provided good options within their desired field, who cares what details they opt to use in their cutting process afterward.  It literally can be due to not liking the style of the buildings or something equally, "huh?" if the overall list has good choices.  I want mine to be in the best environment for them - hence - the visits.  We consider them crucial - even if we learn nothing new in the info sessions.

 

As for your first visit... you've now seen "ok."  There are many of these schools.  If you get a visit where you see "wow" or "yuck" you'll start to get a sense of it all.  Even "oks" can differ once you've seen more of them.  The brain does start to naturally rank them or at least assign pros and cons if the ranking isn't easily seen.

 

What's fun/rewarding is seeing your student start to look at places after they've seen a few.  At this stage they can sometimes tell fairly quickly what could work or not, but we're not the type to just leave after a drive by (unless we ALL agree due to something we know won't change - size or something like that) just in case the pros of a place aren't easily seen from the car.

[Nan in Mass]

I know what you mean, Regentrude.  When we visited state university campuses that had nothing particularly unique about them, the same thing happened.  At UMass Amherst, the tour guide emphasized that many of the classes had lots of writing but that there was a class to teach you how to write that everyone had to take, not to worry they came in different interesting topics, and that the writing center was great, that general education classes often were large but that they had grad-student-led study sections, that there were lots of general education requirements but that there was lots to choose from in each catagory, and that the dorms were huge but that there were lots of themed dorms which were fun.  We found it interesting that the tour seemed to focus on the disadvantages.  On the other hand, at least that tour said something more than this is commons, this is a dorm, this is a classroom, this is a great school, I love it here and you will too, which is all the other tours seemed to say unless, as I said, there was something unique about the school.  In that case, the tour ran similar to the UMass tour, with the tour guide talking about the unique bit and then saying not to worry about it and pointing out the advantages.  The small or tiny schools we toured had tour guides that talked about the uniqueness and also pointed out things they loved about the school, their favourite study place or that everybody was really friendly or things about their dorm.  Examples of uniquenesses would be no general education requirements, a required summer term, an honours program, a mentoring system, a coop program, or a lopsided male/female ratio.  If the school you toured didn't do this, then I think it would have to have some other very major advantage for me to encourage my child to consider it, like a particularly good department that was of interest to my child or be much cheaper than other places or allow my child to live at home (providing that was something wanted).  Visiting did let us see how well maintained the grounds and buildings were, how many students were using the library (at one school it was empty!), how many students were socializing or studying in the student center (versus hiding in their rooms), how many said hi to the tour as they passed, and what sort of activities were advertized on the bulletin boards.

 

Nan

[regentrude]

My guys like seeing not only what the prof is presenting, but also the reactions of the other students.  Are they all there on their cell phones?  Are they talking (among themselves or with the class if applicable)?  Are they sleeping?  What sort of atmosphere is it?  Schools differ.  Can they get a few words in with the prof after class?  This often depends upon the busyness of the prof/class and schedule, but usually they can.

I understand that - but being an instructor myself, I know how much that differs within the same school, even within the same department, even between different sections of the same course, EVEN taught by the same instructor. Having taught multiple sections of the same course during the same semester, I have experienced vast differences in student reactions, depending on class dynamic, between my different sections. What can a visiting student take away from seeing one or two classes?

 

 

 

I want mine to be in the best environment for them - hence - the visits.  We consider them crucial - even if we learn nothing new in the info sessions.

 

As for your first visit... you've now seen "ok."  There are many of these schools.  If you get a visit where you see "wow" or "yuck" you'll start to get a sense of it all.  Even "oks" can differ once you've seen more of them. ...

Oh, with respect to livability and campus environment, it was WOW!!! If environment and location and campus climate were the sole criteria, Boulder would be on top of the list. We spent an entire week in town, explored the town, went rock climbing, to the Shakespeare festival- it was fabulous!

The only drawback is the size of the school.

The factor that makes it not-top-of-the-list is the raw academics: the lack of selectivity, the test score profile of incoming students, and the resulting level of coursework that will have to be expected (which DH and I can judge, since we are both college instructors in the field she intends to study, ata a comparable state school). But *this* is something we see from the data available online (and talking to colleagues), not something one could find out through a campus visit.

 

 

 

What's fun/rewarding is seeing your student start to look at places after they've seen a few.  At this stage they can sometimes tell fairly quickly what could work or not, but we're not the type to just leave after a drive by (unless we ALL agree due to something we know won't change - size or something like that) just in case the pros of a place aren't easily seen from the car.

How DO people manage to visit colleges during the academic year if the parents work and the student takes dual enrollment classes??? We can visit two more schools during summer that are within driving distance, 7 hours one way, but all others involve air travel. I honestly see no way to visit schools in session; both DD and I have classes every day of the week.

How DO you do that if you live in a midwestern town with a two hour drive from the airport, and all the schools are on either coast???

[regentrude]

Examples of uniquenesses would be no general education requirements, a required summer term, an honours program, a mentoring system, a coop program, or a lopsided male/female ratio.

But that would be information that can be obtained more easily from the website that hoping for a tour guide to mention it.

 

 

If the school you toured didn't do this, then I think it would have to have some other very major advantage for me to encourage my child to consider it, like a particularly good department that was of interest to my child

The quality of the department is THE most important factor and the top criterion based on which we have helped DD draw up the list of 20 schools she is considering.

 

or be much cheaper than other places

we will look at that once DD has acceptances or rejections from her dream schools

 

 

or allow my child to live at home (providing that was something wanted).

THAT school is not even in the running, LOL. It's not good for the student to major in the same department where bother her parents teach.

 

 

 

Visiting did let us see how well maintained the grounds and buildings were, how many students were using the library (at one school it was empty!), how many students were socializing or studying in the student center (versus hiding in their rooms), how many said hi to the tour as they passed, and what sort of activities were advertized on the bulletin boards.

Thanks, that makes sense. Just not sure how we pull this off and whether this is worth the hassle.

[FaithManor]

Hi Regentrude,

 

To answer your questions about classes - we pick and choose very carefully. I talk with the administration and make sure the kids are not sitting in on gen-ed classes, but those that are in their majors and we request a PDF of the syllabi for those classes so we can familiarize ourselves with them. I look for certain things in the syllabi - lab work or meaningful projects, types of tests, papers assigned, etc. and I also find out what the student/instructor ratio is for coursework in the major. Red flags - few assignments, mostly multiple choice/graded by computer exams, TA instead of PH.D. doing the bulk of the teaching, etc. We then observe the interaction in the class. Students are engaged and participating or students are texting, sleeping, playing computer games on their laptops, etc. We have the kids speak with the students afterward and ask questions about the major and how well they view their preparation for work in that field. Finding lots of engaged, enthusiastic, well spoken, focused students is good...we've visited one school - so unimpressed were we that I did not even include a visit report here - in which we were hard pressed to find a single student to talk to who didn't act like an immature zombie...seriously, it was obvious these kids came to be entertained or something. The classes we observed were REALLY light on content and some students were sleeping without this being any cause for concern for the professor. The kids talked with the instructors afterward and really, the professors were very unengaged...apparently not caring in the slightest that he/she was speaking with a prospective student seeking admission to his/her department. It seemed that there were very, very few full time faculty and most were adjuncts teaching at more than one uni. This was another red flag for us because their office hours were very irregular, sporadic.

 

It's not perfect, but all one can do in these situations is go with one's impressions.

 

In dd's case, she was looking at either chemistry as a pre-med degree, or nursing. My mother in law is a former professor of nursing so she was in charge of setting up dd's classes to observe. She chose organic chem, a nursing clinicals class, and a medical ethics class. At one of the institutions we looked at, despite having a stellar reputation for the nursing department, she was very concerned about how confused the entire class seemed to be in organic chemistry and discussions afterward with the professor indicated that more than 50% of the class was failing, she was very ALOOF, and almost uninclined to answer any questions about the chem department. At this same institution, mil caught an adjunct nursing instructor teaching a skill DEAD WRONG in the clinicals class, and the error was so bad she went to the department head to talk about it because her conscience would not be silenced. This school went from high on the list to no way will they receive an application.

