<p>My daughter is trying to decide which college to attend and is considering an overnight visit. However, I have heard from two parents whose kids did overnights. One boy was matched with a senior who proceeded to take the 17 year old to a bar (they got in but then were kicked out). Another girl was taken to a frat keg party. Is this typical? My daughter would be appalled if her host behaved like this (it would probably cross the school off her list.)</p>
<p>I like overnights. I think the kids learn a lot about the college and about themselves on these trips. </p>
<p>Two of my kids chose to do overnights when they were deciding on colleges. They had two completely different experiences. My daughter had a wonderful host. She went on a Sunday so they spent some time in the library, which is a pretty typical college Sunday experience. They also had dinner at the dining hall and went to a sports nutrition lecture. She met tons of students and decided to apply to this college ED. She is now a very happy freshman.</p>
<p>One of my sons did an accepted students weekend where he stayed in a dorm. He saw his host only once all weekend. His host was very shy and a bit awkward. My son found his own way around campus and decided it was a good fit for him despite the poor host. He just finished his junior year.</p>
<p>Overnights are not always perfect but they are pretty broadening for your child.</p>
<p>I like overnights as well. My D did it & enjoyed it. You can learn alot about the school & students. I think it’s better to see if the school is a good fit before dishing out mega bucks for college that they may not like.</p>
<p>It could go either way. So, yes, do participate in the overnight, but talk about the possibilities before as well as discuss the experience after. Make sure that the overnight also involves attending classes or other campus activities…</p>
<p>One of my kids had an awful overnight experience involving a match-up with a student who was not interested in anything but drinking and studying for an exam at the same time. This very much turned the kid against the school, but we talked about it, kid decided to attend that school, and had the best 4 years.</p>
<p>The other kid, had a great overnight, and a great school experience.</p>
<p>In the end, the kid is going to see what their mentor shows them, but should make sure not to make their decision by that alone.</p>
<p>DS had overnights with party kids, and overnights that went very well. In truth, the party kids were at a party school and so it reinforced his fears. After another overnight, he decided that the campus had too quirky of a vibe. I think it is good to see some of the warts that time on campus away from the parents, administrators, etc can be very telling.
As for going to a fraterntiy party (especially on a weekend trip) it could be telling that this was the preferred way for most of campus to spend the weekend. If the regular weekend routine is a keg party for those in adn out of the greek system, it is better to know it before you shell out the money for college.</p>
<p>S did 3 overnights at 3 of his top choices. Definitely made the difference in his decision.</p>
<p>I think they are worthwhile. D did 3 overnights, S will have done 4 by the end of this week.
So far so good. D thought the overnights were helpful in coming to a final decision. </p>
<p>Your child is dedicating the next 4 years and a nice pile of money to a college. The more “face time” during the decision process the better.</p>
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Wouldn’t you like to know about that kind of culture before you shell out thousands of dollars in tuition?</p>
<p>I’d say finding out this information is exactly what makes the overnights important.</p>
<p>I think overnights (especially on a Thursday night) are among the very best ways to decide whether one will feel comfortable at a place. They can give a misimpression - but so can everything else. At least it is the applicant’s OWN impression, and not someone else’s.</p>
<p>(My older one did two overnights at number one LAC - also my alma mater - where she was also recruited. It had been at or close to the list, and fell to the bottom after the second overnight, and with good reasoning on her part.)</p>
<p>Mini mentioned a Thursday night. More broadly I think it is important that this not be a coordinated “prospective student event” type overnight. Just come on your own to the school on some random night so you can get a glimpse of day to day life.</p>
<p>I like overnighters also for kids. This IS the culture the kids will be dropped into and to some extent it’s sink or swim time. Way back in old days I had the most boring overnight trip…the girl I was staying with played cards with her suitemates all evening on a Friday. For some inexplicable reason I went to that college and found my kind of course. My 17 junior year old got back from an over nighter (the college let him come along with a senior friend who is also considering the college right now) and went to a frat party…he had to tell the guys he was just a junior when they started talking to him about rushing in the fall but he felt so comfortable at that college…his kind sort of thing. You never know what’s going to happen. My older son called me from one of his overnights from the dorm and said “This is IT don’t talk me out of it” and he graduated in May. My middle son changed his mind after an over-nighter because some frat guys tried to talk him into frats and S2 is so not about frats (unlike S3). But and it’s a big but, my kids have strong gut instincts and make decisions…some kids and adults can be anywhere and be content. I somewhat hope that “appalled” was a hasty choice of word because if not it indicates that this student has very visceral reactions when not with his/her kind and an overnight might be even more important.</p>
