<p>Lots of you may be debating whether to attend these events in the next month. My personal recommendation is to attend several, focusing on the student's top choices and any schools not yet visited.</p>
<p>These weekends tend to be far better than other events. Schools are is full sales mode, and will go out of their way to show the student and parents a great time. (They will never feed you this well again, at least not until they start soliciting you for donations!) Typically, the program is much more comprehensive than a regular visit, with more talks, tours, class visits, etc. And, above all, the student will get to hang out with the people that he/she may spend the next four years with and decide whether that's a good thing.</p>
<p>Not all schools have these, and not all are great. The good ones are both fun and informative, and worth the expense if the student is about to make a $200,000 decision on where to attend.</p>
<p>If you do attend any, be sure to look for fellow CC parents!</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice, Roger. We will be attending an event for D's second choice (and best FA package) school; she just wants to make sure she's "not making a mistake." She's already attended an accepted students day at her first choice. She values her time immensely; I'm extremely proud she's taking this time to be absolutely sure by attending #2's as well. I recommend other CCer's kids do the same.</p>
<p>Attend several? I am sorry, but that is just making those that can't even do one, working, expense, etc feel like they can't make a good decision and makes parents the bad guys if they don't send their kid to several weekends</p>
<p>If possible, of course, do it, but don't set it up where if you can't, families feel like they are not doing enough...</p>
<p>Sure if its within driving distance, go, but I think a reality check of people's live is needed before saying,well, just go to several, becuase its just not realistic for most people</p>
<p>Citygirlsmom, I cannot fathom how you take offense to Roger_Dooley's post. It is plainly obvious that his post is not an attempt to make "families feel like they are not doing enough". In fact, I strongly agree with Mr. Dooley's sentiments-- visiting my top three choices actually had a significant impact on how I viewed the universities... my first choice become my second, my second choice became my first, and I realized I would really have disliked my third. </p>
<p>Parents on collegeconfidential come from all over the world and from all economic situations. To ask that educational opportunities (especially ones as significant as accepted student weekends) not be mentioned because some parents can't afford them (of course overlooking the fact that many colleges with accepted student weekends will pay for either exceptionally talented or very economically disadvantaged students to attend) doesn't make much sense because there is no lower limit to that suggestion. In other words, if we don't recommend accepted student weekends because some parents can't afford them, should we next not recommend top schools because they are expensive? Should we not recommend enriching summer programs because they cost money? Should we even have this forum, considering some parents cannot afford computers (of course that is a semi-ridiculous extreme...). </p>
<p>As a parent, you should be proud that you have been able to provide the educational opportunities for your kids that you have been able to and not worry about what you can't do. There are certainly things my mother couldn't do for me, financially, but I know that she loved me and raised me well. Thus, I never held her accountable for what she could not do for me, and she never felt guilty for the same reason.</p>
<p>cgm has a good point. I am sure RD didn't intend to imply that all readers are insanely rich, but distance and money are significant factors for attending even a single AS event. My son won't go to his AS event because he is overseas at the moment.</p>
<p>Mine was able to attend one that was close to home. It was everything Roger suggested. I wouldn't send a child to any school without setting foot on the campus at least once, even if it's costly and inconvenient. That is my personal bias. I wouldn't try to make anyone feel badly but if you are sending a child out of the area, there are going to be additional costs associated with that. It seems prudent to make the effort to visit at least once if you haven't already.</p>
<p>This may be a strange question, but would it be okay if parents attended the Accepted Students open houses without the student? Daughter is away on a school trip during spring break and we were considering going in order to learn more about the school for her.</p>
<p>Well, I'm going to be somewhat contrarian here. Although I agree that there is great value in visiting schools to decide among acceptances, I recommend NOT doing it an during Accepted Students Day. Those events are heavily orchestrated to woo admitted-but-not-committed students and can give an inaccurate picture of campus life. Show up, if possible, on an ordinary day of the week, one on which you'll see a more natural environment, not so much of a dog and pony show.</p>
<p>I heartily agree that if your kid and/or you can do it, attend as many of the top choices they have as possible. My now happy freshman dd wound up eliminating a great school during last year's decision-making because the fit wasn't right for her. She wouldn't have known it without attending the accepted students' day, at which she was able to "kick the tires", and look in lots of nooks and crannies. She felt she was looking at the school from a bit older, wiser (nearly a year older than her original visit) and different looking glass perspective than when she was "just an applicant."</p>
