BAD Visit, Need to Vent

Parents Forum
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<p>Ok, my kid went to visit an east coast college this week, overnight. Let's call it U Moron. What happened was nothing short of unconscionable. I need to write/call Admissions on this, but also need to get my bearings on what to say and how to approach it. I'm too angry to do it right right now, want to do this in the a.m.</p>

<p>First off, kid is on the spectrum, real mild, been on visits before and never had a problem. Hosts have been great, taken him around to see people/do things, and had a blast.</p>

<p>UMoron sticks him with host wasn't much of one. He <em>did have time to show my kid the caf and was nice enough :</em> not to let him eat all alone, although they did not engage him in conversation. After dinner, he takes my kid back to the dorm, and LEAVES him there, period. Says he has to go "work." Then he went to study in the library. Didn't introduce him to anyone or anything. Some "host". I'm not too happy with Admissions for setting my kid up this way, either.</p>

<p>So anyway, my kid knew there was an orchestra rehearsal, and he went there and sat in the dark auditorium for three hours. Went back to the room, the kids weren't there, so he waited up for them until 1:00 a.m. He was afraid that if the guys came back, that he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep if they woke him up (which they would, because he was on the floor).</p>

<p>This morning, kid is supposed to go to classes. WELL. The "host" set the alarm too late, told my son to go to the Admissions office (when he knew he was supposed to meet someone somewhere to shadow classes), and my son gets there and there is no student. Student was at a different place. UMoron Admissions has my son sit in the office for TWO HOURS waiting because he had NOWHERE TO GO, they couldn't find the kid he was supposed to shadow. NO, they couldn't have called a professor or anyone else to find a place for him to go.</p>

<p>My son missed two days of school for what - to be left alone? To listen to sales pitches and be sold on UMoron? Yesterday he sat through ANOTHER tour, and an Admissions meeting AGAIN. He was already AT one of these last spring. I am furious. Pardon my yelling. </p>

<p>I thought a visit was to get an idea of what it's like to go to school there. Am I wrong about this????? I have half a mind to write to the president of the college.</p>

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<p>I’d be furious, too, but I don’t know what to say re advice –> what to do.</p>

<p>I hope (and trust) that the poor kid doesn’t plan to attend UMoron after all this!!!</p>

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<p>He’s definitely not. Most of all, because I wouldn’t give them a DIME of my hard earned money after treating him this way!</p>

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<p>Just send them that exact email - except add the real name of their school. i might add the total cost of the trip, too.</p>

<p>Sorry for your troubles. But, it sounds like you learned enough to eliminate one school.</p>

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<p>I would write to the director of admissions. At most schools, hosts are whoever volunteers for the role, and while some are good, there’s bound to be a few duds in the mix. It sounds like your son unfortunately got one of the duds. You should write the director and at least they can make sure that no other kid gets stuck with that guy again.</p>

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<p>I understand your frustration. My D had a visit kind of like that once she was accepted at a top 10 university. She chose not to attend that school.</p>

<p>I would contact the Dean of Students. that is the person in charge of many things including campus life and these visits. That indivdual will likely have a lot to say and can at least try to prevent that from happening again to someone else. Perhaps they will arrange another visit–if you and your son were even amenable to that. </p>

<p>What did your son think of the school prior to the visit? If this was his #1 choice, I may want to dig further to see if he was the victim of an idiot host and clueless admissions office. If he was lukewarm, I would cross the school off and move on.</p>

<p>I found that some of the bigger schools were often less responsive when I called or needed something that the mid to small schools. But my daughter’s visit from hell was at mid size school. She ended up choosing a large school that she loves–they did a nice job on the visit but I still find the school a bit less responsive than I would like for the obscene cost.</p>

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<p>Gosh. I’d be boiling.</p>

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<p>I would guess that this was not an admitted students event from what you describe. If it was, it sounds exceedingly poorly run. If he was admitted, maybe this is really not a good place for him. If it was just an overnight for a HS junior, while poor in quality, it probably is a great indicator not to apply to this school.</p>

<p>I could imagine this happening at my alma mater, and at other large institutions. My H describes a visit to a college decades ago in a similar manner, and he did not choose to go there. You wonder why some of the students agree to host prospective students if they are not interested in spending time with them. I think at a lot of places the quality of the host can have a great impact. I have heard worse stories than this.</p>

