<p>Both my kids attended Rice, and there was no nickel and dimeing once they were accepted. Pretty much everything is included in the tuition R&B fees.
(If anything, it went the other way. As I’ve mentioned before - sorry for repeating myself ad nauseum, DD received a Rice scholarship that paid for a YEAR of travel and study abroad after she graduated from Rice, and there was much other gifting in the way of mentoring, grants, great jobs, and travel…even another cash award at graduation - and tons and tons of free t-shirts for any event on campus, and free tickets to ballet, opera, music, theater, and, in the case of my son just a few days ago, the Men’s NCAA Basektball championships!) </p>
<p>But, I THINK I might know why they charge for Owl Days. In the past, students who weren’t really planning on attending Rice, but had been accepted, looked on the Owl days as a free and fun trip away from home. And Rice is not large, and number of kids able to “host” freshman students is limited, so there was more demand for Owl Days from accepted students, than available space to host them. Hence the charge. Cuts down on the number of students wanting to visit. (At least, I think that’s why they do it.)</p>
<p>That’s what I need to hear. Thanks Anxiouxmom.</p>
<p>But trust me when I say DS isn’t looking for any free trips away from home. Right now he is incredibly stressed about missing classes right before AP exams. For this reason and travel costs (we have to buy plane tickets) we do not like these visits but feel he absolutely needs some face time with the schools/departments to make his decision. So it’s really about helping him decide…not just hanging out in Houston for a few days.</p>
<p>And thanks for your insight, justmy2cents. That is actually quite helpful.</p>
<p>My D is attending an admitted students day at Eckerd College in Tampa/St. Pete this week. They charge $50 to attend. I got the impression this was in part to keep people from canceling on them and to encourage only the serious to attend. Since we have to fly her there, Eckerd’s charge is the least of it: the shuttle from the airport will cost more. I think the $50 would cover parents, too, but we cannot afford to accompany her. A bigger problem has been the colleges which do not host overnight, even if you have flown there for the visit, as putting a 17yo alone in a hotel is unacceptable. On the other hand, Eckerd has offered D a generous scholarship so is worth checking out. She will visit another school which will pay for air travel to their admitted students’ day, and I’m sure will include free meals, a t-shirt, etc., but they have offered her no scholarship money, so attending the college is prohibitive.</p>
<p>UF’s summer overnight Preview costs $156 plus a $91 for the first family member and
$30 for each additional family member (who aren’t even staying overnight).</p>
<p>When I registered for orientation at University of Michigan, it showed that I would be billed close to $280 on my tuition bill. The orientation is 3 days, 2 nights. I was a little taken aback at first, but I guess they have to cover their costs somehow…(room, board, freebies, etc.)</p>
<p>At all the schools we visited in the past 3 years, for previews and accepted student days, only two of the SUNYs charged for anything. At other schools everything was free. The two SUNYs had light refreshments on accepted student days at no charge, but if you wanted a full meal you had to pay in the dining hall (one gave a voucher for a discount on a meal, but still $9 plus). We didn’t really go to any urban schools so $ for parking was not an issue.</p>
<p>I have an idea: If schools are looking to weed out the “lookers” from the kids that are seriously considering attending from their admitted students’ day programs , they could charge a fee but then apply that fee toward tuition or credit in the bookstore or something like that if that student actually enrolls. </p>
<p>Also, if a school gets 30,000 applications for 5000 spots, I find it hard to believe that at $50 to $70 per application, the school/admissions isn’t making any money.</p>
<p>Once you are admitted…and you enroll…give first payment…they have you…and can charge fees up the yazoo. They aren’t trying to convince kids anymore…that have already accepted. It’s like the coach who’s recruiting…turning into a coach who’s coaching on the first day of practice. No more Mr. Nice-guy.</p>
<p>I think that’s terrible, and I am wondering for what?! We visited UVa for their admitted students day and there was free parking provided all day and even breakfast was provided and free. There was no charge for anything at UVa, and when I think back on all the other college visits to: Duke, UNC Chapel Hill, Denison, Oberlin, William & Mary, Brown, I remember that ALL of these schools were entirely free to visit as well (parking included!). That’s really unusual to charge anything to visit!</p>
<p>This is one of the common misconceptions that annoys me the most. So, okay, let me break it down for you, Sonsami.</p>
<p>Let’s imagine that highly selective Hypothetical X University (HXU for short) receives 25,000 applications (30k is a bit ambitious and really only applicable to maybe 10-15 or so universities that practice holistic applications methods). Let’s pretend that they have a $60 application fee.</p>
