Admitted students days are way better when it comes to Certain schools that basically relegate you to standing outside every building on ordinary tours ( Nortwestern I’m looking at you, but Harvard too of course, though with more jutification since NW doesn’t get a lot of tourists). On admitted students days they actually take you inside, including to dorms.
I suggest on a weekday doing a self tour around the campus first, and doing the admitted student tour afterwards.
That way you can see what the campus is really like when they are not putting on a show for the incoming freshmen, to see if the surroundings and atmosphere is right for you, and later you can get a more in depth tour that provides specific information you might not get by walking around campus, and you can meet other incoming freshmen.
Part of the reason I chose to enroll at my current university (Rensselaer) was since I went to accepted students day. I don’t regret the decision one bit, and would say that going was a great experience that was very reflective of how the university actually ended up being. College’s can’t hide everything during these events, and typically you’ll get a good perspective. Granted, if you’re stuck or seriously considering schools, I’d say that more than one visit is a good idea. I visited Rensselaer two times before I enrolled, once for accepted students day and once on a normal tour and I’d say I had the same experience both times. At other schools, you might find the opposite which is why going on numerous occasions, if possible, isn’t a terrible idea for schools you’re seriously considering attending.
I don’t think it should be an either/or situation. Regular days are good for getting the “normal” vibe and can be done anytime (hopefully before one even applies). The admitted day is good for really getting access to so much more. Lots of sessions with factuly, students, current parents, special departments (such as study abroad or career services) make it much more informative.
We were at an admitted student’s day with D this past weekend, after having visited twice for regular info sessions and tours. Two things set this day apart and made it worthwhile: 1) getting to see the freshmen dorm rooms; and, 2) taking a class with a professor. D was on the fence about double majoring in biochemistry. She went to a class taught by one of the professors and was so blown away that she came out saying she was definitely going to do it. Priceless.
Admitted student days are very important – you shouldn’t skip because they provide you with the basics you need to know as an admitted student who may attend.
The question to me is whether to do an official prospective student tour or a just visit and wonder around, sneaking into classes and observing people. Official tours are basically school propaganda that can create a false impression of what it is like to attend. Even Harvard’s official tours create an alternate universe appearance of what the school is like day-to-day. The whole atmosphere of any school tour is synthetic and no one is going to tell you anything they don’t want you to hear. Just walking around, watching and listening can be more helpful. You are more likely to catch students venting about the school or expressing sincere views.
However, DIY touring requires more effort on your part, more than you might want to invest in anything other than your very short short-list.
I met some people on Admitted Student Day who became friends of mine in college. By sheer coincidence, I even met the person who ended up being my roommate!
My sister (who went to DUKE) visited 3 times, Admit day, before applying, another random time after acceptance. She said go to Admit day and another day becuase you get 2 different experiences of the college , when it is crowded and vibrant , versus when its quiet and normal business day. Go both times- its worthwile.
I think admitted students days are beneficial. While it would be best if you could do both, we had to choose one or the other and chose admitted students day due to travel and time constraints. I liked that there is more access to advisors, professors and representatives of the school and more opportunities to interact with them. Open houses at the various departments are also helpful. In addition, meeting potential friends, roommates and students entering as freshman with your child can make them feel more comfortable starting in a new place.
I agree that visiting schools as an accepted student is very useful and can help make the final decisions. However, while it is probably better to attend an accepted students’ day, you can pretty much replicate the experience by just visiting the campus on a normal day in April, so long as you let your regional adcom know that you are coming and who/what else you want to see that day. We ended up visiting 3 admitted students’ days and 2 other schools where we could not make the admitted day due to scheduling. There are pros and cons to each approach although I don’t think we missed out on anything on the two schools where we visited on an adhoc basis.
Overall, I did find the admitted students days somewhat disappointing as with a few small tweaks they could have been organized and presented much better. Here are several areas that I feel could be improved:
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More admitted students days, particularly later in the month – two related problems here. My DD did not receive her last decisions until 31/3 and the first admitted students’ days were on 7/4. It took 2 days of scrambling around to get reasonable hotels and flights booked but we managed it. Also, maybe it was because of the late Easter but many schools with nearly 10,000 undergrads only had 2 admitted students days and get filled up. A couple of these seemed to be too big and it was difficult to get to the sessions on time due to the crowds. One school in particular held the opening session in the basketball arena which must have had 5,000 people in it. This was a turn off for DD. In hindsight these schools should have had an additional day.
