<p>Midwesterner - excellent advise!
It is harder to unearth this type of information to make the compare and contrast.
Do you have any advise on how to get an acurate picture of a department? I find often websites can offer little except the superficial. The opportunities how do you find these? If there not apparent or only aluded to without specifics how can you research authenticity? After digging deeper, one college I noted had given a stellar name but seemed to have nothing else to offer except the honor of being admitted.</p>
<p>This advise was from my hs GC, many years ago. “Stop by to visit the career placement center. If it is a closet with a bare light bulb, run the other way”. </p>
<p>That was probably the most helpful bit of advise or help I got. (And things have not changed that much these days - GC are overworked). But it was very helpful, and I ended up with a great little engineering school that had a wonderful career center.</p>
<p>I don’t think classes are really worth sitting in on, honestly. There’s too many variables at play, and it takes a good 1-2 hours of time that could, imo, be better spent.</p>
<p>Things to check out -
on-campus student hangout(s)
dining hall(s)
libraries
at least one basic freshman dorm
town/surrounding area
career center
meetings with professors in relevant departments, if applicable.</p>
<p>Basically, look for places where students spend a lot of time and see if your son/daughter feels at home in them. The career center is really the important exception to this rule, though.</p>
<p>A lot of good advice has been offered. I concur, have your child attend a class in their intended major, or if they’re undecided, something that interests them. One thing my D and I did was visit the student unions and/or dining halls during peak times. After insisting that she spend ample time merely “people watching” to get somewhat of a vibe for the students/culture, I would strike up a conversation with a nearby table of students (talk about mortifying my embarrassed daughter). I asked the following questions:</p>
<ol>
<li>What are your favorite things about the school?</li>
<li>What are the things you dislike?</li>
<li>Is there anything that has surprised you about the school?</li>
<li>What other schools did you apply to? (gives insight into the type of student)</li>
<li>Why did you ultimately choose this school? (Many shared acceptances/rejections although we of course would never ask. It was interesting to see what schools they turned down.)</li>
<li>If you had it to do over again, would you pick the same school? (The most important question; one kid who says no can be attributed to being homesick, classes too hard, etc. but if a lot of kids say no, that’s pretty telling info.)</li>
</ol>
<p>I realize this isn’t any way to gather a true statistical representation, but their responses were more helpful than any info session we attended. Most were very eager to share their thoughts and opinions. My D admits now that she’s glad I would start these conversations. (OMG, mom! You’re such a geek! :rolleyes: )</p>
<p>Both my kids did all the admitted student events they were invited to. My older son actually had managed not to get accepted at any college he’d already visited, so they were all new to him, my younger son had seen 3 of the 4 before. Events were quite different from simple one day affairs to weekends extended into a Monday opportunity to visit classes. </p>
<p>Very useful:
Activity fairs - it’s really easy (even for a shy kid) to talk to students at these
Presentations by departments, or other education entities at the college: I think the Global Leadership Institute’s presentation had a large part in my son’s decision to attend Tufts. I know that the School of Computer Science’s presentation had everything to do with my older son choosing Carnegie Mellon over Harvard.
Overnights - sure not every dorm is the same, but you can ask to look at other ones while you are there, and you’ll get a feel for how serious the students are. (Keeping in mind that freshmen dorms may have a different vibe from ones with all the classes.)
Career Center - definitely worth a peek</p>
<p>Some use
Classroom visits - I agree with whoever upthread said that looking at other students more than whether you like this particular prof is the most useful. My younger son did like the small group discussion and engaged students at his U of Chicago class visit a lot.
Food - It’s not the most important thing about college, but if the food is good you know it’s one less thing to worry about. We actually found a couple of campuses with excellent food.