<p>Certainly, it's easier when your schools are at least on the same coast as where you live. I do feel for those of you considering this from a long distance.</p>
<p>CGM, if you have already visited several times and really know the schools, perhaps another visit is superfluous. In our daughter's case, we had a couple of acceptances that we hadn't yet visited. We visited a couple of these, and a great experience at one of them was ultimately the deciding factor. Picking a college is a lot about chemistry, and spending a couple of days and an overnight there, plus meeting your classmates, is one way to see if that chemistry exists. Our "prospectives weekend" experience was totally unlike the typical, fairly rushed visits we did in the course of checking out colleges before applying.</p>
<p>Attending college is likely to cost six-figures plus, and perhaps saddle the student with loans that will last for many years. I wouldn't begrudge a few hundred bucks to help make the right choice.</p>
<p>I'm going to my school's accepted students' day even though I know a ton about the place, was accepted ED, and really don't have the time for a couple of days away. I love my school. I was recruited by more famous places (including Ivies) but I wanted a small place so I stuck with it. Still, I'm tired of people never having heard of it (a top LAC). I want to spend a weekend with folks who are in the know. I want to spend time with the future classmates I've met online. I want to be in the middle of being recruited by my college, even though I've already signed on. December to September is a long time to wait. This is my parents' little treat for me and I am pleased.</p>
<p>Springfield mom, I feel the same. D. found out she's accepted to first-choice school. We'd visited 2 yrs ago. She asked me if she could go back. (This entails flying from the MidWest to the East Coast.) At first blush, I was hesitant, until I realized that the cost is negligible if it helps her make the best decision for the next four years. I'd rather her know that it is no longer a fit than to hear it two years down the road, since this is an expensive university. We just came back yesterday from a week-long trip, visiting 4 of her other acceptances that we hadn't yet been to. We were unable to visit any schools for the past two years because she had been too ill to travel. It's hard trying to cram them all into a month+ timeframe!</p>
<p>We will go to this accepted visit day, because we've already done the "regular days" visit the first time. However, I agree with wjb - the "real" picture probably won't be experienced this time around. Anyway, I am just excited to ride the T again! :)</p>
<p>My son visited one of his two top schools in the fall, in place of a birthday present. I wasn't able to afford a visit to his other top choice this winter, so I promised him he could visit if accepted. </p>
<p>So, he's visiting next week, for 4 days, mostly not during an Admit Weekend. It's pretty likely he won't go to the school, but I felt even on a tight budget, he needed to be able to go and see for himself. He is <em>pretty sure</em> that the school he's already visited is first choice, but I don't want him to always be wondering if he'd rather have gone to Choice B.</p>
<p>My daughter, who was accepted ED, plans to go to the accepted students days at her school, even though she has been there before.</p>
<p>One thing that I am trying to persuade her to do is to sit in on a few classes -- especially classes that she may or may not want to place out of with AP credits. I think it would be valuable for her to get some perspective on whether the classes are at the same level as what was taught in the AP courses at her high school (in which case she might as well skip them) or whether they are more sophisticated than the AP courses (in which case she may want to refuse the AP credit and take the introductory courses over).</p>
<p>If my school will permit it, since my colleges' accepted student events take place within a week of each other, we are making it a week-long father-daughter roadtrip (Bryn Mawr-Dartmouth-Wellesley). My mother is currently working in Europe and my fourteen-year-old sister would stay with a friend. It may be a frivolous expense, but it's also an important decision and an opportunity for me and my dad to spend some time together before I leave home, not to mention that I'll be working full-time all summer to earn money for tuition and might not have a chance to visit my friends and extended family in Sweden (something I've done every summer since I was born). That's how we justify it, anyway. ;)</p>
<p>Great thread. I have been encouraging my son to attend the admit weekend for Princeton (we live in NJ so no biggie), but he feels that since he is convinced that is the school he will attend, the weekend wouldn't really serve a purpose. He thinks that the weekends are for kids who haven't made up their minds yet. I disagree for many of the reasons already mentioned. Thanks Roger for this thread; you were reading my mind.</p>
<p>We will spend spring break (April 9-13) attending those schools in which daughter was accepted. Fortunately, we can drive most of the trip. I was wondering as well, is the admitted student day the best time to visit or are things glossed over? A girl that graduated from daughter's school last year, loved her college admit day, but the school was no where as friendly in August, as it had been in the previous April.</p>
<p>The admitted student visits did help S chose between his final two candidates. Though often billed as being similar, he found the cultures at the schools to be quite different, and would not have known without visiting.</p>