<p>I’m a big believer in letting kids visit on a weekend and go to parties. I honestly think that the social fit of a college is as important as the academic fit. Plus, when kids go to parties they talk to lots of other students and get more honest responses to the question of what the college is REALLY like. </p>
<p>Now, obviously, you should have kids agree that they won’t drink booze. But, quite seriously, do you want your kid to figure out what weekends are really like AFTER they enroll?</p>
<p>The reason I like Thursday nights is that you find out when, for most students, the “weekend” begins, what portion of the campus still thinks they are in the education business, etc. You can’t really find that out on a weekend.</p>
<p>Not a fan of overnights, unless it is with someone my kids know (from their high school or family friends). I couldn’t imagine my kids volunteer to have strangers sleep in their room and be with them for 24 hours. How many normal (self centered) young adults would want to give up that much of their time?</p>
<p>D1 had a bad experience of doing overnight at her 1st choice school, the host didn’t show up, they had find someone to take her, she left D1 at the dorm to fend for herself because he had a test next day. D1 was very discouraged after the sleep over, and I didn’t blame her. She was hoping she would see a bit of school’s social scene, but instead she was stuck in a dorm with people she didn’t know.</p>
<p>Almost every school has plays, concerts, lectures, sport events, parties…depending on what kind of person you are, you will go to events which would interest you. Just because a host takes you bar hopping, doesn’t mean that’s the main entertainment. Just because a host takes you to a libarary on a Sat night, doesn’t mean most students study on a Sat night. It is especially the case at a large U. I don’t see how spending one night with someone, who maybe nothing like you ,could possibly show you what your experience is going to be like at that school.</p>
<p>I think overnights can give a very distorted picture of life at the school. You’re seeing what life there is like from the host’s point of view – but hosts are atypical people by definition. Most students would never consider being one. Your kid probably will not be one.</p>
<p>Also, overnights can be a very uncomfortable situation for introverted applicants. The awkwardness of spending the night as the guest of a stranger can overwhelm all other impressions of the school.</p>
<p>D1 did college sponsored overnights, and really enjoyed them. It gave her a feeling of the true student body and activities on campus. The ones she attended were before an Open House for HS seniors, so they had plenty of activities for the kids. She has also been a host several times for HS seniors at her college, since she enjoyed the overnights so much when she was in HS.</p>
<p>I was going to say something about Thursday…and colleges that “start the weekends on Wednesday or Thursday…thanks Mini for pointing that out.” All colleges have introverts and extroverts. All colleges have kids who drink and kids who don’t drink. Most all kids start college and are separated from their HS pals (unless they go to college with their HS pals). Unless kids choose their roommate they will be dropped into a small room to live with a stranger. These are rites of passage. Most of these kids will eventually be in the workplace with people not totally like them and many of these kids will travel for business and interact with people not totally like them. Learning how to navigate socially is something most kids will learn somewhere along the line to young adulthood. I’m an introvert by nature, a true INTJ, but I’ve learned and starting in college how to work, coexist, and socialize with all kinds of personalities.</p>
<p>Both my kids did a few overnights at the college’s acceptance weekends. I know in at least two cases the frats had parties available, but neither kid went to them. One host took the kids bowling which I thought was sort of stupid, but did show them how easy it was to get off campus I guess. Another host took kids for ice cream - also off campus, but a more typical student activity. My older son spent most of his Harvard weekend playing board games and D & D and watching sci fi movies which convinced him that his tribe was there should he decide to attend. (He didn’t - choosing an even nerdier institution instead.) Since my kids are lousy at accosting other students during daytime touring, overnights were a way for them to meet a greater cross section of the campus.</p>
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<p>All true, but I still would not push an overnight on a reluctant student.</p>
<p>The purpose of the overnight experience is to help the student make a judgment about a college, not to navigate a social ordeal successfully. If the student is uncomfortable with the idea of an overnight, it might be better to explore other ways of getting enough information about the college to make a good decision, rather than insisting that the student suffer through the overnight. One possibility is attending a college’s acceptance weekend but sleeping in a motel (with an adult family member, since kids this age usually cannot rent motel rooms). This worked well for one of my kids.</p>
<p>I’m a host at my school, and I think that overnighters are a big deciding factor for some students. When I have a prospie, I drop my plans for that night, if I had any, and give them the options of what’s going on on campus that night and let them choose. I do not drink or go to parties, but I say that I will go with the prospie to the party if want to go, and that I’m not going to let them drink because if caught, both prospie AND host get in a load of trouble. I’ve had three prospies this year and none of them have had problems with that.</p>
<p>Staying overnight before I enrolled helped when I moved here, as well, because I had some sense of the culture beforehand.</p>