<p>I will be taking my senior daughter to visit some schools in Virginia and DC. She has an interview with American and we have received information about William & Mary's Fall tour. What should she do in preparation? Does she need to take anything?</p>
<p>She should definitely take a quick look at the basic information for each school: the classes/majors each school offers, special opportunities, etc. </p>
<p>My daughter has found it useful to have a few questions in the back of her mind for interviews about each school based on information she's read on the website or in the school's viewbook. It seems that most interviewers ask "Do you have any other questions?" and my D. always feels foolish if she doesn't have at least one in hand. She also has asked the same question of at least one student besides the official tour guide at every campus she's visited: "what is the one thing you love best and the one thing what that drives you crazy about college XYZ" She's gotten some very interesting answers and insights that way.</p>
<p>It doesn't hurt to take along a copy of her school transcript. 99% of the time you won't need it but there have been two interviews where my daughter felt it was handy to have. </p>
<p>Oh, and bring a camera. It helps to be able to go back and look at pictures to jog your memory about different aspects of each campus. Not only that, but it keeps Mom occupied while D. asks questions :)</p>
<p>Carolyn is the master of the college visit, :) so I have very little to add. When my daughter visited several colleges in a row, she took a pocket-sized notebook with a couple of questions to ask, and then immediately after the visit, she recorded the positives and negatives for each school under the headings "le bon" and "le mal". I still have the little notebook somewhere, and it is pretty interesting and sometimes comical to look back and see what she thought worth noting! The schools do tend to run together if you visit a whole bunch at once, though, and this technique seems to help.</p>
<p>At one school D was asked to mention five adjectives to describe herself. At another she was asked "Who is your best friend in high school?" She replied "Karin"-- she was the asked "How would Karin describe you?"</p>
<p>So thinking about self description (without memorizing a canned speech) is probably a good idea.</p>
<p>My son is a very visual kid. One of the things that we did on our college tour was to carry along a Polaroid. He took a number of pictures of each campus--places like the theater or Hillel that held special interest for him-- and was immediately able to scribble on the back of the photo exactly what he was looking at We have files on each of the schools he's considering and we've stored with the rest of the print info. He's looked at the pictures a number of times, and it seems to jog his memory about things he saw and did on the campus.</p>
<p>When you think of questions to ask, don't ask questions about hard facts (ie. what the most popular major, whats the male/female ration); think of questions that only someone who lives/works on campus would be able to answers. If your interviewer is a student, as it is in many universities, this is your opportunity to find out about the college experience - take advantage of it and ask questions like the one Carolyn suggested. I always asked tour guides what the worst aspect of their university was, and while some people will give you inane answers, most students are willing to share their candid opinions about college.</p>
<p>Another question that my daughter has found very useful and sometimes telling is: "About how much time do you spend most weeknights preparing for class?" I'll never forget the tour guide who replied, "Well, you have to understand I'm a senior in one of this school's most difficult majors, so I have a lot of work to do. I'd say I probably put in a good two hours or so two or three times a week."