Panels of Students talking about the college - they have obviously been chosen to be positive, but we’ve found that they usually get a good cross section and you can usually push them to talk about the negatives. (We started asking everyone “what do you like least about ___ college.”) Sometimes it was the food, sometimes the advising, sometimes the way dorm assignments were made, sometimes it was not having enough free time.</p>
<p>Not much use
Mock class - you get a better sense of what your fellow prospies are like, but it’s really nothing like observing a real classroom. </p>
<p>I was kind of surprised that on several visits my younger son was taken to visit stuff off campus by his host. Going to the local ice cream shop is one thing - you get an idea of what’s in the area, but one host took him bowling - which just seemed weird…</p>
<p>Good luck! Even after visits, both my kids waited till the very last day to make very difficult decisions, but I am convinced that they made the right ones.</p>
<p>My biggest suggestion: pick up a copy of the campus newspaper. Reality may be different from what the admissions office has to say. We visited one campus in early 2009 where the admissions folks talked about how strong they were financially, and the campus paper talked about the 30% hit to the endowment and pending layoffs. At another school, the campus paper had advertisements for several speakers over the course of one week across several departments and discussing topics that were right up my son’s alley.</p>
<p>My kids both wanted to do the April visits solo. I think it’s useful, esp. if travel could be a deciding issue. (It’s also cheaper – we were able to use frequent flyer miles/Amtrak points for these solo trips vs. transportation for parents, kid and hotels.) Some kids will decide that a city halfway across the country with two-hour direct flights home is less of a hassle than a five hour drive to the flagship on the other side of the state. In addition, every year on CC there are tales of kids stranded in airports/delayed by missed connections/unable to get out of their small town campuses because of bad weather.</p>
<p>Both my kids sat in on classes in their majors, not the pre-arranged, approved list. Both were also able to talk to departmental advisors. VERY helpful.</p>
<p>My kids tried to stay over a weekend and go to class on Monday. We found out from experience that not that many schools have class on Friday, which is an issue if you want to sit in a seminar, etc. Also gave them a chance to see what happens on weekends and school nights (level of partying, when do people actually work, etc.).</p>
<p>Ask your student to look at the school with an eye to whether it will meet his/her needs for the entire four years. What fits a HS senior may be a different story two years from now – whether it’s not enough depth in a major, a student decides to study something the school doesn’t offer, whether urban grit will get stressful and old, or if rural living doesn’t offer enough variety and excitement.</p>
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<p>I, too, found this to be difficult when my daughter was going through the process. If a person is interested in engineering or nursing or some other very specific majors, it is easier to get figures on the strength of the department. We did a couple of things. As I said before, my daughter talked at length (1.5 hours) with a department chair at a great college and the woman gave her insight to several of the programs she was considering.</p>
<p>DD also met with two professors at the college she is attending and one of them set up an appointment with a current female student, which was good in the traditionally not filled with women major DD was exploring.</p>
<p>Another thing I did was e-mail several department chairs at colleges across the country, two were at my alma maters and one was at a fairly presitgious school out West that is strong in one of the majors my daughter was exploring. The only one who responded was the one at the prestigious school–go figure. And he was very funny. He told me that if there was any way possible that we could afford to send DD to his school we should because it was the best (DD was not an applicant there because she did not want to go to California). However, if that wasn’t possible, he named two other OOS (for us) state schools with great programs.</p>
<p>Excellent thread. My S is also a senior and we’re also thinking about this. He didn’t get that “you’ll know it when you step on campus” feeling for any of the schools he visited last year (although he did know one school was <em>not</em> the place within a very short time, and we left). He has a lot of schools that seemed “fine”. He has a couple he hasn’t visited yet, that he also hasn’t gotten admissions decisions from yet. </p>
<p>He’s very shy, and I just can’t see him going up and asking students questions. He’s considering some schools where he was offered excellent scholarships and honors college admission, where he would be well above the 75% range, so I was thinking that attending a class or two would give him an idea whether the pace seemed reasonable, and whether the other kids took the classes seriously or not. Even if he doesn’t do an overnight, I’d love to get him “hooked up” with another honors college student in his desired major to take him to a class or two and chat with him etc. Since my S is so shy, I may take a page from jc40’s book and engage the students myself.</p>
<p>When students talk to profs in their area, what kinds of things do they ask about? (Again I can’t imagine my very shy S doing this at all.)</p>
<p>Excellent suggestions above. Check out the dorms, library, cafeteria and bulletin boards. Visit the department office. If the student has been accepted into the Honors Program visit those offices also. Pick up a copy of the college newspaper. And DEFINITELY check out off-campus areas that students frequent.</p>
<p>I second the suggestion to look at the bulletin boards–they tell you a lot about what is going on.</p>
