I hate to jump on the bandwagon for not being able to replicate Admitted Student days, but I kind of do think that’s the case. I suppose for a kid who knew what the criteria is that matters the most to him, a decision could be made without an AS visit.
But the visits were a game changer for my son. He went to three AS days, and it completely changed his decision. He already knew he liked the students and the social vibe at all three schools, because he knew enough older kids from his high school who were at each of them. What was really helpful to him was just hearing the schools (admissions staff, faculty, deans, etc) talk at the AS days, often in answer to someone else’s questions.
As an example, my son was really undecided on what he’ll eventually want to major in. He was admitted to Georgetown School of Foreign Service, which was definitely very appealing to him (and I was blown away by the visit!). But he also still has a vague feeling that maybe he’d want to major in a science, and so wants to take some science classes to sort out his feelings. If he’d just gone himself to visit Georgetown and asked his questions (can I take classes outside the SFS, how hard is it to do that, can I change out of SFS if I decide I want to major in something else), he would have been told exactly what he wanted to hear (yes, not hard, and of course). And those would be true answers, as far as they go. But what he took away from listening to the panel presentations and the like at the AS day, is that the course of study and extracurriculars in the SFS are really immersive – the kids all just get swept into that world. That’s an amazing opportunity if that’s what you want to do. But my son realized that it didn’t truly offer him enough flexibility to play around in the many other areas of interest he has, and that he’d end up just going with the flow with everyone else and worried that he’d later regret not experimenting with more fields. When he then went to the AS at the school he now attends, he saw that he’d have way more flexibility and that many students were exploring different areas of study.
Similarly, at the third AS day he did, he was able to attend a fair with tables set up from each academic department where he could wander around and talk to professors in those departments. In doing so, he talked to some physics professors (and also listened to them talking to other prospective students) and learned enough to realize that the school didn’t really have much depth in astrophysics (which, if he majored in any science, is what he’d be interested in). Sure, if he hadn’t gone to the AS day and had wanted to know more about that school’s astrophysics department, he certainly could have made an appointment to speak with a professor on his own. But since it’s really only a vague idea that he might be interested in astrophysics, he probably wouldn’t have done that on his own. So by attending the AS and just listening to relevant, and semi-relevant, conversations, he learned a lot of useful information.