My daughter, who seldom has less than five hours of homework a night in high school, practically died trying not to laugh. :)</p>
<p>At other schools though, the answers to this question have varied and provided some insights into not just how much work but what kind. We learned, for instance, that Earlham students have a lot of time-intensive research papers to write in nearly every subject, that Beloit students tend to have a lot of reading, and that Lewis & Clark students are viewed by Willamette students as real drones who never come out of the library. (But both L&C students and Willamette students told us that they didn't have nearly as much work as those crazy kids at Reed :) )</p>
<p>All from one simple question, asked repeatedly on different campuses.</p>
<p>AmyVictory: It seems to me that you were asking what preparation is needed for the interview. I do believe some prep is needed. Your D needs to know how to respond to interview questions. At the minimum she needs to know the kind of questions which are likely and she needs to have thought through some basic responses. She should bring a "resume" including basic academic information, EC's, interests and awards.</p>
<p>If she has an intended major or area of study, you/she should contact the appropriate department head to arrange a departmental tour/interview. This will give her a better idea of the school than some random comments from a student guide and a tour of the buildings and landscaping. </p>
<p>In addition to learning about the school, the tour should be an opportunity to help gain admission and in some cases merit aid consideration.</p>
<p>If she has an intended major or area of study, you/she should contact the appropriate department head to arrange a departmental tour/interview. This will give her a better idea of the school than some random comments from a student guide and a tour of the buildings and landscaping. </p>
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<p>Actually, many admissions offices will set up meetings and classes with faculty for you if you ask them when you set up the tour. Before contacting the department directly, I'd ask the admissions visit coordinator if they are the ones to coordinate this.</p>
<p>to prepare for interviews it can be helpful to read thru one of the books on job interviewing. They're basically the same type of questions, open-ended where they want to see what you say. For example, "Tell me about yourself" is going to be pretty common. Its worth spending some time at home practicing answers; not so that you can come up with the most intriguing answers the interviewer has ever heard, but so that you dont' feel tongue-tied when asked questions.</p>
<p>Every college interviewer is going to ask if you have any questions. Its not to fill time, its a way to see if the student has done their homework in researching the school and has spent time thinking about what it would be like to be a student at that school.</p>
<p>As far as campus tours, 2 sites with info are <a href="http://tinyurl.com/dzbao%5B/url%5D">http://tinyurl.com/dzbao</a> from Boston College, and <a href="http://tinyurl.com/4lfu9%5B/url%5D">http://tinyurl.com/4lfu9</a> from Yahoo.</p>
<p>Mikemac, I liked the websites and also agree that the process should be taken seriously. Our D had done a lot of similar "interviews" so we did a minimal amount of prep and tried to keep her stress level down.</p>
<p>Carolyn, I would disagree about letting the admission office handle the departmental-level interaction. The goal should not be to see the facilities but to meet the faculty and make contacts. You should not be content to be one of thousands of students and parents taking the official tours, information sessions and sitting in on a couple of classes. I was almost always impressed at the information we gained and the attention that was paid to us when we asked. We even had some very positive experiences by dropping in on some departments and asking for information.</p>
<p>Eadad, </p>
<p>I don't understand why you feel it is wrong to ask admissions for help setting up meetings with faculty. We've found dropping by the office is fine, but hit-or-miss. If the only person there is the department secretary, you won't get much information. By the same token, it's often hard to know who the best person in a department would be to talk to about a particular area of interest just from reading a school's website. Not to mention time consuming to try to coordinate a series of meetings with faculty on your own if you're trying to schedule them via email or phone beforehand.</p>
<p>On the other hand, my daughter has asked the admissions office at nearly every school we've visited to set up appointments with faculty members for her in her areas of interest. Often, admissions offices have gone out of the way to make sure she gets an appointment with a very specific faculty member, or they have suggested additional departments and faculty members that she wouldn't have thought of on her own. Like you, she's found these meetings to be incredibly informative and been overwhelmed by the attention she's received from faculty who have often then introduced her to other faculty members.</p>
<p>Time is usually short on college visits. While it's fine to drop by the office for a visit, sometimes it helps to have an insider working to help make the most of your time while you're there.</p>
<p>I must say I was impressed by all of the help everyone gave in the past 24 hours. I had not thought of asking for an appointment with a faculty member in her area of interest.</p>
<p>I met with faculty whenever I did college visits, but I never arranged them through the admissions office (because I never even thought of that option). Frankly, I think either way would work - the admissions office would get it done a lot more simply, but if you want to meet with someone specific, you could email directly. I emailed the department chairs at each campus I was visiting and asked if they would be able to meet with me or would be able to recommend somebody who is knowledgeable about the undergrad program. Most people responded within a decent amount of time and set something up with a faculty member. There was only one school where I emailed 4 different faculty members and called the department office twice, but never received any type of response at all. On the other hand, some schools were extremely friendly. At MIT, my dad and I met with the department head in the morning, and in the evening, I was asked to come with my family to visit one of the undergrads labs, meet some current students and eat dinner since one of the professors was having dinner with his students that evening.</p>
<p>It was helpful to ask admissions for a list of classes to visit in one's field.</p>
<p>I would not recommend visiting a department without making arrangements in advance. A couple of times we did this because just to visit another department or program which was of secondary interest. Although the timing might be bad, we usually had a response corresponding to the school's commitment to UG teaching.</p>
<p>At a couple of larger universities, department visits are also group events and we setup our own visits rather than take the official tour.
