<p>This is something I am very hard trying to understand.
Our HS hosts admission officers from many colleges form around the country. In the fall it is almost a daily thing. If a kid is interested in so and so college, both parents and student are invited to attend. The only problem is, that those sessions are during school/work hours.
I can understand if you only have 1-2 colleges you are interested in finding more about. But what if want to find out about many? How is a parent expected to miss hours of work, how is a student suppose to make up time lost in AP classes? Wouldn't it be more convenient to have those sessions after school?
Have you taken advantage of those visits? How did you/your kid handle it?</p>
<p>Are you getting the impression that parents are supposed to attend these meetings? From the GC staff? Your child? This may be something particular to your HS.</p>
<p>In my work in admissions I visited literally hundreds of high schools. On occasion I might have seen/met a parent at one of my school day visits (a parent who volunteered in the HS’s college/career center or perhaps one who was very 
interested in meeting me and/or learning more about my school) but this was far from typical.</p>
<p>Generally speaking parents may feel more welcome and/or invited to evening events that colleges/universities host, such as an information session, often in the evening or a weekend afternoon. Sometimes schools host these individually or other times they do them jointly (for example, Exploring College Options [Stanford, Harvard, Duke, Penn, Georgetown] or Exploring Educational Excellence [Brown, UChicago, Rice, Cornell, Columbia] sessions).</p>
<p>I don’t think these sessions are for parents.</p>
<p>They did this in my high school, but parents definitely were not expected to attend. Students would come, and yes, maybe miss an hour of class (frankly, an hour would be a long time, these sessions usually lasted 30 minutes). Since I went to a college prep school we were expected and encouraged to attend the sessions we were interested in, and our teachers made allowances if we were gone. </p>
<p>I think part of the reason they happen during the day is that traveling admissions reps were visiting lots of schools in one day. If they were to have them after school hours, students might not be able to attend because of activities, and it would limit how many schools you could visit, since you can’t be holding meetings too late in the day. Also it means that guidance counselors would have to work late, schools have to stay open late, etc etc etc. </p>
<p>Really, these are basically just mini-info sessions. They’re nice for the students, and I’m sure they’re good for the admissions counselors, but it’s not worth stressing over if you can’t go.</p>
<p>The sessions are at different times throughout the day, so the missed workload is spread around different classes. In some cases, the visit overlaps nutrition break or lunch. The reps are visiting several schools a day, so the visits can’t all be after school. D1’s school is a magnet, so having the meetings after-school would mean that those who rely on school buses would be unable to attend. </p>
<p>At D1’s school, the students are well aware that they’re missing class, so they choose carefully among the visiting schools. They need a pass signed by the teacher whose class they’re missing, which puts a further restriction on how many presentations they see.</p>
<p>I’ve never attended one of these sessions, and never even considered doing so. I think my D1 would die of shame if we showed up. 
As other posters have said, there are other opportunities to see the reps or their presentations outside of school hours. Those are the info sessions that I’ve sat in on. They’re always at hotels or conference centers, never at high schools, because they need to accomodate hundreds or thousands of people, all coming from our metropolitan area.</p>
<p>Parents aren’t invited at our schoool, though I’m sure no one would stop a parent who wanted to come. Kids also are limited in how many they can attend – eight junior year and eight senior year. I think that’s reasonable, or kids would be missing too much class. And yep, kids have to decided whether the info session or the class is more important.</p>
<p>It would be very unusual to learn anything new at these sessions that you would not easily find on a school’s website or by emailing a specific question to a school admission office. The sessions are primarily an opportunity for the school to market themselves to the students. Very much less an opportunity for the student to market to the school unless your kid ends up being only one of a very few to attend the session…not likely for the type of colleges discussed on CC.</p>
<p>I will edit to say, I have no experience with private HS or top magnet type programs, so maybe the info sessions are different at those schools?</p>
<p>I don’t think that parents go to the college visits at our HS. And all of ours are scheduled at lunch. Every single one. A rep that we got to know fairly well during D1’s search even commented on that the first time we told him what HS she went to.</p>
<p>At out hs - these sessions are just for students. Many times they just get permission to leave class for 10 minutes - so that they don’t miss too much. They come and say hello to the rep, shake his/her hand, fill out a card confirming their info and maybe have time to ask one quick question. It’s basically another way of showing demonstrated interest. Sometimes, if few students show up, it can be a longer conversation - sometimes the reps have a canned presentation that they want to get through - it really depends on the rep and on how many students attend.</p>
<p>Oh, no … PLEASE don’t have a parent attend these sessions. I’m begging you. Unless the parent’s presence is specifically requested for some reason, your kid needs to “own” meeting and greeting the admissions people. It will not come across well to have a parent there, at all.</p>
<p>Even at the evening and weekend college fairs that are hosted by a college or a group of colleges, where parents can and do attend, the parents also need to “be in the background,” so to speak. The kids need to be the ones introducing themselves to adcoms, asking questions about the school, and so forth. It’s difficult, but it’s a learning experience for them.</p>
<p>Ditto with interviews, by the way. My kids are now in the midst of interviews (some with adcoms who are coming to our city, some with alumni) and if they’re unable to get there via public transportation and they can’t use my car and I need to drive with them – I am INVISIBLE. I drop them off a few blocks away, they go do their thing and I rendezvous with them afterwards several blocks away. They need to come across independently to these people, not tied to mother.</p>
<p>One useful thing D1 has gotten from these visits that she couldn’t have gotten from the website or an email is more insight into the regional adcom’s mindset. This is the person who will be doing the first read on her application, so she figures it’s helpful to hear if the rep gives off significant warning signs that topic X or approach Y is looked down on in the essays. Your (or your student’s) mileage may vary. Since D1 is applying ED, it also allowed her to introduce herself to the rep for that college as an ED applicant. </p>