 

With eldest ds, he is choosing to major in his dad's field. So, dh contacts the uni's and tells them specifically what classes he wants ds to sit in on and then goes with him.

 

At MTU, one of the classes was a group programming course for freshman in which it was obvious that with daddy's home tutoring, ds was way ahead of the other students. Since the class was small, the instructor invited ds to come and join one of the groups and then interacted with him throughout the hour. Ds helped the group he was with solve a programming problem which did not bother this professor one little bit, and the students were very friendly, welcoming, happy to have the input despite the fact that ds was only 16, and genuinely interested in what dh had to say. The majority of them stayed after to talk, loved hearing about opportunities in the business world and the things that dh was up to in his work, and then hung around to see how ds's interview went with the head of the department. Dh did not attend the interview. But, the door was left open so he could hear bits and pieces from the hallway, and he was very pleased with the chair of the department's questions to ds as well as responses to ds's questions. All of it this left a favorable impression that the school and ds were a good fit and especially when he disappeared with a bunch of comp sci students for an hour and returned to happily report they'd been giving him the personal tour of the computer lab facilities as well as sneaking him in to see a research project that they were working on...to us, this was a sign that the students were pretty happy with their school choice. 

 

We helped ds think of thoughtful, enlightening questions to ask before he arrived on campus. He had them on 3x5 cards, and quickly sketched the answers he received on the back side. He will ask those same questions at each campus after computer programming classes or when interviewing in the department and then compare. It may help him rank each institution.

 

Middle ds wants to major in Ecology/Environmental Science. While I am stronger in biological sciences than dh, it's not necessarily my comfort zone. But, my cousin is a PH.D researcher at U of MN and is the world's foremost expert on Great Lakes ecology and conservation. She and ds have been emailing back and forth, and she's been giving advice on what to look for in a department, questions to ask, red flags to look for when on campus, in classes, etc., and she's helped ds rethink his short list because she has the insider scoop and has sat on grad school admission's boards at five different top 50 uni's in the past. She has given us valuable insights, and it caused some uni's to be dropped who are nationally ranked, and added some that are regional BUT internationally known specifically for Ecology/Environmental Science, and research opportunities for undergrads. She told us what classes to observe and why. So, I think that's really going to help a lot. 

 

Youngest son is only 13 and we haven't had to get into it yet. However, he'll likely major in math and aerospace engineering. Since dh's second major was mathematics, and a dear, dear friend of ours works for Raytheon as an aerospace engineer for NASA, I think we'll be able to set up a good weeding out process for him as well.

 

But, again, it's no the general touring that works so much, and it's definitely not the usual "talk to whatever professor" or sit in on some freshman gen-ed class, etc. that works. If left to the administration, they'll go very general and glitz it up. It's the self-made, call and say "I want to see this, this, and this, and talk to this and that person" tour that has been the insightful ones. In the case of Michigan Technological, they were able to sign us up on a student tour day so we got the big tour of everything, plus the free lunches in the cafeteria, etc., but they were also more than willing to get ds in on the right classes and talking to the right people during the same trip. That's not always easy with a big uni. But, tech is a smaller nationally ranked school and able to make it happen. With a nine hour drive one way, we would not have gone on a student tour day if they had been unable to accommodate the other requests, we would have waited for them to set the appointments and skipped the glitz. Funny thing is, being a nerdy engineering school, their version of "glamor up to woo students" was so much less than some of the other schools that it was almost comical! We were fine with that...show us your true colors, please!

 

One reason that we've taken this approach is probably because I was a piano performance major and checking out schools for that is just an entirely different process from what most students encounter. Lessons and masterclasses with professors, auditions, interviews, extensive questioning by department heads, etc. So my experience in choosing one school over another was a very detailed, extensive process. It never occurred to me to do it differently for our kids. Believe me, we've had more than one professor shocked by the level of questioning, observation, and information seeking we've pursued on campus. They aren't used to it though most have been pretty enthusiastic towards us. I just think that many kids choose schools based exclusively on financial grounds, or the fact that they know other people who have gone there, or it's close by, or it's the state flagship and they just knew they'd always go there and root for the home team, or their parents are alumni, or all the glitz, glamor, facilities, and fun-fun. I do think that these schools then market themselves to the bulk of their applicants and the bulk of their applicants probably aren't always asking the right questions, looking in the right direction, or curious about the specifics of their major - hence the changing majors that happens sooooo often with college freshman and sophomores. But, those student tours are definitely going to have this kind of student in mind, not the more thoughtful one and especially at the big state schools, at least this has been my experience. I wonder if student tours are very different at small LAC's, and uni's...especially those that are hyper specialized in specific fields.

 

It's the best we can do and far from perfect. But, we don't have the time to go spend a week on every campus, living there, sitting in a full freshman class schedule, eating lunch with the dean, leaving the kids in the dorms for several nights, etc.

 

If your dd isn't majoring in physics or a related field, maybe it would be helpful to find someone with extensive knowledge in her intended major to help you determine the best way to customize a college visit. I do think it behooves everyone to try very hard to go beyond just the standard student tour which is 99% of the time, nothing more than the a cheerleading session without any real substance. The other consideration is to look outside the major in terms of fit and specific criteria you have besides the quality of the program. "In addition to reputation of the program, dd feels she would most enjoy her college experience if...." then make a simple list...rural vs. urban, or equestrian facilities close by and reasonably priced hourly rates, or....I have known more than one 4-H kid that was determined to not only have an excellent department for their major, but to also be close to a horse! If you can have both, that's a real blessing.

 

Beyond that, all I can say if I have weird kids! They are very engaged in this process, more than happy to conduct a lot of individual research, and have given a LOT of thought to what they want from their colleges. I think that has helped dh and I immensely in figuring out how to go about using campus visits to weed and rank institutions.

 

That said, you are a professor, much more qualified than we are to evaluate schools. So, this post probably isn't all that helpful. But, I do hope that future college visits are more insightful for you and your daughter.

 

Wishing you success in the hunt,

Faith

[JennW in SoCal]

How DO people manage to visit colleges during the academic year if the parents work and the student takes dual enrollment classes??? We can visit two more schools during summer that are within driving distance, 7 hours one way, but all others involve air travel. I honestly see no way to visit schools in session; both DD and I have classes every day of the week.

How DO you do that if you live in a midwestern town with a two hour drive from the airport, and all the schools are on either coast???

 

We visited a handful campus tours over spring break, visiting 3 or 4 that were in a geographic cluster.  The other 3 or 4 we visited during the summer, but again it was maybe at most a 5 day excursion with all the schools being within driving distance of one another.   My ds wound up at the only school we did not visit until after the acceptances came in, but spending a day on the campus at that point sealed the deal for him. His gut reaction, the way he felt about that campus based off of one day sitting in on classes and chatting with a professor, hasn't changed after a year.

 

The visits serve different needs for different families.  And they all are exactly the same sales pitch with the same perky tour guides.  But many high school students have no concept of what a college is like, so it is worthwhile for them to tour several different types of colleges.  It is certainly not the case for your dd.  Of course you can find much of what you want to know about a college on line, and it may be better in your case just to wait and visit the colleges which have accepted your dd during spring break next year.  

 

The best reason to visit a campus, to sit on classes and hang out at lunch, is to get a sense of the "vibe" of the campus.  Are the students friendly, engaged in classes?  Are the students more academic or more interested in the sports and social aspects of college life?  Are the professors teaching classes and interacting with students?  Or is there a gulf between the two?  Of course it seems unfair to judge based off of one day, but it seems, based on my experiences, to be sufficient to get a good sense of whether the campus "fits".  

