<p>Anyone have stories from this year (or any other year's) overnight accepted student visits to share? D2 had an "interesting" experience last week. Her host did not show up to pick her up, was napping and forgot. Once they met up, host & roommate had a bar (literally) set up in the room -- D took a photo to show me later. D begged off from partying and went to some accepted student activities on her own, which was okay. But the day after her night spent sleeping on the floor she had half a dozen bug bites on her cheek and down one arm. Spider? Fleas? Bedbugs? :eek: No idea, she is taking Benedryl for the itching while attending the next school's accepted student overnight tonight...</p>
<p>On the chance that it is bedbugs (or for that matter) lice: Put her suitcase in a big black garbage bag and tie it tight. Same with any smaller bag. Put it in the garage or outside when you get it home and study up on how to make sure any bedbugs don’t take up permanent residence. Pretty sure you wash on hot everything you can and put the rest in your freezer, but check me on that. Good luck.</p>
<p>My eldest daughter had a bad experience at the accepted students’ weekend at the university her two younger sisters chose. The host student and the host student’s boyfriend were focused totally on one another. When my daughter made arrangements to meet up with friends who were attending (at a structured event), instead of offering to take her over there, the host told her that the college is in a really dangerous area, and the townies don’t like students. (Neither of these has much basis in fact.) </p>
<p>(This university is very clear that if host students take the prospective students to parties with alcohol/drugs, the host students will be disciplined severely. They aren’t meant to leave campus during the event.)</p>
<p>Whether this experience caused her to choose the state flagship instead, we may never know - her boyfriend was going to go to the flagship so that probably was the real draw. Of course they broke up within a few months.</p>
<p>D’s least favorite overnight paired her, then an intended theater major, with a chemistry major who had to study all evening and pretty much ignored her. She was quite undecided before that experience, but gave a thumbs down to a school that seemed to put such little care into planning overnights. (I don’t think that should have been a key deciding factor, but she was looking for reasons to choose this school over another, and instead found a reason not to.) Now D frequently hosts prospies and goes out of her way to arrange positive experiences for her guests, including showing them around the nearby off-campus haunts. I call her the Perle Mesta of overnights.</p>
<p>Most of my daughter’s overnight visits were pleasant or even fun. Only one was negative: host showed up 2 hours late and had her boyfriend in constant attendance. The host barely said two words the whole time; the boyfriend did all of the talking, which mainly consisted of bashing other schools on my daughter’s list. </p>
<p>This made me really curious about whether host students get any kind of “training” or at least some info on what not to do or say. Apparently they don’t at my daughter’s school; she’s hosted several prospies this year and didn’t receive much guidance about it. But she loves hosting prospies and makes a real effort to give them a good experience.</p>
<p>My D’s school doesn’t offer any real guidance on how to host, but you’d think no one would volunteer for that sort of thing if they weren’t genuinely interested in being a positive part of the admissions process. It’s not as if they’re getting paid to do it.</p>
<p>I am not a fan of over night visits. If the host is similar to your kid then it is great, otherwise your kid would see the school through one person’s perspective. I am sure it is also not that much fun to have sleep on the floor, which they wouldn’t normally have to do when they are going to the school.</p>
<p>D1 did one over night at her top choice. The host didn’t show up, everything went down hill after that.</p>
<p>Overnights spent with “hosts” my kids already knew were great.</p>
<p>Overnights spent with assigned hosts served mostly as a means of eliminating that college from consideration.</p>
<p>Last year, my son had a host from the “party” dorm-son is not into those types of parties-and the host took off for a frat party and left son on his own. Turned out ok, he enjoyed activities that were planned and made some new friends. It couldn’t have been a worse match-up for my son, but he still liked the school enough to matriculate,and is doing well now. Has now realized that many more students at the school are similar to him, and not the party type-although they are more of a presence on campus than the reputation of the school suggests.</p>
<p>I know oldfort and I have the same view on overnight visits. I don’t like them, won’t let my kids do them. </p>
<p>So much rides on the host and that experience that may or may not have anything to do with what it’s really like to be a student at the school. And who wants to sleep on the floor in a strangers room? </p>
<p>There are better ways to decide if a school is a good fit for you if you are really that undecided - sit in on classes, talk to professors, go to the cafeteria or other places where kids hang out and ask them. </p>
<p>Kids will pretty much do the same range of activities in their off time, which may have nothing to do with what your child would or wouldn’t do. Kids are curious what it’s like to live in a dorm, and I get that, but even an overnight won’t really tell you what your experience will be.</p>
