<p>I thought it might be useful to get some imput from accepted students about whether they are going to attend the Accepted Students Day and if so, why; or if not, why not. My D did attend even though she had already made the decision to attend UD and found it very informative and really psyched her up about going to UD. She also began to stock up on UD wearing apparel as well. Any thoughts from others?</p>
<p>Wish we could go. Too far for my d to travel. She has seen the school twice in the last year. She will have to go back for Orientation. Enough travel. Wish she could. It would have offered her a chance to maybe find a room mate. That is her next challenge.
To those who go, enjoy.</p>
<p>If I recall correctly, the date(s) didn’t work for my daughter due to previous commitments. But we will be making another visit to help with the big decision. She currently has three unique offers - each one with their own pros & cons - and all three are about the same cost. And since we haven’t visited since October of 2010, it’s well worth the 2-hour drive to get one last feel for the campus vibe.</p>
<p>Don’t feel bad about not going. We were there Monday, and it was a waste of time. Everything we saw, we saw on a previous trip. The meeting was only 30 min, and was led by 2 seniors, who spoke of their experience at UD. The tour was 60 min, and covered all the same things we saw earlier. No opportunity to really talk to other families, therefore, no opportunity for my son to find a potential roomate.The only difference in this trip, is that we saw all the construction going on. UD is building a new freshman dorm, a new science/engineering building, and renovated the gym…all of which will not be completed until Fall 2013.</p>
<p>Just a word of advice… it’s not completely necessary to find a roommate if you don’t know anyone. I did random roommate and they match you based on personality type from a survey. Many of the people I know who chose someone they happened to meet at one of the acceptance days or on the UD facebook page did not enjoy it as much because you haven’t had the chance to see their personality.</p>
<p>I mostly concur with the last two posters. We went a year ago, but didn’t really see anything we hadn’t on the initial investigatory visit. The one good thing about it was that my D saw other kids who were actually accepted and thinking about going and decided she was comfortable with the range of students and with those she met and spoke to. So unless your child still has a real question in their mind about whether UD is right or hasn’t decided between two schools, you really don’t have to worry about not going.</p>
<p>What really sealed the deal was eating at Home Grown Cafe and Ali Baba.</p>
<p>We went last year and were very disappointed. This was their last chance to wow the accepted students with something they hadn’t seen or heard on previous visits. Unfortunately that didn’t happen and we drove home feeling let down. My son decided on the other school that did WOW us. If you have already decided on UD, in my opinion it probably isn’t worth your time to visit again.</p>
<p>My daughter and I attended an admitted student event yesterday. It was a good experience for us and we’re glad we made the trip.</p>
<p>As PortMom said, the opening session was run by students that are Admissions Office Ambassadors. We had a junior and a senior who were both able to quantify their experiences at UD through pictures and verbal descriptions. The junior girl really was able to shine as she showed pictures from her Study Abroad trip to South Africa to work with HIV + orphans. We enjoyed this session better than Delaware - The Musical as it provided an honest and candid view into student life.</p>
<p>Next was the walking tour of campus. We lucked out and ended up with only three students and four parents in our group. All three of the admitted students were engineering majors but unfortunately none of the Blue Hen Ambassadors that day were engineers. Our guide did his best with engineering-specific questions but didn’t have most of the answers. The tour took us to a couple of new spots that we didn’t see on our original tour and ended in the Russell cafeteria where UD graciously picked up the tab for lunch. In fact, a UD ‘credit card’ was issued to us at check-in and covered parking as well as lunch. That was a nice touch. The only piece of information we received that was different from PortMom’s experience was that the gym renovations were scheduled to be competed by Fall of 2012.</p>
<p>I had made arrangements with the biomedical engineering Academic Support Specialist to meet with a professor in the BME department. My daughter had specific questions about research opportunities and how a UD degree would be percieved by graduate schools when applying for a Master’s program. The professor gave us very straightforward answers and offered a detailed tour of his lab to show off the research he is doing with cell regeneration. It took a little effort on my part to arrange this meeting but it was well worth it.</p>
<p>The only real disappointment of the day was with the Honors Program session from 3 - 4 pm. A current freshman in the Honors Program ran the session and pretty much read from the Powerpoint slides. The student couldn’t answer many of the questions based on her limited experience with the program but did invite us to visit with the program administrators after the session. It was over in 15 minutes. We did walk up the street afterwards (just a few doors) and got all of our questions answered. </p>
<p>We ended the day with a walk on Main Street and dinner at the Iron Hill Brewery before cashing in our 10% bookstore discount coupon on a snazzy sweatshirt. For us, it was a worthwhile investment to attend, especially since we’re not available for the two upcoming Saturday events.</p>
<p>“No opportunity to really talk to other families …”</p>
<p>“The only real disappointment of the day was with the Honors Program session …”</p>
<p>Wow, it appears things have really changed over the past five years. When our family attended in April 2007 these were the two BEST things about Admitted Student days. In particular, the head of the Honors Program gave a wonderful presentation that lasted more than an hour. Was there no “meet and greet” Box Lunch get together on South Lawn?</p>
<p>I can confirm that the gym renovation will be done in Fall 2013 as a graduate student senator who just heard a very detailed presentation about this project. However, the gym itself will remain open during construction.</p>
<p>I think there may be a significant difference between Delaware Decision Days, all-day events on April 14 and 21, and the shorter weekday tours provided for those who cannot make the Saturday events. The agenda for Decision Days includes breakfast and lunch, a presentation re. the Honors Program, opportunity to speak with representatives from particular majors/programs, etc. I’m hoping it will give my D the more indepth look at UDel that she needs in order top make her final decision.</p>
<p>Just adding to feedback about accepted student day visits.</p>
