<p>I was wondering what everyone's thoughts are on going to open houses at the colleges they are applying to. Do you think it gives a student an advantage in the admission process? My D visited all the schools she is applying to already, does she need to do the open houses too to show that she really is interested? Do adcomms keep track of all their visits?</p>
<p>Sometimes yes, sometimes no.</p>
<p>Very selective colleges tend to care less about applicants’ demonstrated interest. Stanford, for example, feels pretty confident that if you’re applying to Stanford, you’re interested, and not just adding them as a safety. On the other hand, some colleges care a lot about demonstrated interest, and some of them are pretty well known. American University and Emory University are two institutions that come to mind as caring a lot about demonstrated interest.</p>
<p>If your daughter has already visited, and somehow been logged in as having visited (e.g., she signed up for an information session or a guided tour, or she left her contact information at the admissions office), then she probably doesn’t need to visit open houses if it’s inconvenient.</p>
<p>You can get a pretty good sense of whether an institution cares about an applicant’s interest by looking at the school’s admissions criteria in its common data set, in section C (the section about freshman applicants). Google the name of the college, together with the phrase “common data set.” That’ll get you the information you need for most colleges.</p>
<p>I agree with the previous poster.</p>
<p>An open house is one more ‘point of contact’ with the school. Attending certainly won’t hurt, and may help a little with certain schools.</p>