<p>My son went on an overnight. Host picked him up and promptly told him that he was paid $20 to “host”. As it was strictly forbidden to bring him to an “alcohol event” there was apparently nothing else to do, so they walked the town and the campus for hours while the host pointed out the bars that would let them in w/o id and which places on campus were the best place for doing every other illegal activity. Crossed off the list, as he wasn’t interested in any of that. Oh, and the food was terrible! And if it is really awful when prospective students (and their parents) are visiting,then I can’t imagine what it is like the rest of the time.</p>
<p>My son had several hosts that seemed to think that showing kids off campus possibilities was part of their job. (Which it might be but still seem odd.) One kid took a group bowling, while another took them all out to an ice cream place. Since the surrounding town is part of the decision I can see the idea, but it still seems like a waste of limited time to me. (Especially the bowling!) If there were interesting stories, I didn’t hear them.</p>
<p>A million years ago when I visited Harvard I stayed with a friend. We went and visited some guys down the hall who had a pyramid of beer cans, gave us daiquiris and made flame throwers out of deoderant cans . It showed me that even at Harvard there was plenty of fun to be had, though I suspect many parents would be horrified! Drinking was legal for most college students then, but I was very underage!</p>
<p>One college student MET DD but then never saw her again the whole two days…the kid never even came back to the dorm. DD was by herself. The school dropped from almost first place to out of contention. DD wrote quite the “evaluation” of her hostess!</p>
<p>A friend’s DC spent an overnight at an ivy. By dinner time DC called parents at a nearby hotel and asked to be picked up. The majority of the dorm was very much into drinking and partying.
Second school crossed off child’s list after overnight visit was a school in a dangerous area. The kid ended up at one of the military academies.</p>
<p>Also have a nice story: My Ds best friend turned down a well known top rated school for an unknown small LAC. Friend almost didn’t want to visit small LAC because she didn’t get a good vibe from the school’s FB page but after the overnight visit she fell in love with the school.</p>
<p>Haven’t got the full report from D2’s 2nd overnight last night, but she did send me a text photo of some kind of pyrotechnics that a group on campus was putting on . 
But she also heard during the day before we split up that she was in the party dorm (again). </p>
<p>In spite of her bad experience at the first school I think she did get something from that visit (I didn’t mention that her host and all hosts friends, and all other prospies in that dorm were athletes, and D is not). In a nutshell, she realized that this (tippy top) college lets in some people that are not superstar students. She figured out that she probably CAN compete academically, a previous worry. She knew enough to make arrangements to get back into the dorm without her host. And the college arranged a lot of activities, she just went without her host. As long as she could get back into the room later, she didn’t really care. And she learned which dorm she would NOT want to live in if she decides to attend. </p>
<p>Her goal has become to go to several of the evening “arranged” activities and meet as many hosts and prospective students as she can to get a flavor for the range of people attending or likely to attend. Also to try to talk to people in her major if possible to get a read on the experience they are having. A good host is gravy, but she isn’t going to count on them to get the most out of her time on campus.</p>
<p>“Once they met up, host & roommate had a bar (literally) set up in the room --”</p>
<p>My kid and his roommates have a bar set up in their room…</p>
<p>Maybe it was your kid. Except it was a girl… D2 assumed odds were she would be offered alcohol on visits. But this was well stocked, two shelves full of liquor bottles (many varieties, all with something in them) in the common area of the suite. At D1’s college they at least didn’t keep the liquor out in the open.</p>
<p>When S2 was down to deciding between two schools I asked if he was interested in arranging an overnight. He was adamantly a “no way”. He said with 15K and 20K students the chances of being paired with a host that would be someone he would normally choose to hang out with were very, very slim. Rather then learning anything new about either school, student life/culture, etc., there was a far greater chance he would be swayed against the school because of a single student out of 15K-20K. It made no sense to him and he didn’t want that to possibly be a factor in his decision. Given that he had made multiple visits to both schools I wasn’t concerned he didn’t have a feel for each and was missing an opportunity to gain valuable information he didn’t already have.</p>
<p>My daughter had a really good experience at an overnight. It was a school she was not very interested in but first the school reimbursed her transportation as part of her proposed merit scholarship, then the host she was paired with ended up being of like faith and she was able to discover the vibe on campus that did not include partying even though there were plenty of parties going on. Ater that overnight she was ready to commit to the college that previously she had only applied to because her mom (me) told her to. Two days later she visited the college where she does attend but she did not have an overnight there but she still has really good feelings for college 1 (Rice) and recommends it all the time - especially to Christians.</p>
<p>She has since played the part of host but it was for a girl she had met while the girl was applying and they had clicked and she was sort of mentoring her. But that was a good experience for her as well - and apparently for the mentee since she is now a student there.</p>