<p>JoBenny, while I agree with those reasons in general, OP said the list was very limited. I would be concerned.</p>
<p>I see no red flags. It’s common for schools to limit classes for visitation. Especially at colleges that have tiny classes it would be pretty strange to just allow anybody to pop in and observe. My kids went to, or are currently attending, colleges with classes that normally have less then 20 kids.</p>
<p>@kayf. If the OP is traveling with her daughter for 6 days maybe there’s an overlap with Spring Break? Or the review and testing week (or more) that usually preceeds it?</p>
<p>Insist on something from an admissions dept?! Absolutely not.</p>
<p>I’ve known people who had very good luck e-mailing profs directly - but if the admissions office has already told you not to, I wouldn’t do it. I think you should easily be able to find things to do between a early morning check-n and a late morning class. I don’t think anyone should spend less than half a day for a visit. We’ve arrived on days when tours were sold out. We went to the admissions office and asked what we could do - I think they always let us join a tour. Sometimes they’ll have a pamphlet of some sort so you can do your own tour.</p>
<p>D sat in on a class the day before that college’s spring break. She reported that the students did not seem very engaged – duh. Just as you don’t want to base your impressions of a school on one tour guide, you don’t want to judge all faculty and students based on one or two classes. </p>
<p>She emailed the choir director at another school, and he invited her to a rehearsal and gave her a CD. </p>
<p>She did take advantage of opportunities to visit classes when possible, but IMHO it should be just one more data point in the decision making process.</p>
<p>You’ve already gotten great advice here, but I want to share a quick story with you. My DS liked to sit in on classes too. At one small school, at a junior day, they provided a list and he sat in on a class. Loved the experience. At another school – bigger and more popular – we were told that only accepted students get to sit in on classes. He was disappointed. Fast forward to this year and he was accepted (with academic scholarship). I contacted admissions, who suggested I call his department of interest. All I asked for was for DS to sit in on a class. Here’s what they arranged: meeting with the chairman of the department (we chatted with him for 40 min!), meeting with the dir of admissions for the particular college within the college, and shadowing a student for the afternoon (included work in a lab, lunch and class). To me, they really went all out.</p>
<p>Point is: the schools do what they can depending on how it works for them and their profs and current students.</p>
<p>1a. NO. Visiting a class: I would assume that classes are often restricted from visitors if they are smaller in size (thus any newcomer is basically disruptive) or the seats are filled almost to capacity (say 50 students and 50 seats, no place for visitors to sit). Additionally, they may have an exam.
1b. No. Are you going to ask a second time?
2. When you get to the school, ask politely if there are any cancellations for the Engineering tour and whether you can attend. They might be able to slip you in.</p>
<p>As others’ said, I would rather have kid contact a faculty member in the dept and have a brief meeting, rather than kid attend a class.</p>
<p>Thanks for the great advice. First off, the use of the word insist" in my original post was definitely a bit strong. I would have explained we would like to plan our day a bit better. In any case, given the advice, I will try to chillax (as my 14yo would say), and sign up for a class the morning of the visit.</p>
<p>For the session that is full, at the visit well ask if there were any cancellations or no-shows. We are already signed up for the general school tour and info session. The full session was a separate Engineering School focused discussion that would be great if we could attend, but not critical.</p>
<p>What schools are you visiting? You may get some more focused answers on the individual schools discussion.</p>
<p>We had a number of great visit happenings by going off on our own after the formal sessions. At each college we would go to the compsci building to "wander around, looking at bulletin boards, poster session displays, etc. We were often greeted by faculty or staff and made to feel welcomed to be interested in their department. On one occasion we were given a cooks tour of the compsci facilities/labs(URochester), on another invited to a department lunch picnic(CWRU), and on another given time to visit with one of the compsci profs to ask questions(RPI). I am a retired college prof so was comfortable with the wandering around part but did not make my status known to people who apporached us. I introduced myself as merely a tag along dad.</p>
<p>We always visited the student union for lunch and observation. On one occasion were were serenaded by a student practicing show tunes on the SU grand piano and on another our son was impressed by the number of small student study/project sessions going on in the main dining room, noting “I could see myself going here”.</p>
<p>And without exception we visited the campus book store.</p>
<p>From experience, an engineering tour is a top priority if they have one. I’ll skip the anecdotes 
A tour of the engineering facilities allowed us to easily and with no regrets cross off a few otherwise very good schools from the list too! Plus you get an engineering tour guide and this is valuable too.
A few schools suggested at the info session that you explore and we did that a few times. We actually walked into the engineering buildings hoping to find people who would talk to us and/or show us around. We got really great info and advice from professors, and grad students this way.</p>