<p>Based upon my experience in admissions, I’m going to wager that only 23,000 of those applicants are actually going to pay the fee. The other 2,000 are either going to have NACAC fee waivers, College Board fee waivers, Common App fee waivers, or apply for the college’s own fee waiver (all based upon financial need only). </p>
<p>So now we have 23,000 applicants x $60 = $1,380,000.</p>
<p>HOWEVER, HXU is not going to actually get that $1.38M, because CommonApp and credit card companies are going to skim off money from each. Let’s say the credit card companies take $1 per transaction and the Common App charges schools $4 per application (I believe the CA charge is school specific and may be proprietary/confidentially negotiated; all I know is I once mentioned to a colleague at another school something about what we paid for each application transmitted to us and she said that her school paid something else. I have heard fees all over the place but we’ll use $5 to make this example work better!). So 23,000 x 5 = 115,000.</p>
<p>Now we’re down to $1,265,000.</p>
<p>So let’s start with the most expensive budget line for our fictional admissions department at HXU: salaries. Let’s pretend that HXU, with its 25,000 apps, has a typical number of admissions folks. </p>
<p>We’ll imagine that HXU has a dean/director ($100,000); a #2 person ($80,000); 3 associate directors with lots of experience ($65,000), and 10 people of various admissions ilk (assistant directors, officers, counselors, whatever) who make an average of $45,000 each. (Our fictional admissions department is likely understaffed compared to most with this app load, but I will err on the highly conservative and highly efficient side in my hypothetical). That’s $825,000 in professional staff. Then, we can also pretend that there are an additional 4 staffers who do administrative/secretarial type work, mailroom, processing, whatever (this is also seriously understaffed, but let’s go with it) and that each make $40,000. Now our salary line is up to $945,000. To make things easier from a math standpoint, let’s also pretend that the office paid $5,000 in student employment funding for the college students in the office who help with processing (plausible and underfunding this line, actually!), etc, leaving our salary line at $950,000 and leaving us with 315,000 for all of our operating expenses. </p>
<p>So let’s say that HXU is typical in most ways for a school receiving 25,000 apps – meaning that the school probably has 75,000-100,000 prospects in its database. (IMHO a school typically has about 3-4 times the number of apps it receives yearly in prospect form). How’d they get those prospects? Well they traveled a lot. Let’s pretend that 10 of the admissions folks traveled a “regular territory” and that each spent the equivalent of $5,000 on travel. Let’s also imagine that those traveling admissions people also brought with them catalogs, fliers, etc., AND that HXU admissions not only paid to print those materials but also to mail them too to all of their prospects. Let’s use a (conservative in my experience) publications budget of $100,000 with $30,000 in mailing fees. Oh, but what about the website? And decision announcing? And emailing? Many (most in my experience) admissions offices outsource their decision delivery, mass emails, websites, etc. to companies like TargetX ([TargetX:</a> Relationship Recruiting for Colleges & Universities](<a href=“http://www.targetx.com%5DTargetX:”>http://www.targetx.com)), Hobson’s ([Welcome</a> to Hobsons](<a href=“http://www.hobsons.com/]Welcome”>http://www.hobsons.com/)), Fire Engine Red ([Fire</a> Engine RED](<a href=“http://www.fire-engine-red.com/]Fire”>http://www.fire-engine-red.com/)), etc. Let’s say HXU does lots in-house and only spends $50,000 on tech fees and the like. But what about all of the in-house product budget - things like replacing a scanner (they’re used more frequently than proscribed because we’re dealing with 25,000 apps here!), or even just pens and paper? Let’s say the office supplies/capital expenditures budget is $20,000 a year (very conservatively). Oh, and what about admitted students? Let’s pretend the school hosts an admitted student weekend that costs $30,000. And wants to give a t-shirt to every admitted student? Let’s pretend that costs $7,000 (way under budgeted but just for the sake of this argument). </p>
<p>But salaries are a standard expense of the college and admitting students is a necessary function of the college. So admissions office expenses logically should be covered within the tuition and fees schedule, as with every other employee.</p>
<p>Why should applying students pay for year-round employees that they make use of once? Should every student who visits once also be required to pay enough to cover the salaries of the cafeteria and parking lot staff?</p>
