<p>How valuable is to attend college visits at school? And what to expect from those visits? They schedule them during school, so D will have to miss a class to attend. I am not particular interested for D to learn about those schools from those visits, since she can find most of this information on a web, but more to make a personal contact with representative. So what normally happens during those visits?</p>
<p>We have visited several universities. Most offer a group session with an admissions rep, some begin with a PowerPoint, some with a video. The group session w/ the admissions rep is my least favorite part of all of the visits. I think my kid would agree with me. One school gave us a private meeting with an admissions rep and no group session, although we toured with a group after the private meeting. Two schools scheduled appointments for us with honors programs, department sessions. We had to schedule our own appointments at other schools. At all but one school, we were shown a dorm room during the tour of the campus. We visited a class at one school and watched a musical group rehearse there, too.</p>
<p>Some tours have taken us inside buildings on campus; some just walk tour groups outside. Most tours have taken us inside the library on campus.</p>
<p>The guides offer solid info about the campus, quirky info about campus, where all the coffee is sold on campus, and often give interesting insight that you will not find on a web site. </p>
<p>We get to see what kids wear on campus, get a feel for the campus, eat on campus, wander through the book store, ask questions. Seeing the campus in person and not through photographs is interesting. The campus PR materials often make buildings and campus look better than they are in person. Being there in person gives you an idea of what kind of neighborhoods surround a campus, what traffic is like, etc. </p>
<p>My kids found that the visits at school were pretty useless. They only went to the ones that were offered during their free periods so they didn’t miss class. The only reason to go would be to demonstrate interest, but you can do that if you visit the campus which is much more useful and informative. </p>
<p>What normally happens is that the reps talk about the school and then answer questions. Most kids ask questions that they can easily find out the answer to if they spent 5 minutes researching the school.</p>
<p>Thank you @benreb and @Palomina </p>
<p>I have found most of them rather informative. Some of them that I have gone to this year have been only a handful of people - real talk with an admissions officer! It’s a great chance to ask questions that you have about the school in depth that you might not be able to find on a website.</p>
<p>@Draydaze Is it mostly for you to get information or for admission officers to get to know you? Do you give out your resume during those meetings?</p>
<p>It’s pretty informal, some admissions officers reached out to us to try and understand and get to know us, but most were solely for information. No student ever brought a resume.</p>
<p>I take it that is what you are asking about, missing a class period to meet with the rep and not going to to visit the college. Assuming this is correct, if your D is considering applying to any of the schools that are visiting her HS then you ought to look at their Common Data Set filing to see if “Level of applicant’s interest” is taken into account. </p>
<p>A number of moderately selective colleges feel miffed about being used as secondary choices by kids that really want to go somewhere else if they could just get in. As a consequence they deliberately select kids that have shown interest in their school, and don’t hide that they doing so. In fact they announce it in their CDS filing. If some of these schools are the ones visiting your D’s school then it will definitely be a mark against her in admissions that they sent a rep out to her very HS and she couldn’t be bothered to meet with them.
Not sure I’d agree completely with this. A lot of basic info is on the web, but with a little thought most kids can come up with a question or two that shows they have really thought about being a student at that college and that isn’t readily answered from their webpage. If your daughter does any campus visits with adcom interviews then doing this is de rigueur because one question she is certain to be asked is “Do you have any questions for us?” and “no, I don’t think so” is not a good answer.</p>
<p>My apologies for misunderstanding the question. I read it as college visits to the college/school. My mistake. Apparently, I still need more coffee. </p>
<p>My kids both attended the college visits to the HS sparingly. They would only miss class if the college was one of the top choices. But in those cases they both found the sessions to be generally useful. Even if they didn’t learn a lot of new information about the college, it allowed them to meet the regional admissions officer, get one or two questions answered (as the sessions were generally a good bit smaller than the info. sessions held at the college), and express “demonstrated interested” in a top choice school. In what ended up as my D’s top choice school (where she is today) the HS visit turned out to be the only opportunity she had to meet the admissions rep that read/presented her application (both her interview and on campus info session were with other admissions officers) so she was very glad she attended.</p>
<p>Once when my D couldn’t not attend a session for a college she was very interested in, she emailed, apologized (she had a test in an AP class that she couldn’t miss), and wrote a sentence or two about her enjoyable visit to the school and that seemed to be appreciated as well. </p>
<p>Although I will hear a chorus repudiating this assertion, I cannot help but feel that - should a college have a number of similarly-qualified applicants from a school - they would be likelier to select the students who bothered to attend their campus session. Most high schools are very lenient toward seniors who want to attend an on-campus college information event. After all, they want to attract recruiters, and keep their schools on the admissions officers’ radars. This obviously doesn’t apply to Bronx Science or Exeter. Admissions officers aren’t likely to lean favorably toward schools if nobody shows up for them. If a student is sincerely interested in a college, and has a major conflict (e.g. a test), he should either e-mail the admissions rep. to ask about meeting earlier or later (thereby demonstrating interest, initiative, and academic seriousness) or speak to a teacher. High schools should try to support their seniors. Most teachers will accommodate them. In some cases the admissions rep. is a regional officer, who might well be the first one to read your child’s application. This might be insignificant for large universities,but it could make a difference if the admissions officer can associate an application with an individual.</p>
<p>^^This is especially true for small schools like LACs. We didn’t get many of them since were so far from most of them, but the few that did show up D went to religiously. She was often the only kid who showed up and it made a big impression. In fact, at one session, she met the rep and was the religiously recruited by that rep after that. D didn’t wind up attending that school, but when she showed up on campus for her interview, who was there to greet her and conduct the interview? The rep who was at her school and who remembered her. </p>
<p>Never did find out if she was accepted as she withdrew her app due to ED acceptance, but my gut instinct is that even though D was a marginal candidate, the interaction she had was enough to put her over the top into the admission pile.</p>
<p>Like some other posters, my kids only attended for colleges high on their lists, and not if they had to miss a critical class or exam. They always tried to take in a couple of questions, too – might as well be remembered by the rep for asking an intelligent question! I think it helped, too – more than one rep said something approving like that my kid had done their homework before the session. Example: Carleton session, my kid asked whether the trimester system had an impact on study abroad options, since many of those programs are on a semester basis.</p>
<p>Also, our kids went to a pretty small school, and sometimes there were only 2-3 students in a session. So it was a VERY good chance for them to meet the rep without the pressure of an interview.</p>
<p>I’m a current college freshman. I went to a college rep visit if I was interested in applying to the college or wanted to know more about it and wouldn’t have a chance to visit the campus. I found that they weren’t very informative and mostly involved students asking the representatives very specific questions that don’t apply to other people, but they are a good way to show interest if the college takes that into account. </p>
<p>I only went if it was during an elective class or if I had spoken to my teacher beforehand. My suggestion would be to go only if the college is a top choice and takes interest into account.</p>