<p>We attended yesterday and were disappointed in the visit. As others said, the"information session" is not very informational. It consists of two students telling their personal stories about UD which may or may not be relevant to any particular student. The presentation seemed to stress the “campus feel” of UD as the overriding factor (according to their “food pyramid” type graph). Topics that we were more interested in, like quality of academics, class size, advising, etc. were not really mentioned. I mean, we all know that its fun to be a “blue hen” and all, but there is more to college than that. One of the students mentioned that the highlight of her study abroad in Africa was seeing all the cute baby animals…let’s just say, it was not impressive.</p>
<p>Our tour group leader was more informative, but our group of students/parents overall seemed fairly unimpressed/unenthusiastic. The tour took us mostly the same places we had already seen on our first visit for Discovery Day last summer. The difference this time was there were actually students around, and we got to eat lunch in a dining hall. The lunch was good and I give kudos to the UD Creamery Ice Cream! The student body appears to be largely white/middle class- a happy but homogeneous student body.</p>
<p>We took the opportunity to sit in on a lecture class prior to the 11am tour. Unfortunately, this lecture class did not reflect well upon UD as the prof was TERRIBLE and merely read off his powerpoints. Many students in the room were playing video games or on facebook. </p>
<p>The dorm we visited, Harrington, is traditional dorm style with double rooms and hall bathrooms. There is no A/C in the dorms. Floors are coed. There is a large construction site on the East Campus where new dorms are being built. As opposed to other schools we have visited, dorm security at UD is very lax (you just use your swipe card to get in, so you could swipe in any number of guests) and there is no visitor policy or sign-in. Perhaps this reflects the fact that UD is fairly safe…but it still left us feeling that security was lax.</p>
<p>On the plus side, I will say that UD is one of the most beautiful college campuses I have ever seen, and with many flowering trees in bloom the campus showed off well.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t give the student who said the highlight of her trip was the baby animals too hard of a time. My DD would say the highlight of her study abroad was a visit to a vineyard. Oh, and she learned a LOT of educational stuff and met cool people, too! As for focusing on “feel” I know that by the time she got to this point and was trying to decide among 3 pretty equal choices, she’d already done the go-to-class thing, knew what she needed about the programs and was really looking to see where she would fit in. At that point she didn’t know how much fun being a Blue Hen would be compared to the other 2 animals!
I agree with the other posters that going to the formal decision days would be a much different experience. I suppose they can’t make everyone happy.
As for the swiping in for the dorms, I don’t remember any of the other colleges we visited having anything that stopped more than one person coming in. I do remember that the alarms went off pretty quickly if the door was l eft open for more than a short period of time.</p>
<p>On every tour of the dorms, they take you to Russell or Harrington which is quite deceptive. Russell is only for Honors, and only 25% of the freshman end up in Harrington. When we spoke to someone in Housing, they told us that if you are not in Honors, you have a 75% chance of being in Rodney or Dickinson. Why don’t they include one of those dorms in the tour?</p>
<p>@mumzee I actually was really being kind in my description of the young woman who talked about the baby animals. I don’t really blame her for how she is, its just that if I were UD trying to market my school, I would have picked someone less ditzy.</p>
<p>It may well be that UD thinks its target audience is looking for presentations about “campus feel” but that wasn’t us- we were looking to be persuaded why a UD education would be a good investment of time and money, and how it would prepare my D for a career or graduate school.</p>
<p>Rodney and Dickinson are older and are being knocked down in the near future.</p>
<p>Lane/Thompson were the tour dorms of choice in DD’s day. I think they choose dorms that are most easily accessible to the tour and not the nicest. I remember other tours where you saw the best dorms but freshman never lived there.
Sure hope my DD didn’t come across as a ditz! Her highlights of study abroad were probably visits to a BMW factory and a whiskey maker. She was also one that went to Decision Days looking for fit/feel. DH took her to the weekend one (he hadn’t been there) and he did get program questions answered to his satisfaction.
Good luck with your decisions!</p>
<p>In regards to dorm safety and swipe cards. The doors do not allow unending trails of people to walk in. I know when we would go down to visit move in on non move in days,(when alarms were probably shut off)If you held the door for a straggler the alarm would sound. You can’t prop open entrance doors etc without the alarm sounding. As far as safety goes, it is a non issue. Newark police are patrolling campus day and night.</p>
<p>We went yesterday for Decision Day and were quite pleased with the program. We arrived at 7:00 for the honors breakfast and tried to wake up! The honors presentation was very good and informative, not really repeating any info we heard on our previous visit. The Q&A from the students was interesting and my DS really didn’t have any questions left.</p>
<p>We next went to the business presentation which was ok and then on the accounting/MIS smaller group. This was really informative on double/triple majors, AP credits, big 4 accounting firms, internships, etc. Almost all of this was new info and in more in depth than the last visit we had which was a general overview. There were 2 professors and 5 students, all answering questions.</p>
<p>Lunch on the green, music entertainment, their own UDairy ice cream was amazing. I wanted another look at the dorm room in Russell, but there was really a long wait, so we didn’t stay. </p>
<p>We did talk to a UD police officer since safety is a priority for my DH, well all of us. They are armed and are real police officers that are on site in addition to the Newark police dept. We asked about petty theft and she said it was mainly opportunity theft, don’t leave your books in the library and go get coffee, don’t leave your dorm room unlocked, etc. </p>
<p>My DS already put his deposit down at the beginning of the month, so this wasn’t really a decision for us, but we did want to visit again. We didn’t stay for any of the afternoon activities since DS’s allergies were really acting up, too many trees and too much grass, but it’s so beautiful there.</p>
<p>We went to decision day on the 14th and had a great time - was happy that we went… and finalized the decision that my D will be attending UD … we are very excited !!</p>