[regentrude]

Faith, thank you SO much for your long thoughtful reply. It was very helpful to read about your process.

I am just afraid that our time constrains and location will not permit us to visit more than two other schools that are in 7 hour driving range; no way can we get away during the semester for a visit to an in session school that involves air travel.

 

 

If your dd isn't majoring in physics or a related field, maybe it would be helpful to find someone with extensive knowledge in her intended major to help you determine the best way to customize a college visit.

She IS planning to major in physics, so narrowing down schools based on the academic quality of the department was something DH has been able to do from afar. He also has colleagues in many of the places and first hand knowledge about the strength of the reserach program.

 

 

The other consideration is to look outside the major in terms of fit and specific criteria you have besides the quality of the program. "In addition to reputation of the program, dd feels she would most enjoy her college experience if...." then make a simple list...rural vs. urban, or equestrian facilities close by and reasonably priced hourly rates, or....I have known more than one 4-H kid that was determined to not only have an excellent department for their major, but to also be close to a horse! If you can have both, that's a real blessing.

 

Being systematically minded, DD has created an excel spreadsheet with columns for admissions issues (such as deadlines or extra hoops for homeschoolers- those are the first to get kicked off the list), school size, town size, environment (mountains? rock climbing?) and is in the process of thinking of more criteria to put in.

She wants a smaller school; a few big state schools are still on the list as backups, but 45,000 students is too large, so that one will most likely go as well. She would enjoy a big city like Chicago, but be fine with a smaller city of 100,000+ population (just not under 20,000, like our home town).

First and formeost, she wants to be at a school where her stats do put her among the top students, but not at the very top: she wants enough "better" students so teh coursework is challenging because, as she put it yesterday, she considers the point of college to have the opporunity to stretch intellectually. She does not wish to be in a school where she would be either easily on the very top or struggling to hang on by her fingernails if she gets admitted.

She also wants a school with a strong humanities presence, even though she wants to major in physics, because that alters the feel of the school (Places like CalTech and MIT which clearly have the very top academic program would not be a good match and she is not even going to apply)

 

 

That said, you are a professor, much more qualified than we are to evaluate schools. So, this post probably isn't all that helpful.

Faith, it was VERY helpful! Thank you sop much for taking the time for such a thorough response.

[Kareni]

 

How DO people manage to visit colleges during the academic year if the parents work and the student takes dual enrollment classes??? We can visit two more schools during summer that are within driving distance, 7 hours one way, but all others involve air travel. I honestly see no way to visit schools in session; both DD and I have classes every day of the week.

 

 

My daughter visited a number of campuses independently as a 12th grader.  The community college at which she took several classes started in late September, so she was able to visit a campus (using Amtrak) that had an earlier start.  Another visit was accomplished over President's Day weekend when her campus was not in session but the college of interest did have classes.  She flew to another college's scholarship weekend; I can't recall if she missed any community college classes on that occasion.  She also flew to visit two other colleges during her spring break (as the other colleges were in session at that time).  She used Amtrak to get from one campus to the other.  Her applications were already in during that last visit, but it gave her the opportunity to visit both campuses while classes were in session and to stay in the dorms.  That visit helped solidify her first choice.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[FaithManor]

Regentrude,

 

I think your daughter has a great list. She has LOTS of criteria to help her weed out the ones that clearly will not be a good fit.

 

It's tough, I know, but I think your dd sounds like she has a great head on her shoulders and a clear picture of what will work for her, so it's all going to work out well regardless of how many opportunities there are to visit campuses.

 

 

[creekland]

I understand that - but being an instructor myself, I know how much that differs within the same school, even within the same department, even between different sections of the same course, EVEN taught by the same instructor. Having taught multiple sections of the same course during the same semester, I have experienced vast differences in student reactions, depending on class dynamic, between my different sections. What can a visiting student take away from seeing one or two classes?

 

I know what you're saying as the same thing happens even in high school classes between sections, but again, that's kind of just luck of the draw and one of the things my guys have used as criteria for ranking.  Like Faith mentioned, we don't go for freshman level classes, but classes in the desired major.

 

 

Oh, with respect to livability and campus environment, it was WOW!!! If environment and location and campus climate were the sole criteria, Boulder would be on top of the list. We spent an entire week in town, explored the town, went rock climbing, to the Shakespeare festival- it was fabulous!

The only drawback is the size of the school.

The factor that makes it not-top-of-the-list is the raw academics: the lack of selectivity, the test score profile of incoming students, and the resulting level of coursework that will have to be expected (which DH and I can judge, since we are both college instructors in the field she intends to study, ata a comparable state school). But *this* is something we see from the data available online (and talking to colleagues), not something one could find out through a campus visit.

 

This feeling is exactly what I was talking about with pros and cons.  Middle son (especially) also had schools that seemed really great as per his criteria (fit), but had a drawback or two.  Eventually he got his schools ranked and the school he chose ended up being at the top of his list.  That happened to oldest too, though he had fewer schools he was considering.  I'm happy to know they both got their first choices.

 

How DO people manage to visit colleges during the academic year if the parents work and the student takes dual enrollment classes??? We can visit two more schools during summer that are within driving distance, 7 hours one way, but all others involve air travel. I honestly see no way to visit schools in session; both DD and I have classes every day of the week.

How DO you do that if you live in a midwestern town with a two hour drive from the airport, and all the schools are on either coast???

 

Visits are tough during the school year, esp when the student is taking classes.  Our school lets kids off for college visits, so youngest will be taking one week off for a whirlwind southern tour probably in Oct - timed around a school break here so he misses one less day of school at least.  If we opt to visit the Hawaii schools, that will mean missing another week in Feb - again - timed around a school visit.  My older two who were taking cc classes talked with their profs ahead of time and had their blessing when they went on visits.  It helped that I worked part time and can opt not to work.  Hubby works from home and can also set his own schedule as long as it doesn't interfere with important meetings (so we work around those).  It does end up that some schools (including middle son's choice) don't get visited until after acceptance and for both of my guys there were a couple of schools that never got a visit as they already liked affordable schools they had been accepted to better (on paper).

 

My suggestion is to look carefully at schedules (yours and the school's) and prioritize visits carefully knowing you won't get to all of them.  Some can, indeed, be visited after acceptances.

 

Being systematically minded, DD has created an excel spreadsheet with columns for admissions issues (such as deadlines or extra hoops for homeschoolers- those are the first to get kicked off the list), school size, town size, environment (mountains? rock climbing?) and is in the process of thinking of more criteria to put in.

She wants a smaller school; a few big state schools are still on the list as backups, but 45,000 students is too large, so that one will most likely go as well. She would enjoy a big city like Chicago, but be fine with a smaller city of 100,000+ population (just not under 20,000, like our home town).

First and formeost, she wants to be at a school where her stats do put her among the top students, but not at the very top: she wants enough "better" students so teh coursework is challenging because, as she put it yesterday, she considers the point of college to have the opporunity to stretch intellectually. She does not wish to be in a school where she would be either easily on the very top or struggling to hang on by her fingernails if she gets admitted.

She also wants a school with a strong humanities presence, even though she wants to major in physics, because that alters the feel of the school (Places like CalTech and MIT which clearly have the very top academic program would not be a good match and she is not even going to apply)

 

It sounds like she's doing great!  I wish her well with her applications and it will REALLY surprise me if she doesn't do well even at highly selective schools.

[Nan in Mass]

But that would be information that can be obtained more easily from the website that hoping for a tour guide to mention it.

 

 

The quality of the department is THE most important factor and the top criterion based on which we have helped DD draw up the list of 20 schools she is considering.

we will look at that once DD has acceptances or rejections from her dream schools

 

THAT school is not even in the running, LOL. It's not good for the student to major in the same department where bother her parents teach.

 

 

 

Thanks, that makes sense. Just not sure how we pull this off and whether this is worth the hassle.

