Advice for first college visit

Parents Forum
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<p>Whew…what a day. We took the 7 am flight from Minneapolis to Milwaukee and then rented a car and drove down to Carthage for the 9:30 information session. At first my son was acting like “this is the dumbest thing you have ever made me do” and he warned me NOT to ask any questions. Once the actual tour started, I could see the enthusiasm start to creep up in him. He was not impressed by the dorm rooms, but then this was the first time he had seen one. I tried really hard to bite my tongue and to take everyone’s advice and let HIM do the talking and let HIM be the one to tell me what he liked. Wow - this strategy really worked. He noticed things that I thought went right over his head. The campus is right on Lake Michigan and I was surprised when he said that the water was very calming. He noticed the architecture and commented on the layouts of various class rooms and study rooms. He was thrilled that the on campus Pizza Hut served Hawaiian pizza.</p>

<p>There was some junior high cheerleading camp going on so it was a bit “loud”, and since we were in a hurry to get home for baseball we did not have time to eat in the cafeteria.</p>

<p>Our tour guide was not really that great, but overall we both liked the college. I just about fell off my chair when they said they already had 1100 applications for the fall of 2010. They said if we got our application in by next week that we could have a firm answer by mid September. I don’t think this is the norm and I wonder if they are scrambling to be creative because of the economy.</p>

<p>I wish that we had more time so we could have spoken to a couple of professors. </p>

<p>In two weeks we are going to visit 4 colleges in Iowa and I don’t think I can sit through 4 info meetings in 2 days. I will have to figure out a way to only do the physical tour portion of the program.</p>

<p>Thanks again for all the advice!</p>

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<p>Four in two days. YIKES. </p>

<p>A pretty low-key thing I started having my ds do last year (he’s totally on board with it now) was right after the session in the car, write three pros, three cons and then a sentence or two – or more, if moved – of a narrative. Helps keep the schools straight when you’re looking at many in a short time. It was fun this year to see the kinds of things he wrote last year.</p>

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<p>
[QUOTE=Kajon]

They said if we got our application in by next week that we could have a firm answer by mid September. I don’t think this is the norm and I wonder if they are scrambling to be creative because of the economy.

[/quote]

Sounds early, but not uncommon for a college with rolling deadlines. Earliest applications have the advantage in both admissions and merit aid. GC at my son’s school recommends rising seniors apply as early as possible for that reason.</p>

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<p>“In two weeks we are going to visit 4 colleges in Iowa and I don’t think I can sit through 4 info meetings in 2 days. I will have to figure out a way to only do the physical tour portion of the program.” </p>

<p>LOL. I just did it - sat through BU, BC, Brown and Tufts in 2 days. It’s doable and much depends on the admissions officer doing the talk; when he or she is entertaining (as they were at BU and Tufts), it’s bearable.</p>

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<p>After a few visits, my daughter stopped doing the information sessions and just did the campus tours. (Some colleges won’t let you do this, but others do.) She felt the info sessions were very repetitive and she wasn’t learning much new. And a lot of the material in the info sessions are repeated on the tours – or can be found on the school’s website.</p>

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<p>“The 10-minute 3-step college visit plan”
for those who don’t have much time during a campus visit</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Go to the bathroom (perhaps in the library or the union). Take a seat. Read what’s on the walls, the grafitti. If it’s the usual “roses are red” or “For a good time call 444-5476” or scatological stuff, you’re at a low-brow campus. If it takes the form of an epic poem (bawdy or not; political or not; subsantively compelling or not), with successive visitors cleverly adding stanza after stanza – indeed keep in mind that the Odyssey and Iliad had many composers and Homer was perhaps just a scribe – then you’re at a high-brow campus. (Of course eventually the “mad eraser” comes by and washes off or paints over the accumulated literature; after all there has to be space for the next generation to express its views.)</p></li>
<li><p>Go the library. Don’t bother looking at the catalogue, the books, the periodicals, the computers. Just head to the main reading room, take a seat, and listen. If the students there are talking, yucking it up, flirting, flitting about, doing anything but reading, you’ve got yourself a party school. If, on the other hand, you hear just footfalls, the occasional book closing or opening, maybe a brief outburst of someone uttering “hmmmmm,” well you’ve got yourself a very studious place and a very serious student body.</p></li>
<li><p>Go to the coffee shop or student union. Eavesdrop on conversations. Of course you may hear reference at this time of year to NCAA basketball brackets or discussion of personal issues, parties, clothes, the election, etc., and if that’s all you hear about you’ve got yourself a typical student body. If, in contrast, you overhear some conversations about things totally untopical, say, about politics in the 19th century or in 344 BC, or about literature or film, or about Descartes, you’re likely in a place where students aren’t preoccupied with current fads and fashions, but engaging in intellectual discourse.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>You can head home or to the next college now, perhaps visit a couple of classrooms or walk around the grounds. But everything else you may want to learn you can find on-line or just by making observations as you’re walking to and from your car, such as the “style” of the students including shoes (if any), hair styles (if any), and make-up (if any).</p>

<p>Of course this “method” betrays my own priorities. One of them is not to waste time on college visits, and another is to just acknowledge what we’ve all seen: our kids scope out and draw firm conclusions about colleges in the first couple of minutes of a visit. All I’ve done is formalize the quick visit, with some instructions for parents or students who might require 10 minutes to reach a conclusion.</p>