<p>If you care to tell the admissions office that this was a disaster, that is up to you. Will it help your child? Do you think it would change anything for someone else? If not, just vent here and forget about them.</p>

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<p>I think there’s a certain ‘luck of the draw’ regarding the host student. Your S happened to get a bad one but if he happened to get a decent one then his experience would have been much different. Of course, the host shouldn’t have been a host if he couldn’t handle the responsibilities so this speaks somewhat to the acceptance criteria and training for hosts UMoron does. This could have been almost entirely the fault of the host or partially the fault of the U. It could be that the U selected and trained properly but that the host simply fell down on the job.</p>

<p>If you pick any college you can imagine how some of the students would be great hosts but some of them have no business trying to be a host. </p>

<p>I don’t understand why the office couldn’t have just directed your S to the classroom and your S could have entered it - simple as that. It doesn’t make sense for them to have him just sit there for hours.</p>

<p>Your S will now have to decide if this experience with this one student host, just one of probably thousands of students there, along with an inept admin at the office, will influence his decision on the school. Have you gotten any sense of that?</p>

<p>I’d be irritated about the whole situation as well. Your S made a time investment in this visit and didn’t get the experience expected. The other side of the coin is - maybe it was better to see the negative side up front before he makes an actual decision.</p>

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<p>^ If it’s a large campus they might have been concerned about him getting lost/hit by a car/eaten by wolves etc, particularly if he’s under 18. If he’s there for a college visit, they’re responsible for his welfare, so they probably have a policy whereby they don’t let people wander around without an escort. Also if it’s a large campus he may not have had time to get to the class he was going to before it ended. The best thing to do would have been to find him a new escort, or to send him out wtih the next tour and ask the tour guide to drop him at the correct building, but if there was no alternate shadower available or no tour going out, they might not have had other options.</p>

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<p>This was an overnight stay that we arranged. Yes, he was admitted. There were maybe 6 other kids there for the same reason, but it was not part of anything big. They have college “ambassadors” that do the host and tour type duties (I sure don’t want any of them working for *me…). </p>

<p>@TKs there is no way he is going back there for Anything. I don’t know if there is a Dean of Students - if I write the President, I will copy the Dean of Admissions. The thing is, it SHOULD change things for someone else. No student deserves to be treated this way - especially not kids on the autistic spectrum. You would think that they would know better. </p>

<p>I cannot just let this go, because as a responsible adult, I have a responsibility to other kids who visit, because something much worse could happen, and could *have happened. Would you want this happening to yours? Of course not! People who do and say nothing deserve what they get back.</p>

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<p>@usc etc dad - That’s exactly what I was thinking - why couldn’t Admissions have directed him to a classroom. WTH?</p>

<p>This kid took two days off from school and has to make up all that work - which at this point in the year is a lot - and for what? He can’t say if he wants to go there, he didn’t even get to sit in on a class… it just burns me.</p>

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<p>BTW this was not a huge college. Maybe 1500 kids, LAC.</p>

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<p>I think you should tell us the name so we can avoid it :smiley: Seriously… why protect them?</p>

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<p>Well, YabbaDabba, </p>

<p>Reading your post about what happened with your son, first of all, I want to say, get it off your chest. That is a good thing and I would be livid too because it is lonely enough in a new place without being abandoned by the host.</p>

<p>Actually, this reminded me of the worst college visit my son had when he was touring and taking advantage of the available college overnight visits. I really wanted to like this acclaimed college my son scheduled to visit at the end of his college tours. Who wouldn’t? It is the #1 college in the US. Same thing happened to my son that parallels your son’s experience. Same thing about the host being too busy. Fortunately, my son had his book with him to read (it was a misty, rainy day). We also took a hotel room nearby and he asked to have dinner with us. Basically, he was left alone, but my son is very stoic and used to being dropped off for new experiences, so he does not say much when something goes badly. He tries to adapt. </p>

<p>Well, sonny somehow was left with no pre-arranged schedule. It was like do as you please on your own. Sorry I cannot even remember if he got to sit in on a class.</p>

<p>Not as bad as your sonny’s circumstances where he was made to sit and wait, and then wait some more. I would complain to whoever is in charge of Overnight Visits at the Admission Office of this college. At least, it would help to lodge a formal complaint. It may benefit future visitors if this school is willing to incorporate feedback.</p>