<p>Another factor to consider is if your child’s school is unknown to the adcom. This might be because the adcom is new, or because the high school hasn’t sent any graduates to the college in question. A visit is an opportunity for the high school to make itself better known to the college. </p>
<p>I read a suggestion on CC that one way for a student to demonstrate interest was to email the regional adcom asking if they were going to be visiting the student’s high school…and if they weren’t planning on visiting, perhaps they’d like to consider making the visit. D1 thinks this might have been partly responsible for a visit from a topnotch LAC that she’ll be applying to. We’ll probably never know, but D1 did encourage a few friends to come listen, at least one of whom will now be applying. Since it was a small group, they ended up having the kind of conversation where you figure that yes, the rep will remember you. Win-win for everyone.</p>
<p>At DD’s school there were many evening sessions, which were attended by both parents and students. I don’t remember precisely, but I guess there were also daytime sessions which were basically just for students.</p>
<p>It was useful for my DW and myself to attend, as we needed to learn things too. In at least one case, I attended, and my DD did not, as DD was either swamped with homework, or had an EC conflict. </p>
<p>Interviews - Our DD did her own interview, did her own prep for it. In one instance though we did chat with the adcon - we had met him during our visit, and IIRC he introduced us to the interviewer. We also spoke to adcons, etc on tours. Our DD was comfortable with that. We balanced our concern about not getting enough info cause our DD was shy, and her need to develop. This was back in junior year. By senior year when we were visiting schools that had accepted her, to make the final decision, at one school she arranged a private tour of the Arch dept with a student, all on her own, and told us to stay far away. I was pleased that she did that, that she had developed to that point. When we chatted with the adcon, DW and myself were present however. There was an element of FA negotiation in that, and DD was not in a position to handle that herself. When she is paying for her schooling herself, then she can take over the process more completely.</p>
<p>She is now in Israel, with a group, but managing her day to day life and her adventures, on her own. And doing a good job of it, AFAICT. So a bit of “helicopter” parenting doesn’t have to make a youngster helpless and dependent. Different youngsters develop at different paces - some, esp the ADHD, autism spectrum, etc need a bit more time and a bit more support. </p>
<p>And frankly if a college was going to judge her because at 16 she was still shy, and still needed more parental support than some kids, well that wouldnt have been a very good fit for her, IMO.</p>
<p>The visits by admissions people at my son’s HS is just for the students and my son has taken advantage of several of them, but most kids don’t. I think they should be publicized more.</p>
<p>Just students at our kids school, I can’t imagine a parent showing up. The school does send out a list to kids and parents ahead of time of which schools are coming when. So as a parent I did remind D1 (and will with D2) when there is a session coming up that they should make sure to attend. It is “showing interest”, and also if the session is lightly attended the admissions officer may actually remember your kid. But there are so many of them… D1 typically did not use them as “just go find out about this school” opportunities because she would miss too much class. She went when it was a school on her list that she was definitely interested in already.</p>
<p>If my D had a test or something but wanted to meet the admission officer, she would try to stop by for a couple of minutes at the beginning or the end of the session. She would introduce herself and explain why she couldn’t stay “Bio test!”, but just say that she was interested in X Univiersity, so wanted to stop in and say hello.</p>
<p>My sons attended a private college prep school – with a gazillion helicopter parents! – but NO parent ever attended the sessions with college admissions staff held during the day. Those were clearly intended for the kids and I think that’s the way it should be. </p>
<p>Parents may be “invited” at your D’s school but please do not go. Having parents present tends to change the whole tone of the conversation.</p>
<p>At my sons’ school, the college visit schedule was posted on-line and students had to sign up in advance to attend. Each senior was limited to a maximum of five such sessions and had to get permission, in writing, from the teacher of any class that would be missed. The teacher had to certify that the student had a current grade of C+ or better (so they could afford to miss the class) and had made arrangements to make up the work, if necessary (for example, coming in after school to make up a science lab).</p>
<p>“but NO parent ever attended the sessions with college admissions staff held during the day”</p>
<p>Just to clarify -neither DW nor myself attended ANY college admissions sessions held at DD’s high school during the DAY. We only attended evening sessions, where parents were invited, and parents routinely attended. We thought this was appropriate and useful.</p>
<p>bbdad, I agree with you completely. There is a big difference between evening sessions (which are usually structured to include both students and their parents) and the daytime sessions (which are really meant to be for the kids).</p>
<p>As far as I know, these sessions are just for the students. The big advantage of going, especially when it is a small LAC or U, with not many students attending, is that you usually will meet your regional admissions officer (the person who will be reading your application…). If you have something insightful enough to ask or say to make that admissions officer take notice, it will put a “human face” on your application file, which can be a huge leg up…</p>
<p>Thank you! Very insightful replies! Especially about the fact that there is a good chance one is going to meet the rep. that is going to read one’s application.
I double checked the e-mails and yes, it does say “parents are invited to attend as well” so thank you for clarifying this for me.</p>
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<p>OK Pizzagirl, I won’t go. Promise ;)</p>
<p>Now I’m kind of curious about the dynamic of these at Kelowna’s school I suspect it is different than at our school, as one parent mentioned. Parents tend to dominate in those situations, especially ones who would actually come to the sessions. It seems to me that this would put the kids (all of them) at sort of a disadvantage with the rep in a way compared to other high schools. The rep gets an unvarnished view of the kids without the parents there that they probably really like. I bet the reps wish they wouldn’t invite the parents!</p>