Admitted Students Day vs. Individual Visit

@intparent We visited seven of his 13 schools. I didn’t want to take him to the biggest reaches so he didn’t fall in love. He won’t get into all and maybe into none of them so, although it seems like I’m taking a ton of time on this, it’s really just a little time to try to be set up for the possibilities.

I think if your son lets the admissions staff at those rural LAC’s know that he can’t make it on admitted students day, they will make appropriate arrangements on another day. My son couldn’t do admitted students day at a small suburban LAC, but came the day after — and he was able to attend classes, ask questions, participate in social activities on campus, etc.

Keep in mind that all of those admitted student day activities are pretty much a dog and pony show that doesn’t necessarily correlate well with what campus life is like on other days - and of course much of it might be t A larger university may really need to have these days set aside to shepherd large groups of students at once. But the LAC’s have more flexibility precisely because they are smaller— and it may have the benefit of being more one-on-one attention.

When my daughter attended the AS day at the college she ended up attending – she didn’t stay long. Maybe an hour at most. Obviously, she didn’t buy into whatever slate of scheduled events or activities they had come up with. My impression was that she spent about 45 minutes on campus and then decided she’d seen enough, called me to tell me it was ok to put down a deposit, and then went about her day. (But she was in NYC, so I can understand why she didn’t feel like hanging around the campus).

If your son is fortunate enough to have to choose among schools that are so similar that he finds it hard to distinguish among them… then there really is no wrong choice. At that point, he might consider factors that don’t require a visit – things like geography & transportation. Or he can start to delve into information readily available online, such as delving into the college catalog and looking at specific courses & requirements for his majors – he may be surprised to learn that the course sequence and offerings from one college to another are not identical.

I think the reality is he’ll only be able to do 3 or 4 admitted students days in April b/c they will overlap, he’s still in school, and it’s only a five-ish week window.

If he wants to squeeze more in, I’m sure they’ll be happy to set up nice visits on other days – but even so the window is short and even in April last year my D was very busy with school and determined not to lose her 4.0 the last semester of HS so she couldn’t just blow off school…I imagine your S feels the same.

If he has lots of acceptances he may have to let some go right off the bat and make choices on those to visit – with priority on those he’s not seen before I suppose.

I know it’s hard not to be able to map them out now but that’s the nature of the beast. Be prepared to pay high airline ticket costs b/c you’ll be booking w/ pretty short notice!

We set up some individual visits and felt we got more out of them than the generic admitted students’ events.

It’s hard to remember everything, but here’s some of what we did:
–campus and dorm tours
–met with the department head and got answers to questions about the major
–met with an advisor and went over the high school transcript, AP credit, and possible freshman schedule
–lunch with current students in the major
–met with financial aid and scholarships
–visited the student health center/pharmacy
–checked out the banking/ATM situation
–met with honors program coordinator
–walked around on our own and talked to current students - that’s where you get the best info!

@AlmostThere2018 That is exactly right. For what it is worth, we found AS days at smaller schools to be particularly valuable. It is more than dog and pony at a small school. Their strengths and weaknesses really show up when they are trying to put their best foot forward.

I can already see the dates of almost all of the AS Days on the websites. None overlap with no other option. (Some overlap but then have second dates that make it possible that they don’t have to overlap.). As for school. Eh. This will be more important. As I look at it right now, matter what, he wouldn’t miss more than eight days. Honestly, his teachers would work with him to figure it out. Three of his classes will just be reviewing for AP tests by then and he can review on his own.

I think we can put them in some sort of order and then start crossing off as he get his rejections. Lol. My question was mainly around how to get the most out of a non-AS visit day and I’ve gotten some good answers on that. First, that AS Days do seem important and, second, there are ways to make other visits more personal and maybe good enough.

Is your son planning to run track in college? If so, even if he was not recruited but has good enough times to walk on, maybe the coach can work with the AO to pair your son with another track team member on an unofficial overnight. At least for my D who plays on a team for a rural LAC, her primary social group is her team.

@BKSquared yes possibly. There are a handful of schools on the list where the coaches told him he could run if he gets in RD. Good idea to stay with a track teammate. He’s already done that at one school and it was quite eye opening.

I prefer individual visits: sit in a class or two, meet with a prof in the dept of interest, overnight stay if possible, eat in dining center, attend a sports game (if he is into that type of thing, attend an arts/theater production, etc. I find the admitted student days dog and pony shows which may not be representative of the daily life at XXX college.

I have been to some great accepted student days and some not so great accepted student days. I’d take a deep breath and see how things fall out. See where he gets in, how the finances turn out etc. for each school. If in the end he does have two long-distance schools he wants to see again and they have accepted student days on different weekends then I’d do one accepted students day and one individual visit.

How should you decide which accepted student day to attend? First, you can look at both college’s schedules for accepted student days and see if one school appears to have a more thoughtful program. If they look similar, see if either of the schools would allow him to shadow a student for a day (where he could attend classes, eat in the cafeteria etc.), do an overnight, or arrange something which could give him a good feel for the college.

There are pluses and minuses to accepted student days and regular visits, but you can get what you need out of both. If your S gets into those 4 you list above, he should go to all and decide whether it is the official accepted day or otherwise based on logistics. Would be a nice problem to have!

The benefit of admitted student days is that you get to meet a lot of other kids in your position AND far more important, all the resources are assembled – even the ones you might not think of. The combo can be quite powerful.

Let me suggest that if you are being limited by cost, your son can go alone. You don’t have to attend.

Visiting as an admitted student is valuable if you haven’t been before or need a second look, but it won’t be the same as an admitted student event. And for all who say that schools put their best foot forward, I say "if you don’t like it under those circumstances, you probably have your decision. "

I’ve seen schools really fumble the AS visit. That 24 hours on campus is very revealing.

Waiting on these decisions and planning for possible AS days is hard. Already see some conflicts like schools having it on same days. Also my son plays baseball so spring is already busy. I’ve talked to parents whose kids are at the schools he applied to to get more insight about AS days and their experience so far. I hope we can make at least 2-3 AS days to help my S decide. Still waiting!

My kid missed some EC events that were quite important, but we figured nothing was as important as picking the right college. At our school, coaches and teammates understood that the final stretch of college decisions trumped even things like state meets.

My child did not go to admitted students day. We were living overseas so she just had to make a decision.
It was based on net price and the amount of IB credits given.

I think an advantage of admitted students day is you get to see the other admitted students

^ I agree.