<p>In my case, it was the last visit and I was rather tired and sonny did not make much of it and he had been accepted into his NYC school with a big scholarship so the incident quickly evaporated from his mind and mine (until I read your post).</p>

<p>So sorry your son had to have that experience. Loneliness is one of the toughest things for our dear children to experience in being away from home. It hurts them and hurts us as parents. Hopefully, your son will find himself in a warm and friendly college that is right for him. :)</p>

<p>By the way, the college never told us it was a study period for the students so everything was DEAD on campus during my son’s visit. Really the worst of all visits for sonny and we had been to a number of college visits (all fairly good to excellent before this last one).</p>

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<p>My older son had one fairly inactive host for an admitted students weekend, but I think in that case their were so many visitors they were taking anyone they could get for hosts and their was no expectation for them to do anything but provide floorspace. That particular weekend was jam packed with activities though I suspect my son ate alone. (BTW also at a college that’s often #1 in country. I think the experience somewhat parallels their sink or swim attitude about education in general. It’s a place where the proactive thrive.)</p>

<p>I’d think these days if you were being set up with a student to shadow they’d give you a cell phone number just in case there is this sort of screw up.</p>

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<p>You cannot count on one particular student at a school to provide a true picture of any school - whether it is a tour guide, speaker at a visit, overnight host, or whatever. See the “why my kid rejected this school” thread (or whatever it is called) - it is filled with stories of how kids rejected a school because the tour guide used “um” and “like” too often, or even dumber reasons. It’s kind of nutty.</p>

<p>So yeah, this host was a dud. It doesn’t mean the whole school is filled with kids like that.</p>

<p>I’d be more concerned that the admissions department fell down on the job. That deserves a letter to a few deans and the president.</p>

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<p>Are you getting the straight story from your son? Why would he sit in the Admissions Office for two hours waiting to visit a class? Wouldn’t someone from the office direct him to a class to sit in on? When the student host took him to dinner did your son engage in conversation or sit there? You mentioned that he was “on the spectrum”. You won’t be there with yor son next year to orchestrate every social situation. He wil have to do that himself. Maybe he isn’t ready to go far way to school. It takes independence and a willingness to put yourself out there to succeed when you go away to school. He did learn a valuable lesson. That school may not be right for him.</p>

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<p>D had a similar experience at Smith a few years ago. She was matched with a student with same educational and EC interests. The student left D in the dorm room all night while she, the host, went to DJ a 4 hour radio show. When I picked D up the next morning for the tour, etc, she said ‘we’re outta here.’
I don’t think it was a reflection on the college as a whole - just a thoughtless student-host.
At the college she is now attending, her host and she were not at all matched but the host definitely took time to show the sights.</p>

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<p>This is a sad story. Struggling to say something counterbalancing, I am remembering that at one of the most friendly, inclusive, scholastically-rigorous LAC’s in the country there was a written statement that “overnight hosts may be busy with their own study needs.” </p>

<p>However, that same college publishes a list of recommended activities for that evening for a prospective student, hands it to the student at check-in to be sure it’s in the visiting student’s hands. The list I saw steered clear of a few envelope-pushing events that might be inappropriate or challenging to most high school students. It’s not identical to what’s published campus-wide, in other words. </p>

<p>A proper host would have taken the time to look together, by computer, at possible activities the student might attend in the evening, advise amd point him there directionally. A nice student would have waved the visitor along with him to eat dinner together. But, as host, he’s not required or expected to give up his own study time all evening to entertain the hosted student. Enrolled students study a lot, every evening, and are responsible to their own grades and coursework. Hosting a prospective is more like Floor-space-with-a-smile, not family-style wraparound hospitality as you’d provide your guests in your home. </p>

<p>I think next time your student should bring his own alarm clock or use his own cellphone alarm system. He may need to know this for other visits elsewhere. </p>

<p>I agree that the college offices really fell down, letting him sit there the next morning, but I’m not sure the hosting student was out-of-bounds here for leaving him to create his own social evening on campus. </p>

<p>And I’m really sorry it was a waste of your student’s highschool days, which are precious indeed.</p>

<p>Adding: sometimes, seeking acceptable Hosts, the colleges filter out students who party hearty. drink, smoke dope, or lead a prospective student to something socially advanced. That’s a more traumatic evening than being left all alone to fend.</p>