 

An example of information the tourguide provided about something unique regarding a school with a lopsided boy/girl ratio was when the tour guide said that the boy/girl ratio was actually more even than it seemed because a lot of the geekier guys did nothing but play video games in their rooms, evening the playing field for the guys that were interested in socializing.  That statement gave us quite a lot of information lol.  Was it important information?  Well... I guess that depends on who you are...

 

Are visits worth the hassle?  I don't know.  We had the same problem you are having with mixing visiting with community college classes despite my not working and us having lots of colleges that can be visited, there and back again, in one day.  Not only did it take time, but it was upsottling.  I did the visits for the middle one thus:  We took a week during junior year and devoted a few afternoons of it to college visits.  We ignored the question of whether my son would really want to go to the college and visited the closest ones  in catagories - a big public school, a small public school, an alternativ-y LAC, a more conventional private LAC, one in the city, one in the middle of nowhere, etc.  And we went to the open house at his first choice.  It wasn't a perfect way to do things but since there was a high chance of my son going to his first choice, it worked.  We researched the reputation of schools very like his first choice as well.  Having visited schools, any schools, made it easier to assess the first choice one.

 

Our oldest looked at the middle one's first choice and said he might be willing to go there.  Other schools weren't an option due to major and me having eliminated the other equivalent, so we didn't visit other places.  He went to an open house and decided to apply.

 

The youngest tagged along when the middle one was visiting colleges, so when I suggested he do the same, he said he'd already done that and refused.  He had visited his first choice for a non-college event earlier and made the rest of his choice based on what students there said.  This worked better than it sounds like it might - the students volunteered information on the reputation of the departments, whether they could get their classes, etc., and my son didn't just ask whether there was a Starbucks nearby and whether the food was good.  The website info looked good to me.  Once we started telling people that our son was interested in the school, we discovered some of the more interesting people we know had gone there and recommended it.  He had previously visited two other schools on the list of seven to which he applied.  We decided that he'd have to visit the others if he was accepted.  He was, but he was also accepted to his first choice and he caught the flu, which reeked havock with his cc classes, so in the end, he just stuck with his first choice.  If he hadn't previously visited it and if there hadn't been good solid academic reasons for it being the first choice, I would probably have insisted he visit at least his second choice before turning anybody down.

 

Mostly, my son chose by the information that was available on the website and used the open house to confirm that information and to look for dust (and people) in the corners and talk to other students.  In his case, the two matched well.  I was able to read between the lines and eliminate one of the equivalent schools based on the website, but I had to compare two websites and notice what WASN'T on the undesirable school's website and dig deeper into the website into the "for the current students" section or "for the parents of current students" section in order to do that.  We didn't bother visiting.  Later, we confirmed my suspicions about the school by talking to other freshman who HAD visited and compared the two schools.  So - using the info on the website worked for us but only because I knew what I was doing.  And because we didn't have many choices for my son's major.

 

I think when you have a student who is going to a LAC or university without knowing their major, then atmousphere becomes much more important and visiting to determine the atmousphere becomes much more valuable.  If you are choosing by reputation of department, and your parents are able to assess that by talking to colleagues (sp?), then it may be that visiting is not as valuable, except to confirm that the other details on the website are as advertised.  Your daughter grew up on a campus so visiting other college campuses might be valuable to help her see how different they can be, or it might well not be worth the trouble, if she is choosing only by reputation of department and one or two other things like size of school and city.  It might be sort of like the sailboat problem - If I had a friend who had never been sailing before and I invited that friend to sail to Africa with me, I would make sure I at least took that friend for a weekend sail first, in case sailing on my boat turned out to be something she hated, whereas, if my friend had sailed all her life, I would just describe the boat and the trip and know what she was getting into.  I'd also assume that if things turned out not to be exactly as she imagined them, she would cope.

 

Not sure how helpful any of that is.  Finding time to visit is definately a problem. 

 

Nan

[regentrude]

Go when the dual enrollment class is not in session, during those few days when you have a holiday and the prospective schools don't.  Some schools have sessions in early Jan where a few very short classes are going on, and that may be a good time to visit if none better. Here in NY, it seems that Regent's Week in January is used for farther away college visits, as well as the last week in Aug, first in Sept before DE classes start, but while other colleges are in session. In the Spring, we've had invites to Sat open houses so no classes need to be missed. DE classes here allow 3 absences per semester. Usually we use those for sports and music competitions, but some calendar years we can get one for something else.

Thanks. We start August 19, before any of the schools we are interested in. (Anybody else start this early?) Have to check our early January. Even for Saturday visits DD would have to miss her Friday afternoon class; we are two hours from the airport. There is no such thing as "excused absences"; you can talk to the professor, but missing class is not good, especially since this is a class where the professor lectures on the chalkboard. Can be done if needed, but I know she'd rather not.

Spring break may be the best chance if it is not overlapping with theirs - which means she'll do any further visits *after* she has an acceptance. It might be more senibsle this way anyway, so we do not have to waste time and money flying across the country to schools where she does not end up getting in.

[8filltheheart]

I didn't read the other replies, but the only value we have ever gotten from campus visits is visiting w/the dean of a dept or one of the professors from the dept.   It is easier to get a feel for how a dept functions, the opportunities for your individual student, etc based on how they engage with the student and the types of questions they ask and the the interest they show.

 

When we took our oldest ds to meet the dept rep at the university he ended up attending, we learned that the chemE dept had a dedicated lab just for undergrads which was amazing and they spent huge amts of time on actually dealing with mini-type projects or constructing projects vs. a mostly textbook approach, etc.    It also gave him the opportunity to discuss under grad research (he ended up working on this professor's research as an intern) and their 5 yr masters program.

 

But, just campus tours......yeah, we have found that they are generally a waste time.

[Candid]

Thanks. We start August 19, before any of the schools we are interested in. (Anybody else start this early?) Have to check our early January. Even for Saturday visits DD would have to miss her Friday afternoon class; we are two hours from the airport. There is no such thing as "excused absences"; you can talk to the professor, but missing class is not good, especially since this is a class where the professor lectures on the chalkboard. Can be done if needed, but I know she'd rather not.

 

 

Doesn't her program have a fall break and spring break? Those won't necessarrily line up with other campuses so check those out. 

 

 

 

Spring break may be the best chance if it is not overlapping with theirs - which means she'll do any further visits *after* she has an acceptance. It might be more senibsle this way anyway, so we do not have to waste time and money flying across the country to schools where she does not end up getting in.

 With some schools this will be a fine policy, but there are schools that gauge interest by visits. You need to learn which schools those are and if possible visit. 

[Nan in Mass]

A few more thoughts -

 

Some colleges have accepted student days. These are like the fall open houses but in the spring, for accepted students. Not that that helps you any with the timing...

 

8's post reminded me that at the open houses we went to, there was always an opportunity to visit informally with students in your major. This is how my sons found out about the open labs/workshops, how fluent in English the profs were, how hard it was to get hold of the profs, how hard it was to schedule the classes you need, how well the course structure really works, about the year-long group projects, and other department-specific things. They also asked about athletics, since none of the schools offered their particular type. The information my sons received was definately less rehearsed than the information from the tour guide, who has had plenty of time to work out smoother answers to the typical questions. Youngest's school had lots of these older students available in situations that made it very easy to talk to them one-on-one, without the rest of the group. Older ones' school didn't do quite such a good job with the one-to-one part, but they still had plenty of ordinary non-tour-guide students floating around looking available for questions. Both schools had representatives at other events, so that made another opportunity to ask this sort of question. This might have been a result of the unique things about these particular school, though? Maybe? A school like our local state school wouldn't expect future students to have so many questions about the programs. We didn't go to any other open houses, so I don't know. I went to two rather different state flagship universities. I'm not sure if I could have guessed how different they would be from the websites, but I don't think I could have guessed from a tour, either. Some things, yes, perhaps, like the huge greek presence, but although I would have seen that from the tour, I wouldn't necessarily have known the implications of that until I was living at the school. This is something that an overnight might have shown me? Or might not. A presentation by the specific department might have shown me other differences, and this is something you already have insight into. For example, in one department, tests were all scaled. In another, there was an elimination class spring semester of senior year that was only offered spring semester - ouch. The way the different programs are structured matters. I'm not sure how much of that sort of information is available on the website, but you have access to that already.