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Early starts – Why must these days start at 8:00am, particularly when they all seem to end around 2:00 anyway? This must be a real hassle for parents who are driving in that morning? I noticed that people would always be coming in continually (and noisily) through the opening sessions. For me, who arrived the previous evening and stayed in a hotel, dragging a jet-lagged 17 year old out of bed at 6:30 is not fun! In the UK, these type of events don’t usually kick off until 10:00 with registration from 9:00 or 9:30 as they know that people come in on the morning. Also for the schools that make it a two day event – one day is enough!
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Swag – You would think that these schools would realise that in April they are on the wrong end of a buyer’s market! You can’t even give a free T-shirt to an admitted student who has already paid an $80 application fee? We ended up with free T-shirts from 2 of the schools, sports bags plus assorted pens and other small stuff from 2 others and nothing from the fifth. (Yeah, the latter school is no longer on DD’s list). 2 of the schools also gave discount vouchers for more swag from the bookstore which was nice. One thing I notice is how many current students are wearing school swag compared to when I was at Uni. If I was these schools, I would be handing out lots of free swag for the kids to start wearing while they are deciding. At a minimum, it should be a free shirt, water bottle and car decals/stickers for the parents. It’s called marketing, guys!
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Student Interaction – I was surprised that there was so little opportunity for the kids to mingle with each other at these days. (If I was a hs senior I would want to see the type of kids I would be signing up to spend the next four years with!). Even at Georgetown, which did have an icebreaker session with students, most of the time was spent asking current students questions rather than the admitted students meeting each other. My DD was not too fussed about this as she said that even if she did meet anyone, there is a good chance that at least one of them will not even attend that school in September anyway.
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Free parking and food – One of my pet peeves at college visits is having to pay to park when we do campus visits. Again, shouldn’t they want prospective customers to feel welcome? (Marketing!) Why can’t Admissions just validate parking? We did get free parking at UVA, although it was in an inconveniently located lot, which we couldn’t find so we ended up parking at a different lot and paying anyway. Food provision seemed to differ wherever we went. Georgetown had free dining hall food for the kids but told the parents to go off campus which can be quite expensive based on where you go (they did have some good muffins and other snacks at the parents’ coffee so I just stuffed myself there!), UVA had free food for the kids (parents had to pay but at least we could eat with them in the dining hall) and I’m not sure what BC had as they had sessions and dorm tours running through the allotted lunch time so we did not have time to eat.
Overall ratings (out of five stars): UVA 4.5, Georgetown 4.0 and BC 2.0. Last year UCSB 3.0 (but 5 for honesty/accuracy as you left there knowing the pros/cons of that school) and UMiami 2.0.
Also:
- Have a clear and articulate message about the schools vision and strengths: what makes your college great and differentiates it from the likely competitors for your admitted students. At the schools that we visited, I think that these schools often compete with top 10 ish LACs for A&S students, but probably not top 10 ish National Universities as those latter kids would just choose those schools. When we attended the A&S College’s Dean’s speeches we often got a clear message about how the A&S College is the engine of the University (as everybody takes at least some A&S classes); how analytical, discussion and writing skills gained from Humanities classes provide valuable life schools for any career; and the benefits of double majoring and interdisciplinary courses/seminars/majors. One school we visited botched this part and seemed to confuse liberal arts studies with both local citizenship and global outlook and overly focused on a new seminar program that only has room for 50% of the new freshmen.