<p>My d was choosing between three schools, two which she had visited and liked and one she hadn’t. SHe first tried to attend on an official visit day but since she wouldn’t get to do what she wanted to see how the school would fit her, she decided to try for another date. The Friday before her Monday/Tuesday visit, she finally received her info by email. In it were parking directions but not any directions from the airport. Since this was an individual visit, not an official admitted student day, this was an individual itinerary. Not only was it really late but also I suspect that not many people travel by car to a school over 2000 miles away. They could have provided info for both car and plane, but only car? Then when I called, they didn’t apologize, didn’t offer transportation, couldn’t tell me how to get her from the airport, and suggested I call the airport and inquire about ground transportation. She decided she already had two schools she did like to choose from and this was too much of a hassle. Oh and it wasn’t the only bureaucratic bungling- they lost part of her application for a while.</p>
<p>Excellent analysis, justmytwocents. My guess is that you have managed a budget or two and know how these expenses can quickly add up (and how many expense items no one every thinks of).</p>
<p>I would add the social security tax that employer’s have to pay and the medical benefits, pensions, and other benefits, too. That would probably add a couple of hundred thousand to your expenses.</p>
<p>IMHO, I think the travel expenses you suggest are way low (flights, hotels, car rentals or cabs, and meals quickly add up). In addition, all these folks have laptops that have to be upgraded regularly, there are utility bills too, training for the staff, and industry conferences to go to.</p>
<p>Also, my guess is that Admissions Offices have some pretty expensive specialized software they use. </p>
<p>Someone in an Admissions Office could probably reel off a lot more expenses that we would never think of. (How about renting hotel space for presentations to prospective applicants? Boy, is that ever expensive - they really clip you for coffee service, etc.)</p>
<p>My D just returned from Owl Days at Rice, and I have to say, it was the best $35, I’'ve spent. She had a great time, met with admissions folks, sat in on classes, went to a faculty concert and had many other activities to choose from.</p>
<p>I too think that it is done mainly to discourage those who are not really interested in attending Riceand to keep costs down. We found that tuition/R&B is just about $10,000 less than any of the other private schools D applied to.</p>
<p>As for nickels and dimes…we contacted admissions to say that D would be arriving alone on Wednesday night because we couldn’t get a flight early enough on Thursday, they offered to house/feed her for the extra time; and we weren’t charged anything extra.</p>
<p>What is the difference between a free admitted students day where you pay $10+ parking and $20 for lunch for a student and parent, and the $15/pp that the OP complained about that included parking and lunch? </p>
<p>If your student is doing an overnight and meals are included what is the difference between paying an inclusive fee and sending your student with money to cover their meals (typically $10+/- at a dining hall)? In the case of the overnight I think it is much, much smarter of a college to charge a fee and include meals, as opposed to having no fee and invariably having students that don’t have money with them. Then the school or host is stuck with the moral obligation to feed the kid. Some schools have the budget to cover meals for overnight students, however for those that don’t, charging the fee upfront makes more sense.</p>
<p>In the last two weeks we have been to two admitted student days/open houses. Neither carried a fee, however with meals and parking I paid just as much as some have reported paying a fee for these types of events. If you break it out it is a wash. In my opinion the original applicaiton fee is to cover the administrative costs of processing those applications, nothing more, nothing less.</p>
<p>btw, one was UVa which has been mentioned… free, however the day did cost us $30+ (that’s before my son loaded up on swag at the bookstore!). We chose to park closer than the free lots given the weather and paid. We have paid to park at this lot (and others in Charlottesville) for years so I have no problem whatsoever. We also paid to eat in the dining hall. I didn’t think twice.</p>
<p>We didn’t pay a dime for visiting at accepted student day programs, anywhere, either kid. An exception might be a meal at the cafeteria, though at several schools they fed us all together in a large room.</p>
<p>We went to Rutgers’ accepted students’ day on Apr 2 and they gave us a discount, we paid $6 ea for lunch at any of their cafeterias, all day. </p>
<p>Some schools, if they are in cities and have parking garages, might charge you to park but the AO gives you a discount card. That’s for any visit, not only accepted student day.</p>
<p>I am sure that many students who work in Admissions are probably paid through Work Study Jobs and not by the colleges themselves. </p>
<p>Yet, there is a lot of waste: free T shirts, pens, etc. all add up! Bottles of water with the school’s logo on the label! Cutting back on this type of stuff might help an Admissions Dept budget.</p>