<p>It looks like April may become a travel adventure. D was accepted early at Rutgers and we have visited several times. But D is due to overnight at Simmons College and accepted student open house at Binghamton. Any advice for the accepted student? We visited these schools last summer. What should we do differently this time so that she can make up her mind? And we haven't even heard from four other schools. </p>
<p>We only went to one accepted student weekend. It was for my son’s I-really-want-to-go-there-if -I-get-accepted university, which he had visited once before, during spring break of his junior year. He just wanted to see it again, and I hadn’t seen it yet as his first visit had been on a father/son jaunt. </p>
<p>Our other son never did an accepted student weekend. His I-really-want-to-go-there… university was not that far away, and he didn’t need to see it again to make a decision.</p>
<p>A friend’s daughter visited her top two universities for accepted student weekend, one right other. The visits did help her make a decision. School one she had first visited on a beautiful fall weekend. It snowed during the spring accepted student weekend… The second school’s accepted student weekend was during the height of every-single-plant-and-tree-is-in-prime-bloom week. That tipped the balance between two otherwise very equal universities.</p>
<p>Thank you. That helps. I can’t tell with D whether all are equal or if she is waiting for a favorite to reply. Hard to tell.</p>
<p>My son was at Carnegie Mellon during a miserable rainy weekend and Harvard on a gorgeous one. But he still was more impressed by CMU when all was said and done. They did a much better job of selling themselves. Visiting both did make the decision more difficult for my son since he did discover that there were plenty of board game playing, sci fi and fantasy reading nerds there. But in the end it came down to the departments and how they presented themselves. Huge difference.</p>
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so then she probably didn’t get to meet many students. That’s one of the benefits of the accepted students weekend, you are on campus while school is in session (albeit during a dog and pony show)</p>
<p>My D2 went to accepted student weekends at her top 3 choices (unfortunately not geographically in the same part of the country!). But it was well worthwhile. 24 hours on campus and mingling with current & potential students was really, really helpful for her to make a choice. She ended up picking what was her 3rd choice going into the visits, and is an extremely happy freshman at that school. </p>
<p>One thing I did was figure out pretty early when the accepted student weekends were at the colleges she was most likely to visit if she got in, and made sure my work calendar was clear enough to take off any needed time and to see if there were conflicts between them. I was able to figure it out through posts on CC from other students who had been accepted EA or ED at her schools (I think I posted the question on a couple of forums).</p>
<p>I do agree that they are a bit of a dog and pony show. But we found that it is hard to hide their true colors for 24 hours if your kid goes for that full period. The weaknesses and strengths of the schools really showed up for us in a way that a 4-5 hour visit previously had not shown.</p>
<p>We only went to 1 accepted students’ weekend, and then across country to 2 colleges. Son had never seen these 3 colleges. He had made arrangements with othe other 2 to meet with a prof or attend classes. When at the accepted weekend, he met 2 boys who had been to the other college’s weekend prior week. They shared their observations. what detracted him from 1st college was he (& I) wen to see the head o the department he wanted as a minor. There were a dozen people waiting for her. She insisted the meeting was suppose to be in a few hours, even though the time was printed in schedule. Instead of just accepting the mix-up, she wasted everone’s time. </p>
<p>2nd school was as nice as could be, but not for my son. 3rd school gave us private tour, with a gal in CS. They had a list of pre-approved courses for son to attend. They spoke to son for an hour about the school and his interests. They invited him back the next day. </p>
<p>Academically, son would have been absolutely fine at school #1. Feeling welcomed made the difference.</p>
<p>Youngest declined to go to a student weekend. " Too busy". :bz
Oldest went to three. One was to confirm that while she had planned to go to that school for several years, it no longer was her top choice. Another was to confirm that the school * was* her top choice, and the third was to keep a friend company. </p>
<p>After the acceptances were in, S had two clear top choices. He went to both. (One of the schools he had only had a quick drive through with me several years before.) He declined the opportunity to visit the rest. We did more or less insist that he go to a regional accepted student event for Pomona, even though he refused our offer to fly him out there. (Ye gods, that kid is stubborn! 
)</p>
<p>I’d suggest letting the kid decide which ones are <em>genuinely</em> on the table, and visiting them. In my view, this should be a decision involving kid and parents, with the kid taking the lead. Occasionally we hear from a parent whose kid wants to visit 6 schools. (Which I must say seems pretty silly to me.) If it is feasible for you, you could indulge it. If not, then they need to narrow it down. And there may be circumstances in which a student really needs to give a school another look, usually financial,possibly a case of broadening the horizons. In that case, I think it is reasonable for the parent to strongly urge the kid to do so. But at some point, it has to become their choice.</p>
<p>We found accepted student days to be somewhat useful. We tried to pay attention to what was being emphasized. For example, one school our daughter really liked spent a lot of time talking about the achievement of its honors students. All of the students we met were in the honors program and were impressive. We concluded that the school is trying hard to improve its academic profile and rankings, which we thought was a good thing. But we also concluded that most of the opportunities at the school would go to honors students and we didn’t like that because our daughter wasn’t going to be in the honors program at that school. My advice would be to focus on the factors that are going to be most important to your daughter in making a decision and make sure you spend your time on the visit focusing on those things by diving in deeper on them than you do in an information session and tour. Sitting in on a class was helpful to both of our children in that it showed them the level of engagement of the students.</p>
<p>I would encourage accepted students days (and overnights). You are now relaxed and the school has to sell you, not the other way around. My D attended three accepted student days, including two overnights. Her third choice was quickly eliminated as it became clear she was least excited by this school. We both imagined she would attend school A and these two last visits were just to be sure. Well, lo and behold, the visit and overnight at school B sealed the deal… she returned home and there was no question. I really think walking in the shoes of current students, attending a class, and talking to dept. Profs is a wonderful way to help in the decision process.</p>
<p>Our D didn’t attend any accepted student days. She got into her #1 choice, which she had visited before she applied, and didn’t see the need to make the 700-mile trip after acceptance. She was much less interested in the programs at the other 5 colleges she was accepted at and saw no reason to visit them either. So, done.</p>
<p>Our son had been on the campus of most of the schools he was accepted to. He’d spent a few weeks at a couple of them in summer debate camps, so saw no reason to visit them again after he was admitted. He never did visit one of the colleges (Carlton), but he would have if he’d eliminated all others from consideration. One college (Williams) was out of the way and he couldn’t attend accepted student day because of a time conflict, so we made a special trip there a week earlier. He learned enough from that, including from a conversation with a faculty member who was a friend of one of my friends, to eliminate Williams. But he did go to the accepted student day at UChicago. It was the first time he’d seen the campus, though he’d been to the city several times, and he liked the city b/c it was “major league” (i.e., had major league sports teams!). The college met all his hopes and expectations, and he liked the students he met there. After reappearing the morning after his overnight there he simply declared “This will do.” And so it was done.</p>