 

How familiar is your daughter with other areas of the US? Is she going to be bothered by the rather large cultural differences between some of the regions? Or weather? My sister's roommate was from Cal. and had never lived with snow. The whole first winter, whenever she didn't think carefully about placing her feet, she'd stride out automatically and fall. My sister remembers her sitting on the sidewalk between classes sobbing because she was so tired of not being able to walk normally. She loved the school and she adjusted to winter, but if she'd been facing other challenges, it might have been the last straw. Your daughter won't have that problem, but you might want to think about how she is going to manage with no horses. She's used to lots of body contact, taking care of living things, being outside, and a high level of physical motion and excersize. If she goes to a city school, she may discover she loves being in the city but that she can't adjust to no horses. We know animal-loving students who had a seriously difficult time adjusting to college, sometimes difficult enough that they went home for a semester or two before trying again. And my oldest had a terrible time leaving his dog. It was pretty horrible and if he hadn't been older and very determined, I'm not sure he would have adjusted. Some universities have an agricultural school, barns, and horses, and students can ride. That might be a good question to ask? Not that you have to visit to ask it. But you've probably already thought of all that already.

 

Nan

[Gwen in VA]

Over the years with various kids I've looked at LOTS of colleges. Mostly they all see as expected -- the visit merely supported the impression from the website.

 

Exceptions --

1) The time the admissions person said the college was like Boston baked beans, with lots of beans (students) and few pieces of ham (professors). The students were expected to learn mostly from the other students and the professors would NOT be a meaningful part of their college experience. My kids did not apply to that school!

 

2) The large party-reputation school that bragged about its absolute zero-tolerance policy on alcohol during the admissions talk. During our tour, we passed a party with kegs of beer and lots of drunk guys. The tour guide was embarrassed and said that she was sure it would be shut down very soon. 45 minutes later, when we walked back, the drinking was still in full force. I understand that drinking will occur on every college campus, but I did NOT appreciate being lied to by the admissions people about zero tolerance!

 

3) The college where the prof spent an hour talking with my kid, met us for lunch, and gave us an in-depth tour of his department. Unsurprisingly that school is now her #1 top choice!

 

4) The college where the tour guide AND the admissions counselor spent so much time talking about partying that we left the tour early!

 

5) On accepted students' day, one prof discovered that my kid and he had a common research interest. His conversation with her was what caused her to accept the school, and two years after graduation they are still in touch! (He really did open all of the doors that he told her he would on that accepted students' day!)

 

So for us college tours have shifted my kids' ranking of colleges, and a BAD tour can cause one to drop of completely. A great talk with a professor can make a world of difference when considering colleges!

 

But yes, mostly tours just support the online impression the schools give.

[regentrude]

One other thought..some of the colleges have admissions reps come to your area with a presentation during the regular school year. For us, that involves traveling to NYC, but that is shorter than going to the midwest or West Coast.

We have attended such a session in the city two hours away. Not very informative; certainly not a way to judge the school climate.

[regentrude]

Doesn't her program have a fall break and spring break? Those won't necessarrily line up with other campuses so check those out.

No fall break until Thanksgiving week.

I mentioned I'll check out Spring brea - but that will be too late to decide before applications.

 

 

With some schools this will be a fine policy, but there are schools that gauge interest by visits. You need to learn which schools those are and if possible visit.

Is that so? From what I read on these boards, I was under the impression that most of the *really* selective schools don't give a hoot whether you visit them multiple times. How can I find out whether a school is swayed by "demonstration of interest"?

[FaithManor]

Over the years with various kids I've looked at LOTS of colleges. Mostly they all see as expected -- the visit merely supported the impression from the website.

 

Exceptions --

1) The time the admissions person said the college was like Boston baked beans, with lots of beans (students) and few pieces of ham (professors). The students were expected to learn mostly from the other students and the professors would NOT be a meaningful part of their college experience. My kids did not apply to that school! YIKES! This would not be an encouragement to continue the tour. On the other hand, very insightful information to have!!!!

 

2) The large party-reputation school that bragged about its absolute zero-tolerance policy on alcohol during the admissions talk. During our tour, we passed a party with kegs of beer and lots of drunk guys. The tour guide was embarrassed and said that she was sure it would be shut down very soon. 45 minutes later, when we walked back, the drinking was still in full force. I understand that drinking will occur on every college campus, but I did NOT appreciate being lied to by the admissions people about zero tolerance!

Oh yes, my brother witnessed this on his first college visit. There was a young person people passed out drunk in a pool of his own vomit on the steps of one of the dorms. The admin conducting the tour noticed that the wallet of the young man had fallen out of his pocket, so he reached down, picked it up, thumbed through it, gave my brother the student's lunch ticket and a ten dollar bill, and said, "serves him right". My brother refused to take these items. The Admin thought that was odd! :huh:  But, proceeded on, never calling campus security, or 911 to help the boy...just left him laying there. It did not leave a favorable impression of the institution.

 

3) The college where the prof spent an hour talking with my kid, met us for lunch, and gave us an in-depth tour of his department. Unsurprisingly that school is now her #1 top choice!

Awesome!

4) The college where the tour guide AND the admissions counselor spent so much time talking about partying that we left the tour early!

 

5) On accepted students' day, one prof discovered that my kid and he had a common research interest. His conversation with her was what caused her to accept the school, and two years after graduation they are still in touch! (He really did open all of the doors that he told her he would on that accepted students' day!)

 

So for us college tours have shifted my kids' ranking of colleges, and a BAD tour can cause one to drop of completely. A great talk with a professor can make a world of difference when considering colleges!

 

But yes, mostly tours just support the online impression the schools give.

 

If time and money were not a consideration (ha, ha, ha), just going and spontaneously hanging around campus, chilling at the library, and loitering in the back of lecture halls would be my preference for getting to know a college. But, alas, loitering from nine hours away just isn't feasible! :)

[regentrude]

How familiar is your daughter with other areas of the US? Is she going to be bothered by the rather large cultural differences between some of the regions? Or weather?

Good question. We have traveled quite a bit, and she is *yearning* to be in a culturally different area - not the rural conservative culturally deprived Midwestern town we live in. We get snow in our state, not a lot, but some, and when we lived in Germany we experienced a very snowy winter. I don't think she'd be botheered by snow. She does not want the very far North because of dark winters, and she does not want to live in an exceedingly warm/humid climate. None of the schools on her list had to be eliminated because of region.

 

 

Your daughter won't have that problem, but you might want to think about how she is going to manage with no horses. She's used to lots of body contact, taking care of living things, being outside, and a high level of physical motion and excersize. If she goes to a city school, she may discover she loves being in the city but that she can't adjust to no horses.

Thank you for this thought. We have discussed this. She likes riding, but does not have a strong emotional attachment to horses in general. If the school has equestrian facilities available it is a nice bonus, but not something she was looking at. But it is a great suggestion to add that as one of the items to her spreadsheet, she might want to check.

I know students who take her horse to college; we just had dinner with a young klady who dragged her horse to undergrad and grad school, from Virginia to California. DD was adamant that she would NOT want to own a horse and have it accompany her.

[FaithManor]

http://www.nacacnet.org/research/PublicationsResources/Marketplace/Documents/RTPBrief_Factors.pdf

 

I don't know much about this, but if their statistics are to be believed, it appears that 22-25% of colleges do have a ranking criteria that includes demonstrated interest. That said, it does not necessarily appear to be high on the list of priorities for selective schools, not in comparison to high stats and extracurriculars.

