Sometimes an overnight is helpful, even if the host is a dud. It allows a student to be on campus for at least two days (often an accepted student type gig will be 3 with 2 nights) , eat several meals, sit in on more than one class, get a sense of what goes on in dorms in the day and night, attend various events, walk around the town, whatever.
That was how it went for D, dud host (she met her on arrival and disappeared into rehearsals for the rest of the weekend - no tour, no friend intro, no Q&A, nada). But she’s a very happy junior there now.
@meredithfp My D also liked Wesleyan, but beauty is sure in the eyes of the beholder, because she thought it was one of the least attractive campuses we have visited!
Overnights are critically important as they give you a better idea of what you can expect in terms of extracurricular activities and events and campus culture. My D learned that at some schools many of the things going on in the evenings on campus were based around parties that included drinking (those “work hard/play hard” schools), whereas other campuses offered more art/culture based-activities, and others had more academic events.
It’s not a matter of whether you like your host (you may never see them again!) or where you sleep – it’s an opportunity to look behind the curtain.
But I heard that most of the official overnight visits are highly orchestrated by schools these days and they don’t really let you see the dirty closets anymore, not so?
We went to a program at an LAC where S19 was able to have a two day experience. We arrived in time to get a tour and eat dinner on campus (with students) and then he went with some students to a trivia night and another gathering where kids could just hang out and relax. He was with them until 11:00pm and then I met up with him and we went back to the hotel. In the morning, he ate breakfast at the cafeteria, went to two classes, ate lunch, and then had seminar type meetings with professors and admissions people. I know it’s not the same as staying overnight but it was probably close.
Plus, I’m guessing that during big accepted student visits, the nighttime stuff may be planned out as well and maybe not as “real”. I don’t really know as this is our first rodeo. I’ll probably leave it up to him as to whether he would spend the night on campuses.
@makemesmart - Orchestrated visits and activities are probably more the case during “admit weekends,” My D scheduled visits outside of those big events, which I think gave her a better sense of the day-to-day campus culture.
@homerdog I am reminded of a story told in the book, The Gatekeepers, about a young woman that Wesleyan really wanted to recruit. Her campus host ended up taking her to a student club which celebrated human sexuality. Toys, props, and frank talk abounded! Did it turn off the applicant? Yes. Was this representative of the school as a whole? Probably not.
D17 found sitting in on a class or two and having a meal in the dining hall provided the kind of information she needed to move up or cross off the list. Due to scheduling conflicts, she went on ordinary days, not on “admitted students” weekends.
Perhaps a shocking idea, but perhaps—rather than there being a universal rule—overnight visits are useful for some applicants and some situations, but not others?
I think overnights can be good, as long as they’re taken with the grain of salt. My daughter was pretty level-headed about it. I think she ended up walking away with a pretty good picture of whether the different schools were for her.
I would think an overnight visit is only as good or as bad as the host and whether his/her interests happen to be similar to the visitor. For example, you may not get a sense there is a party scene if your host is not a drinker or partygoer. The flip side is a quiet kid not into the party scene might not realize there are plenty of kids who don’t party even though he/she gets placed with a student who might be heavily involved in Greek life.
My D didn’t do any overnights. After acceptances were in, she narrowed it down to two schools. She did the “admitted students day” at one which was when all accepted students come with parents for a day of official info sessions and tours. She wasn’t able to attend a similar event at the other school but instead did more of a “Shadow with a student” day at the school she ultimately chose - attended class, a couple of seminars, lunch and a couple “off the formal visit” hours in a dorm with a couple of students who gave them a sense of what non-academic, extracurricular/social life is like. She had decided by 2pm she was ready to make her deposit. I don’t think staying the night would make much difference for her personally.
I think overnights are crucial at small LACs that have a clear cultural angle. If you’re looking at Bryn Mawr (for instance), do an overnight. You might still have a host who’s an exception in some way, but there aren’t 100 different scenes on campus like at Cornell or Michigan. There’s pretty much one Bryn Mawr, one Grinnell, one Wofford. If you are talking to people besides your host, you’ll see it. Either it works for you or it doesn’t.
Also, students of color, athletes, STEM majors, etc. can request a host who shares that with them. You’re not guaranteed to get one, but it’s worth asking.
“a young woman that Wesleyan really wanted to recruit. Her campus host ended up taking her to a student club which celebrated human sexuality. Toys, props, and frank talk abounded! Did it turn off the applicant? Yes. Was this representative of the school as a whole? Probably not.”
Hmmm…not everyone at Wesleyan joins that club, but rolling with the punches if you find yourself at a sexuality club sounds very Wes to me. The fact that the admissions officers wanted to recruit her doesn’t mean she was a great fit. I think this is a story of a successful visit where the applicant learned an important truth about the college.
MY DS attended 4 camps in the summers at two different colleges. He very quickly realized that he did not want a big school or a hilly campus! I realized that he needed to stay in a traditional dorm versus a suite - because after two weeks his bathroom was disgusting when he stayed in a suite! It’s not the same as an overnight visit, but it helped to narrow down the type of school he was looking for and gave me some peace of mind that he was capable of going to college.
@sahmkc Agreed. S19 went to XC camp at UIUC and hated the dorms. They are high rises. And the campus was so big that they sometimes had to walk from the dorm to their seminars and it was a 30 minute walk. Not interested in big campuses after that. He’s also been to camp at Wisconsin and, even though he admits that it’s more beautiful than Illinois, it’s still too big.
The overnight with the athlete “Bros” who referred to everyone else as NARP’s was Middlebury. NARP wasn’t a club, it was just their label for all the ordinary lesser mortals who weren’t athletes.
@homerdog 2 years ago next month. I really liked the college. Like I said, my son just couldn’t get passed his overnight experience. It all worked out fine and he’s happy where he went and was picking between a bunch of great schools so it wasn’t a big deal. But, yeah, the us-vs-them vibe came on real strong and he was one of the them. Interesting, I also had a couple work colleagues with kids at or recent grads of Midd and I set my son up with a call with one of them and that guy kind of further talked him out of the school – he seemed to have mixed, lukewarm feelings about it. I think he was a senior at the time.