It appears we all agree that the time spent is very valuable.</p>
<p>Since my S had very specific interests, he looked up the schools' websites for the contact info for individual profs and for the schedules of lectures he might sit in. Since he was interested to learn the offerings and the research of various profs and departments, that worked out very well for him. At each school, he had meetings with profs that lasted up to one hour (one department chair also showed him around the department and took him to the departmental tea). He did not think to contact admissions to set up these meetings (and these were not schools that track student interest).
If a student has less well-defined ideas, it might be better to work through the Admissions office.</p>
<p>I would recommend that the student do research about the faculty member on the internet and set up the meeting themselves by phone or interview. The student should have a few well-conceived specific questions for that particular faculty member. This goes a long way to demonstrate the student's interest in that particular school and program.</p>
<p>I thought I would revive this thread with a report of my daughter's college visits. Over the past week she was scheduled to visit 4 east coast colleges and ended up visiting 5. </p>
<p>First of all, I'm thinking I might be the only parent on the planet insane enough to put my 17 year old daughter on a plane to the opposite coast with the intent of visiting 4 colleges in 3 cities on her own. Result: she reported it was "very easy" to get around. Visited 5 colleges. Old favorites off the list, new college added. </p>
<p>Colleges visited:
George Washington University
American U
Goucher
NYU (the surprise visit)
Barnard</p>
<p>Verdicts:</p>
<p>Dropped from College List:</p>
<p>GWU: Student body too serious, business-oriented. Students seen alking around wearing suits. Classes held in office buildings. </p>
<p>Goucher: Too small, too much open space, too many trees blocking any view of the city, buildings all look alike. (Profuse apologies here to anyone who thinks a college should have a spacious tree adorned campus or consistent architectural design). Too many white faces again -- though at least the kids aren't preppy. But her overall impression was that spending 4 hours there was too long (she spent the night) ... 4 years would never workwork. </p>
<p>Not Sure:
AU: Nice campus, good programs, especially internship opportunities -- but students too white & preppy. Adams Morgan neighborhood very nice, but far too upscale for starving students. </p>
<p>Will Apply:</p>
<p>Barnard: Now first choice. Barnard/Columbia campus is absolutely amazing. Interview was wonderful - easy conversation, lots in common with the interviewer. Lots of boys on the Barnard campus, just about everywhere she looks. Loves the Morningside Heights neighborhood - lots to do or eat nearby.</p>
<p>Added to List: </p>
<p>NYU: Biggest surprise of the trip, since she wasn't scheduled to visit - but after 4 days of despondency, she found her energy and purpose at NYU. Helped along by spending time with an NYU friend and having dinner with his father, an NYU prof. Chalk up lots of points for circumstances that would never have occured if either parent had been traveling with her. </p>
<p>Lessons learned by daughter: She's o.k. with a big college or large university; strongly prefers bustling urban setting. College strategy will probably be revised to use UC's as safeties, focus on reach colleges for private apps.</p>
<p>since we now seem to have an edad posting i guess i'll have to go back to the way i originally began posting way back when...EAdad to avoid confusion.</p>
<p>Moderator can you please adjust my screen name to appear as EAdad again</p>