 

But, Regentrude, college visits aren't the only way to demonstrate interest. When your dd comes up with a short list of the schools she considers to be her favorites, email is a great way to do it. Ds sends an email to either admission's department, or the professor he interviewed with at MTU about once per quarter. They know he lives 9 hours away...it's blatantly obvious we aren't showing up to hoot for the hockey team every Friday night. It's just not possible. However, they have indicated more than once that they are impressed with the continued communication, and he oft times receives something like this, "Hey C, if you happen to be in the neighborhood, stop by the admin department, we've got some free passes to the musical, or the hockey game, or the whatever set aside for you." He always responds promptly with a "Thank you very much. I'm currently at home studying for AP's, and working on my extra curriculars so I won't be able to get there any time soon, but I sure do appreciate your continued interest in me," or something similar.  He and the prof email about computer programming geek stuff. It's a great connection to have.

 

I don't want him to put all of his eggs in one basket, so to speak, so after our next round of college visits, he'll be cultivating that type of thing with other good schools if he can.

 

Even if she never gets a personal response, many colleges do keep a file with print-outs of the email communications they have received from each student. They trot that out when it comes time to sit down and argue with each other over why kid A should get a spot over kid B because they can glean details about the student from these personal communications.

 

Also, check out facebook. I don't have an account and neither does ds so I can't confirm this specifically, but I've heard through the mommy grapevine that some colleges have admins that chat on facebook with potential students. That would be another way to demonstrate interest from a long distance.

[Wildcat]

No fall break until Thanksgiving week.

I mentioned I'll check out Spring brea - but that will be too late to decide before applications.

 

 

Is that so? From what I read on these boards, I was under the impression that most of the *really* selective schools don't give a hoot whether you visit them multiple times. How can I find out whether a school is swayed by "demonstration of interest"?

 

I peeked at the schools' Facebook accounts and CollegeBoard for that info--- I relied on info from others who have visited. Reddit also has subforums for some schools (I just learned that!) Once I realized the schools ds was interested in didn't care if we visited, we went on informal tours... read we just went and didn't tell anyone. We did stop in the office to ask for campus maps and were actually offered tours on the spot at two schools. Some schools also post that info on their websites. I think it is Duke (?) that says outright they don't keep track of who visits.

 

We didn't bother having ds sit in on any classes.... we already knew enough about the schools' programs to know if they would be good or not for his major--- we didn't see any value in sitting in on one or two classes. We also didn't see the value in meeting with financial people (we knew where we stood), and we didn't see any value in meeting with department heads, etc, as our ds isn't out to 'make a name' for himself in his field (programming), and isn't looking for research opportunities. We figured that we would tour schools on our time and *if* ds put the school on his short list, we would visit again (or just he would) and THEN meet with those who we felt would be helpful. Mostly, the tours served a purpose of "does he like the campus and would he be happy there". Obviously, if ds was interested in research, personal meetings would have been beneficial.

 

We went on a total of two official tours.... neither one was 'worth' it. We got more out of our visits by just walking around campus on our own. We got a vibe for the school, and that is what led ds to choose his school. We already knew the schools he had on his short list were comparable, and we knew how they differed, so it was more of a 'where does he feel at home' decision. Granted, he wasn't looking at reaches, but they were all good fits for him where he would be challenged but not overwhelmed, and they were all highly regarded in his chosen field of study. 

 

I can't help with finding the time to visit. We were in the same spot as you with ds' DE classes, but he only wanted schools within a 6-hour radius (by car), so we were fortunate in that we didn't have to travel far, so everything worked out. 

[Kathy in Richmond]

Is that so? From what I read on these boards, I was under the impression that most of the *really* selective schools don't give a hoot whether you visit them multiple times. How can I find out whether a school is swayed by "demonstration of interest"?

 

Google "college name" + "Common Data Set". For example, here is Stanford's most recent CDS.

 

Look for section C7 under the subtitle "First-time, first-year freshman admission". You'll find a handy chart of admission factors rated as either Very Important, Important, Considered, or Not Considered. One of the factors is "level of applicant interest."

 

You can see that, for example, Stanford does NOT consider the student's interest level. That's the case for *most* of the really selective schools.

 

[Wildcat]

http://www.nacacnet.org/research/PublicationsResources/Marketplace/Documents/RTPBrief_Factors.pdf

 

I don't know much about this, but if their statistics are to be believed, it appears that 22-25% of colleges do have a ranking criteria that includes demonstrated interest. That said, it does not necessarily appear to be high on the list of priorities for selective schools, not in comparison to high stats and extracurriculars.

 

But, Regentrude, college visits aren't the only way to demonstrate interest. When your dd comes up with a short list of the schools she considers to be her favorites, email is a great way to do it. Ds sends an email to either admission's department, or the professor he interviewed with at MTU about once per quarter. They know he lives 9 hours away...it's blatantly obvious we aren't showing up to hoot for the hockey team every Friday night. It's just not possible. However, they have indicated more than once that they are impressed with the continued communication, and he oft times receives something like this, "Hey C, if you happen to be in the neighborhood, stop by the admin department, we've got some free passes to the musical, or the hockey game, or the whatever set aside for you." He always responds promptly with a "Thank you very much. I'm currently at home studying for AP's, and working on my extra curriculars so I won't be able to get there any time soon, but I sure do appreciate your continued interest in me," or something similar.  He and the prof email about computer programming geek stuff. It's a great connection to have.

 

I don't want him to put all of his eggs in one basket, so to speak, so after our next round of college visits, he'll be cultivating that type of thing with other good schools if he can.

 

Even if she never gets a personal response, many colleges do keep a file with print-outs of the email communications they have received from each student. They trot that out when it comes time to sit down and argue with each other over why kid A should get a spot over kid B because they can glean details about the student from these personal communications.

 

Also, check out facebook. I don't have an account and neither does ds so I can't confirm this specifically, but I've heard through the mommy grapevine that some colleges have admins that chat on facebook with potential students. That would be another way to demonstrate interest from a long distance.

 

Faith posted while I was re-writing and correcting typos (coffee hasn't kicked in yet!). Faith, once again, your post is very informative!

 

Regentrude, schools know the difficulties in visiting when distance is involved. The son of a friend of ours lived in Colorado and is now at Brown U., never having visited. He demonstrated interest by joining Facebook accounts, Twitter, and some other things that interested/potential students can chat on. I believe he also contacted a prof or dept head and peppered him/her with questions (good ones, not time wasters) and *that* demonstrated interest. 

 

Again, (while I hate to say it) try Facebook. The schools have public accounts, but joining in conversations is a great way to show interest. I'm sure schools recieve a lot of "I am interested in your school but can't visit because" comments. It doesn't help with the 'do I like this campus' question, but it could help whittle down the in-person visit list if you can avoid some visits until after acceptances go out.

[regentrude]

Thank you all so much for the helpful suggestions. I'll pass them on to DD.

[Candid]

Is that so? From what I read on these boards, I was under the impression that most of the *really* selective schools don't give a hoot whether you visit them multiple times. How can I find out whether a school is swayed by "demonstration of interest"?

 

I think it is a much more school by school thing. 

 

Here's a recent article about admissions, showing at least one school making close decisions by using the visit calculus. (And that brings up another factor, some kids might glide in no matter what, but others will be on some edge and the visit might push them over to a yes.)

 

http://articles.philly.com/2013-04-01/news/38165511_1_admissions-placement-courses-high-school-students

[Candid]

http://www.nacacnet.org/research/PublicationsResources/Marketplace/Documents/RTPBrief_Factors.pdf

 

I don't know much about this, but if their statistics are to be believed, it appears that 22-25% of colleges do have a ranking criteria that includes demonstrated interest. That said, it does not necessarily appear to be high on the list of priorities for selective schools, not in comparison to high stats and extracurriculars.