<p>I think it is very important to really figure out what classes you will be taking if you have an intended major. Map out with your department advisor what a schedule would look like for the next 4 years meeting all departmental and school-wide requirements.</p>
<p>Does this schedule reflect what you want to be studying? Does it differ greatly between school A and B?</p>
<p>So many kids say, “I want to be a ______ major” and don’t realize that there can be a big difference in how you achieve this degree from school to school. Don’t like foreign language? Swore you’d never take calculus? Find that out now, before you decide.</p>
<p>To follow up on what uskoolfish said, take a look at the majors offered and the requirements *before *you make the visit. We wasted a day on a visit to a school that would not have worked for my son at all because of the way the relevant program was set up.</p>
<p>We have found that we can get the information on what classes will look like for all 4 years from the websites, in advance.</p>
<p>True…but don’t assume that the most up-to-date info is posted on-line. Kids should make sure that they get the requirements for their incoming class. For us, it was handed out at major-specific accepted students events. I am sure that if you do not visit in person, you can get that information, but I would certainly confirm the accuraccy of what you find on-line for the incoming class.</p>
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<p>mathmomvt,</p>
<p>I think this is an excellent idea for kids who are considering honors colleges. If the students in the class seem bright and engaged in the discussion, then he knows that he will find a group of academic peers.</p>
<p>I think this varies a great deal depending on the specific character/quirks of the kid. Mine, for example, had no interest in various school activities (aside from the sport he plays), but definitely wanted to attend a class in his intended major. He did overnights at his top two accepted choices as he is not a kid who warms up to people quickly or would feel comfortable asking random students questions about the school. Overnights allowed him to absorb things rather than trying to draw things out of other people.</p>
<p>As the parents, the most difficult thing for us was to keep our mouths shut. H, who went along on these visits (I did the pre-ap tour), clearly liked school A much more than school B, but it was important that DS make his own decision of where to attend. That way, DS would own the decision and there would be no risk of “You made me go to this school and I hate it” down the line. The things that struck H as ‘really cool’ about school A didn’t impress DS at all and in the end he chose school B, mainly based on his sport, where he is doing fine. H really had to bite his tongue. I would add that academically both schools were fine for him.</p>
<p>Both of my kids sat in on upper-div courses to see what the knowledge base of majors was like. For one of my kids, at one school the level of class discussion was similar to a current HS course he was taking. At another, he found the prof giving quizzes on topics that S assumed should be part and parcel of one’s background knowledge in that field. </p>
<p>We found bulletin board reading quite useful, too – some departments post where their grads are heading, which was nice to see in terms of grad schools and employers who liked the schools’ students.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, my kids had great choices and reasoned, substantive opinions about each. They both gave their decisions a lot of thought, and that was as much as we could ask.</p>
<p>Thanks everybody. As usual CC is the source for great guidance. Will let you know how our visit goes, hopefully somebody can benefit from out experience as well.</p>
<p>Here are three school visits d did and what she found out= school #1, way above the 75%, got in honors but on the visit, no one mentioned it at all, class visit was very informative- not freshman class, taught on very low level, seemed like none of the students did the work, conversation before class was enlightening, school ruled out School #2- class room visits good, but much more helpful was shadowing student, eating in cafeteria, and overnight visit. On waitlist at school but liked so much, she decided she does want to be on waitlist, School #3- bad food, bad dorm (mold problem), bad overnight, bad social scene, classes were mixed, first one had a hungover teacher (other prospie had seen the prof totally blotto at a pizza parlor he was taken to at night), second was fine, students were better than in school #1 but although classes were tolerable, moldy dorm, bad food, and not friendly students were not. </p>
<p>I have found the overnights most helpful but even without it in school #1, d could see it wasn’t a fit. Hopefully, in the school she is visiting this next week where she does not have an overnight, she will still get a good sense of the place.</p>
<p>I’m going to dissent in part. I don’t think you can possibly get really useful information from a visit like this, at least information useful enough to warrant the time and expense. You get a TON of really vivid, more-or-less random impressions that FEEL like useful information, but aren’t, really (or, more likely, become part of a self-fulfilling prophecy, so that they will ALWAYS be accurate). </p>
<p>Going to a class? Is the class is representative of that institution? In ways that an outsider can tell in one session? Maybe so, maybe no . . . and you’ll never know which it is unless you spend a lot more time there. Do the buildings feel homey? Is the food OK? Are those things really important, or should it be more “Will this make me sick?” With the answer being, in almost all cases, “No.” Human beings are very adaptable.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if a kid has spent time at one college he likes, it would be very difficult for him to pick another college sight-unseen. It just feels too uncertain. So, on the visiting thing, it’s in for a dime, in for a dollar.</p>