silver Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 Are college fairs useful? My local high school doesn't appear to have one, but there are ones in other nearby districts that are open to everyone. And the local CC that my son does DE at hosts ones for transfer students. But that one tends to be small, just in state schools and some schools in a neighboring state. There's also the NACAC national college fair that we could make work. I can't figure out if that is free for students or not. Is it worth looking into the options and getting to a college fair? Or should he just give College Board permission to sell his information when he takes the SAT, and let the email and mail he gets be his college fair? Or is there a 3rd, better option, for finding out about schools? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catz Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 (edited) Well I went to a college fair with my oldest kid. And where it was useful, was chatting with admissions folks from small LACs that may track interest and offer interviews. Other than that, it wasn't particularly useful. I wouldn't travel for one. It may be better to pick a few sample campuses if your student is unsure what they might like. Like an urban campus, a more rural campus, a large U, a smaller LAC, a midsize suburban. And visit and explore. That might be a better use of travel. My first kid gave permission when he took the ACT. He also had scores to apply anywhere. He was absolutely innundated with mail. After the first ten, he just started ignoring. My 2nd kid did not give permission and STILL got stuff. We manually had her get on the mailing list for some schools. One good thing with covid, is it seems like you can learn a lot more about schools virtually and they have virtual visits, info sessions, etc. Anyway, didn't feel like sharing info was super useful. I'm sure that first kid got stuff from over 100+ colleges. Some were sending stuff every week or 2 - ridiculous. Edited July 21, 2023 by catz 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silver Posted July 21, 2023 Author Share Posted July 21, 2023 1 hour ago, catz said: My first kid gave permission when he took the ACT. He also had scores to apply anywhere. He was absolutely innundated with mail. After the first ten, he just started ignoring. My 2nd kid did no get permission and STILL got stuff. We manually had her get on the mailing list for some schools. One good thing with covid, is it seems like you can learn a lot more about schools virtually and they have virtual visits, info sessions, etc. Anyway, didn't feel like sharing info was super useful. I'm sure that first kid got stuff from over 100+ colleges. Some were sending stuff every week or 2 - ridiculous. Good to know! The only reason I had even heard of the college I wound up going to was because they sent me mail telling me that my ACT score made me eligible for a really good merit scholarship. So I was wondering if it might still be a good way to find out about those kind of schools. But it sounds like schools have gone overboard with stuff now. (I know I didn't get more than one thing from any given school!) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catz Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 Just now, silver said: Good to know! The only reason I had even heard of the college I wound up going to was because they sent me mail telling me that my ACT score made me eligible for a really good merit scholarship. So I was wondering if it might still be a good way to find out about those kind of schools. But it sounds like schools have gone overboard with stuff now. (I know I didn't get more than one thing from any given school!) I do think back in the my day when mailing was more targeted, etc getting on the list was probably a positive thing. It's so much easier to learn about scholarhips and opportunities online now and it seems like these schools are in a race to get the most applicants through the door. And are spending way more on marketing. Your kid may love it. It just wasnt useful for us. A lot of the mailings were from schools with sub 10-20% acceptance rates we couldn't afford. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 The best college fair we went to-and which I wholeheartedly recommended, was the HBCU fair run by the HBCU alumni association. The whole admissions priority for the HBCUs is much more a matching process, and it felt much more personalized than the NACAC one. L ticked the box for an ACT in 8th grade and the total stuff ended up weighing more than my kid did!! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 I think the CTCL Fair is the best one. The NACAC fairs are good too though, just different. The fairs are way better than mail. You can go up and speak to a human about the school, ask questions, get more targeted information. Kids have to be willing to put themselves out there a little to get anything out of them though. Otherwise it's just a room of tables, pamphlets, and strangers. In terms of the college mail from letting the ACT or CB sell your info, I was just saying I think it's decreased a bit in the last couple of years. But regardless, it's not really targeted or useful for the most part. These schools don't know who you are really or what you want. They sell based on your zip code more than anything else. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roadrunner Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 Does attending a fair count as “demonstrated interest” if the school takes “demonstrated interest” into account? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gstharr Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 No. But, participating in online school tour, admission and financial programming do. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted August 1, 2023 Share Posted August 1, 2023 No if you're just at the fair. But yes if the student actually speaks to the rep and the rep remembers them, writes it down, etc. They do have tracking for these events. Typically there's a place to leave info. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lilaclady Posted August 4, 2023 Share Posted August 4, 2023 On 7/31/2023 at 10:16 AM, Roadrunner said: Does attending a fair count as “demonstrated interest” if the school takes “demonstrated interest” into account? Yes it does. Sometimes the student doesn’t even have to be there. Most of the fairs have a QR code with the students info and scanning that counts as attending. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lilaclady Posted August 4, 2023 Share Posted August 4, 2023 The nacac one in our city is a very high one and has been very helpful. It’s great to have lots of colleges that students may not be able to travel to see. We even get some international ones from UK and Canada 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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