 

But, Regentrude, college visits aren't the only way to demonstrate interest. When your dd comes up with a short list of the schools she considers to be her favorites, email is a great way to do it. Ds sends an email to either admission's department, or the professor he interviewed with at MTU about once per quarter. They know he lives 9 hours away...it's blatantly obvious we aren't showing up to hoot for the hockey team every Friday night. It's just not possible. However, they have indicated more than once that they are impressed with the continued communication, and he oft times receives something like this, "Hey C, if you happen to be in the neighborhood, stop by the admin department, we've got some free passes to the musical, or the hockey game, or the whatever set aside for you." He always responds promptly with a "Thank you very much. I'm currently at home studying for AP's, and working on my extra curriculars so I won't be able to get there any time soon, but I sure do appreciate your continued interest in me," or something similar.  He and the prof email about computer programming geek stuff. It's a great connection to have.

 

I don't want him to put all of his eggs in one basket, so to speak, so after our next round of college visits, he'll be cultivating that type of thing with other good schools if he can.

 

Even if she never gets a personal response, many colleges do keep a file with print-outs of the email communications they have received from each student. They trot that out when it comes time to sit down and argue with each other over why kid A should get a spot over kid B because they can glean details about the student from these personal communications.

 

Also, check out facebook. I don't have an account and neither does ds so I can't confirm this specifically, but I've heard through the mommy grapevine that some colleges have admins that chat on facebook with potential students. That would be another way to demonstrate interest from a long distance.

 

 

These are excellent ideas. I suspect, of at some point in an email correspondence the student express real regret they can't make it to the campus that would certainly be helpful on this front as well. 

[Kathy in Richmond]

I think it is a much more school by school thing. 

 

Here's a recent article about admissions, showing at least one school making close decisions by using the visit calculus. (And that brings up another factor, some kids might glide in no matter what, but others will be on some edge and the visit might push them over to a yes.)

 

http://articles.philly.com/2013-04-01/news/38165511_1_admissions-placement-courses-high-school-students

 

Yes to the school by school thing. On the Common Data Set, Lehigh, the college in the linked article, rates level of applicant interest as an "Important" consideration (see tab CDS-C).

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I think that you need to remember how much of an outlier your family is.  Not only has your dd already gotten used to life at a university setting, but she intends to major in a field where both her parents are professors.  Plus, you mentioned that she'd already done research on schools to determine what schools were good fits and what their requirements were.

 

I don't know if you remember a thread from several months back where I had a poll asking how many people's kids had read the university catalog or spent time on the website.  I was surprised at how many people said they had not.  So whatever information they are getting, they are gathering it somewhere else (picking close state schools, using the Big Future site from College Board, picking schools by football team, school colors or mascots). 

 

In my role as a USNA Blue & Gold Officer, I'm frequently encountering candidates (as in, people who have already started an application) who don't realize they would be joining the military, would wear uniforms daily and have restrictions on off campus time or personal articles in their rooms, would earn a BS degree, and would have to take a large number of STEM and military courses even if they have a humanities major.  I am frequently asked questions about the application process that indicate they have not read much of the information on application requirements available on the website.  Every year, I have at least one student (out of 7-12 that I am assigned) who indicates they are interested, but does not apply for nominations by the deadlines.  I have students and parents who honestly do not see the disconnect between their SAT scores and the middle 50% scores for USNA (not to mention the scores needed in my hyper competitive corner of the country).

 

Speaking as a mom of teens who haven't spent time on college campuses (outside USNA, which is an odd exception), I don't think it occurred to my sons how much freedom college entailed, what classrooms looked like, that campus could be big enough to need a bus or monorail to get from one end to the other, that there could be a town right in the middle of campus, that food service options wouldn't look like an elementary cafeteria or that they wouldn't have every minute of the day scheduled.  For my teens, the first college visit helped to underscore the very large gap in understanding between what they thought college was and what it might actually be.  For your dd, I think a lot of that gap in understanding was long ago bridged (just as my sons have often visited on ships, have been underway at least once and have a passing understanding of the strains that military commitments can have on family life).

 

I love some of the creative ideas people have mentioned about targeting college visits and communications with school admissions and departmental reps.  But having seen some of the preconceptions that students have (and how little research some of them put into college) I have a hard time faulting a school for wanting to cover the basics.

[regentrude]

I found it interesting to see what the lead and second items were in the pitch. Certainly revealed a lot about the admin.'s priorities.

The schools that did the joint presentation we attended really did not have to "pitch" themselves much; they are well acknowledged as top tier universities and really do not need to advertise. Of course they have stellar academics and small class sizes and dedicated professors and beautiful campuses and lots of activities. (My strong suspicion is that they do these presentations in order to attract a lot of applications so they can boast of extremely low acceptance rates - the easiest way to do that is to get lots of kids to apply who don't stand a chance.)

[Vida Winter]

Just another thought - another thing dd did was to send a brief handwritten thank you note to the contact person at the schools she visted. In the case of a selective school this may be one small item in the applicant's favor.

[Candid]

 

 

In my role as a USNA Blue & Gold Officer, I'm frequently encountering candidates (as in, people who have already started an application) who don't realize they would be joining the military, would wear uniforms daily and have restrictions on off campus time or personal articles in their rooms, would earn a BS degree, and would have to take a large number of STEM and military courses even if they have a humanities major.  

 

:lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

[memphispeg]

We did the college visit 2 different ways.  For my oldest, who was not sure what she was looking for, we went on many, many, many, college tours; mostly on the way to someplace else.  We did 2 really dedicated trips for 4 colleges each for a few days.  She ended up with 10 schools and applied to 8.  The 2nd kid did all her searching from afar, chose where to apply, and then we waited.  We visited the schools that she had been accepted to.  We went to two accepted students days.  The other places, we just took the tours and she took a dance class (dancers are really great resources for finding out a school's vibe).  

     When we did the visits for my eldest, we went to all the talks and took the tours.  It seemed that every info. session always left me with one "take away" thought about the school or the admissions process in general.  Mostly though my dd just liked to sample the school vibe, we ate lunch (UPenn won for best sushi), we hung out at coffee places (Princeton, best espresso), she took dance and other classes......I watched students drifting by.  At every campus, we spontaneously met folks to talk to....lots of info from them (I'd say they provided the deciding info.).  

     The whole process was FUN both times!!!!

[Gwen in VA]

We just drove ~1600 miles to visit one school. Was it worth the drive? Three hours after the tour/interview/lunch/talk with prof, I'm still not sure. But if we hadn't done it, I'd always wonder, and now there's no wondering!

[creekland]

     The whole process was FUN both times!!!!

 

I've enjoyed our college visits too.  We've been traveling with our kids since they were in diapers and we were always into doing many "family" things - even allocating a "family day" each week to do things as they were growing up.  College visits were just a natural extension of it all - more great bonding with trips.  For all but Pitt, our whole family went to each college - just like another trip (OK, once oldest was in college, he couldn't attend or participate in family things anymore due to not being home).  Pitt was different just due to the timing of when we wanted to be there (for a special day).  It will seem sort of strange just heading out with one boy along for youngest's visits, but I suspect I'll still enjoy them and listening to his thoughts about each school.

[Nan in Mass]

I think you must have more relaxed children than mine.  LOL  *I* rather enjoyed our visits, but they were not my children's idea of fun.  Really not.  Like throwing up not.  Literally.  Even my relaxed one was grateful to have them lumped together, they were so upsottling.  Younger two were less bothered by flying off to a foreign country by themselves to live with strangers for months.  Mine are pretty high strung, though.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Mine definitely looked disengaged and disinterested except for the youngest who had a ball. Yet they brought up several things they'd seen days and weeks later. I now try to give the bored looking kid on the tour some slack. Hard to know what's going through their head.

[Laura Corin]

Calvin has done six and I've done two.  Any time something different is said you start to really brighten up.

