My son is a Junior and we were notified of a list of colleges visiting his High School. Junior and Seniors may schedule an appointment. There are 12 spots open for each AO. Is this a group meeting/presentation, or is it one-on-one? Is this an interview or just meet and get some info. Son is just starting the college search and has maybe ten colleges on his list. he is not sure of his major. What kind of questions would he ask the AO. He feels so unprepared he doesnt want to go, and unfortunately I am not sure how to help. GC is new and by the time she wold be able to help, the meetings would be over. He is normal smart with a 4.0 GPA (honors/AP) and very few EC because he is so shy.
They are typically small group presentations - for some colleges it may demonstrate “interest” for the student. My daughter went to a few and got to hear about the school, got a business card from the person, and usually a glossy brochure. Depending upon the college kids ask the usual questions about life at the college - admissions requirements, types of programs, etc. They are typically short so no time to really talk one on one.
Ah! Thank you so much. So it is just testing the waters. Great!
My son went to one of those presentations, and kind of stayed in touch with the person who did the presentation.
Eventually he was offered a huge scholarship from that school, and it seemed like others with higher stats were not offered as much money. To some schools, “showing interest” really matters.
I would highly recommend going to at least a couple, so he can maybe get a sense of things before you do many college visits.
If colleges that you are interested in will be at the fair do some online research about the school. Ask questions that cannot be answered from the website. Asking basic questions like “Do you offer engineering” does not show interest.
AOs keep track of students (sign in sheet) who show up for those presentations. I would encourage your son to do some research before the meeting, so he could ask few intelligent questions. It would also be good for him to stay behind to chat with the AO if he is particularly interested in the school.
I remember there was one college my daughter was interested in that had an in school session. For some reason, at the last minute, she could not attend (something else required for school came up which she could not miss.) She contacted her GC to tell her and the GC made sure to give the AO my daughter’s name and get his contact information for her (which I thought was very nice of her). In the end, my daughter didn’t even apply to that school - but her GC made sure she showed interest despite not being able to attend the session.
^^^Similarly when my D could not attend a school session for a LAC she was going to apply to she got the name/email of the person who was coming and sent her an email to her directly explaining that she had an exam in an AP class that her teacher would not allow her to miss for the in-school information session. My daughter expressed her interest in the school and noted that she was planning to visit the campus in the spring. The rep wrote her a nice note back and all was well.
I would say to the OP that it is never a bad idea for your son to have a question or two prepared for the session just in case there is time at the end of the presentation.
For 2 years I was a volunteer host for college visits at our school. The GCs said they were too busy to be involved. When parents realized that AOs were bypassing our high school for others in the area we thought that reflected poorly on our reputation as a “college prep.” Kids signed up through Naviance and it was limited to 14 as that was the conference room capacity. More often than not there was 1-3 kids. Some AOs had a formal presentation, lots of printed materials, and even ‘swag’ like pennants and stickers. The benefit of these small presentations, as others have pointed out, is demonstrating interest. Also many of these schools stopped giving on campus interviews with AOs so this is as close to that experience as one gets.