We recently saw 3 schools in 3 different states in 3 days. Two were Admitted Student Days (supplemented by one-on-one mtgs I set up for my D to meet with advisors and students). One was not an Admitted Student Day, but a day that I pieced together myself consisting of mtgs with a dept advisor, professor, student, a live class sit-in, campus tour, 2 dorm tours, rec center tour. Despite how extensive the day that I created sounds, the college-planned days proved to be more draining. Why? Lines, waiting, the broad-based approach to their “pitch”. At one Big Ten, we spent the first 90 mins at 9am sitting in a huge auditorium, waiting for it to fill, sitting through a band, an acapella group, 2-3 administrators (and one very impressive student who should have been the only speaker over 60 seconds). Far less personalized experience means you can gauge overall “vibe” and “intention”, but it’s harder to gauge personal “fit”. I say supplement the Admitted Student Days with your own pre-planned individual engagement touches for a richer and more informative experience.
My daughter and I attended the admitted student days for her final first and second choices. After the visits, she switched her 1st and 2nd choice - based on conversations she had with current students in her chosen major. So glad we attended. She gained valuable information to help her clarify which school was the better fit.
We saw my D’s second and third choices on admitted student days and it totally changed her impression of the schools when she met other potential classmates. She didn’t hear from her first choice until end of March and we couldn’t fly to see it until 4/29. Like our D, we met many admitted students who had flown in to make similar comparisons that last weekend before submitting a deposit. I do think seeing her first choice on an ordinary day gave her a better sense of what the school and student body was like when they weren’t putting on a dog and pony show.
The admitted student program (it was 2-3 days long) was much better than an impromptu visit. The reasons why –
For my daughter:
- Met potential/confirmed classmates that she’d been chatting with in the Facebook group
- Attended multiple sports team practices and lunches with teammates
- Special social events were arranged in the evenings that included prospective and current students
- The academic department open house and org fair made it easy to quickly get info about both
- Multiple meals in various residence halls
For parents:
- The college President welcomed accepted students and opened the program
- Met many administrators, faculty, alumnae and parents at the various social mixers
- It was very easy to get questions answered, since everything was organized and easily accessible. If we’d instead had an impromptu visit, there would have been a lot of legwork on our part to arrange these same conversations.
If you suspect the Admitted Student’s Day at your prospective college would be less authentic than a normal day, then that’s not the right school for you.
@magtf1 Sounds like a great program. What school was it? Also, did you find 3 days too long? We skipped out on the second day at Georgetown as we feel that we did all that we needed to do on the first day.
@londondad This was at Wellesley. Day 1 was an optional program focused on diversity, the formal Accepted Students program was 1.5 days with optional 0.5.
Yes, the full three days was a bit too much, but we only did it at one school so it was fine.
Strange but true. Because of flying eat coast to west, with a stop in between, we could only make the accepted students day at the Midwest school. My son gave me a list of classes to attend, and he would do others. I went to meet up with him the next morning, and he was sitting in cafeteria with 3 other young men. They had attended the CA college weekend before, for admitted students day. I never asked, but I think they were more enthused about the CA school, and swayed my son’s opinion.
Then, we get to the CA college, our 3rd school, and they were more than terrific.
I wish we had visited these schools prior to being admitted, spent more time, etc. choosing where to study and live for 4 years is still major, yet seems to be done in less than a day. It is like thinking you are in love after one date.
If at all possible, do both, or attend the program and try to have your student do an overnight or something unrelated to the festivities.
We flew to an accepted students weekend for honors students and WOW did they put on a show. Beautifully catered sit-down dinner (not your standard rubbery chicken and pasta, lol), dessert at the President’s house, fruit, cheese, and pastry plates everywhere, shuttles to take us wherever we wanted to go, lots of swag, etc. Highly customized folders/bags with schedules upon check-in. BUT – my daughter did an overnight too, and the experience was not good. Once she left the special programming, the students were unenthusiastic and not friendly. The dorms and classrooms were dreary and basically, people weren’t welcoming.
The school went from high on my daughter’s list to “nope” despite a terrific merit package.
We did three trips to Cal (UCB), one trip we just wandered around the campus on our and checked out the local area. The next trip was an official guided tour, and the last trip was for the admitted student event/fair (Cal Day). They were all valuable in different ways. The biggest benefit of the admitted student day was getting to chat with graduating seniors in her intended major, and getting tours of major points of interest including the gym, various sororities, and various dorms. It provided a much more detailed look than the regular tour.