 

Calvin has found the open days most useful at places where you need to fit into a small community and work intensively with a particular tutor, for example at Oxford or Cambridge colleges.  Then it has been crucial to spend time in the place and meet the lecturers.

 

L

[Laura Corin]

How DO people manage to visit colleges during the academic year if the parents work and the student takes dual enrollment classes??? We can visit two more schools during summer that are within driving distance, 7 hours one way, but all others involve air travel. I honestly see no way to visit schools in session; both DD and I have classes every day of the week.

How DO you do that if you live in a midwestern town with a two hour drive from the airport, and all the schools are on either coast???

 

I can't talk about dual enrollment, but Calvin has done two visits on his own (Stirling and York), one with his father (Oxford), one with friends (Cambridge) and two with me (Durham and Warwick).  When he was on his own, he went by public transport and stayed overnight in a B&B.  The only difficult one was Cambridge, because he was fifteen at the time and only one of his friends was sixteen.  We had to do a bit of calling around to find a place for them to stay. Finally a budget hotel chain was more accommodating than a private B&B and it all worked fine.

 

ETA: I wouldn't have any problem with his taking a plane alone, rather than the trains that make sense here.  You may well find that the universities can give advice on airport shuttles and accommodation.

 

L

[creekland]

Mine definitely looked disengaged and disinterested except for the youngest who had a ball. Yet they brought up several things they'd seen days and weeks later. I now try to give the bored looking kid on the tour some slack. Hard to know what's going through their head.

 

My younger two appeared more bored with oldest's visits - and youngest looked bored with middle's visits, but now youngest can tell me what he likes/wants (and doesn't) in a college pretty easily.  He was definitely absorbing things.  (There are only 3 1/2 years of age between oldest and youngest, so it's not like he was 10 or younger on the trips... he was a teen.)

 

[Laura in CA]

UC Boulder.

 

My niece just graduated from CU Boulder. It doesn't sound like it's high on your daughter's list, but if you have questions later I'd be happy to ask her. I think she enjoyed it there, but didn't LOVE it like I hope my boys love their schools ...

 

How DO people manage to visit colleges during the academic year if the parents work and the student takes dual enrollment classes??? 

 

It's a challenge ... lots of advance planning! As someone said, spring break of junior year is a good time. That said, our older son lost his part-time job at JCP his junior year when he had to miss work every weekend in April - for the ACT, college visits, calculus camp ... ah well, we told him, your future is more important than your job (and they ended up hiring him back within a few months!).

 

If the dual-enrollment college and the college(s) to be visited are on different calendars - and especially if one uses the semester system and the other(s) the quarter system (this is our situation), it can be eaiser to time a visit.

 

I've enjoyed our college visits too.  We've been traveling with our kids since they were in diapers and we were always into doing many "family" things - even allocating a "family day" each week to do things as they were growing up.  College visits were just a natural extension of it all - more great bonding with trips. 

 

Us too -- fun times and good bonding! I just LOVE the whole college atmosphere ... beautiful campuses, so many opportunities, lots of excitement and possibility, good food :), etc.

 

Mine definitely looked disengaged and disinterested except for the youngest who had a ball. Yet they brought up several things they'd seen days and weeks later. I now try to give the bored looking kid on the tour some slack. Hard to know what's going through their head.

 

Haha, yes - I've heard this from other parents!

[*LC]

Well, my quoting is not working. Please imagine this is in response to some of the posts you have made.

 

So, if she does not do visits, how will she narrow down her list from 20 to the number she plans to apply to? Or, will she apply to all 20 on her list?

 

 I would be more concerned about the department's quality than the school's test scores for incoming students. My daughter is going to a big state university where her scores are higher than the average incoming freshman. However, the incoming freshmen in her "college"/department also have much higher scores than incoming freshmen in general. Since she took a of dual-enrollment and AP classes, she will not have any classes with kids not in her "college." The only time I would worry about test scores is if she was looking at small schools. Some shools also have Honors programs designed to give high-achieving students a peer group in core classes.

 

If she does not have a plan to narrow down her applications, I would plan a quick trip to whichever coast would allow you to visit the most schools in a 4 or 5-day period between now and August 19. It would help to go to schools that are still in summer session at time of your visit. If your daughter's reach schools are those that only accept a tiny percentage of extremely well-qualified applicants, I personally wouldn't use much time visiting those schools. I would visit the ones that you know she will get in to see which one she would like from a livability factor. My daughter rejected 2 highly ranked schools for livability reasons.

 

Since it would not be in your daughter's best interest to miss a Friday class, does she have a lighter load on Tuesday? If so, I would drive to one of the seven-hour away schools over Labor Day weekend for a Tuesday morning visit. Then, she and you can be back in class for Wednesday. My daughter was a public school student dual-enrolled at a 4-year university, so there were no overlapping days off. However, her college professors worked with her when she needed to miss for a college visit even though no one else was doing college visits. I'm sure your daughter's professors will work with her also, you just need to find the right day. One of my college professors got married while I was in school, so I know professors can miss a day also. You just have to find what works best for you or your husband.

 

Or, as others have mentioned have her visit on her own. I might be tempted to do this with a Labor Day trip to somewhere you would need to fly to, I would go with her that weekend and check out the area over the weekend. I would get her set up in a hotel within bus/walk/train distance of the school. I would then fly home Monday, and she would fly home Tuesday after a morning visit. School websites often have info about how to get to the airport from campus for kids without cars.

 

Or, she doesn't have to visit. There are lots of students who can't/don't, and that is perfectly fine also. Good luck to your daughter.

[regentrude]

 

So, if she does not do visits, how will she narrow down her list from 20 to the number she plans to apply to? Or, will she apply to all 20 on her list?

we are working on that. Extensive study of the websites, asking people who studied or teach there...

 

 

 I would be more concerned about the department's quality than the school's test scores for incoming students.

 

We have selected the 20schools based on the quality of the physics departments. But being physics professors ourselves, we are acutely aware of the differences in classwork bewteen schools witj different student populations.

 

 

 

Since it would not be in your daughter's best interest to miss a Friday class, does she have a lighter load on Tuesday? If so, I would drive to one of the seven-hour away schools over Labor Day weekend for a Tuesday morning visit. Then, she and you can be back in class for Wednesday. .

 

Tuesdays are much more packed. We have already planned to do the driving visit before our semester starts.

 

 

Or, as others have mentioned have her visit on her own. I might be tempted to do this with a Labor Day trip to somewhere you would need to fly to, I would go with her that weekend and check out the area over the weekend. I would get her set up in a hotel within bus/walk/train distance of the school. I would then fly home Monday, and she would fly home Tuesday after a morning visit. School websites often have info about how to get to the airport from campus for kids without cars.

Interesting idea, have to think about that.

Are there any issues with 16 year olds traveling solo? I have no problem, in my home country teens travel widely by themselves, I am thinking about rules in this country like staying in hotels, flying, etc.

 

[Sebastian (a lady)]

My younger two appeared more bored with oldest's visits - and youngest looked bored with middle's visits, but now youngest can tell me what he likes/wants (and doesn't) in a college pretty easily.  He was definitely absorbing things.  (There are only 3 1/2 years of age between oldest and youngest, so it's not like he was 10 or younger on the trips... he was a teen.)

 

 

My youngest is just headed into 6th grade.  But he was the one who had fun with the bells and whistles at the visitors' center (interactive map, interactive touch stations to explore courses and majors, mockup of a monorail car).  You would have thought the older two were having root canals.  But they both brought up things later that indicated they were paying attention and got some good out of it.  Most importantly (imho) they came away thinking that college would be interesting, rewarding, fun and that they would be able to get in.  Sometimes in my fretting, I think I make it seem like it will be very competitive and then they will work 20 hour days to barely get by.  Good to remind them that there might be a climbing wall, rec pool, pizza party or week-long round of humans vs zombies to enjoy too.