I think there should be some flexibility versus hard and fast rules. If someone is coming from a long distance, and really wants to sit in on a class, I think a school could make a determination on a case by case basis. I don’t get what the big deal is. It’s not like they have hundreds of juniors wanting to get in on a daily basis.
@Publisher well S19 thought sitting in on classes at LACs was pretty telling actually. Of course he understood it was just one class but he definitely felt the differences as he tried to sit in on the same type of class at each school.
Anyway I guess it’s just one detail but one thing I learned from S19’s search was that he ended up most interested in the schools where we spent the most time. When it came to putting his acceptances in order of preference, the schools he saw the most of rose to the top.
@oldchief78 Your are right that W&L isn’t for everyone (didn’t even make our daughter’s initial list of dozens of schools to look at for college). That doesn’t make it better or worse; I am positive it is very good and students there are as equally smart, driven and hard working as they are at every college of its caliber.
Until I just looked, I didn’t realize their ‘seniors’ only policy for attending classes is clearly articulated on their website pages about visits (see above as to it not ever being on our lists).
Of course schools can have policies like that, and they are also more than welcome to enforce said policy (thought I don’t think this rises to the idea of any kind of ‘honor’ as the school also suggested a non-senior class visit could happen no problem if only @homerdog daughter had a friend already attending the school).
My larger point (and I think it still stands no matter what school is being discussed) is that how school employees/faculty interact with potential students/families, as well as policies the schools choose to use in showcasing their college give applicants and families a lot of information that can be helpful in creating/culling their list. And families should pay attention to how they react to those policies, and personal interactions and if they think those policies add value to the school they are looking at, or not.
If you don’t care a school’s policy when they are trying to sell themselves, you probably won’t care for a lot of other parts of the school. There were schools my daughter cut from her list because she didn’t like how inefficient and difficult parts of the school’s website were to navigate. Some might be willing to overlook that; she thought it said a lot about the schools she was looking at and how they understood technology. I’ve seen plenty of commentary on this site about students choosing not apply to certain schools because the number of supplemental essays were too many for that family.
Homerdog is a full pay parent; fit is one of the biggest considerations in her daughter’s college search. It is that fit I was responding to, nobody should feel any hesitation to drop a school off their list - and the reasons can be well thought out or ‘capricious’…it ultimately doesn’t matter why a school doesn’t fit if it doesn’t fit.
@homerdog hopefully W and L will either fall off the list once she visits, or rise straight to the top. In other words, hopefully the visit will be enough to help her figure it out.
If she likes W and L as much as the others …despite not sitting in on a class, it means there is no clear cut ED school…yet. That may add a whole other dimension to your research.
I am not sure if I am making any sense…
@homerdog Nothing useful to add, but wanted to thank you for the detailed description of the thought processes and decisions as your family makes them. It has helped me think through a few issues with S21.
The person you spoke to on the phone at any of the schools, will have absolutely no bearing on your D’s experience if she enrolls at one of them. She will likely never interact with that person so keep that in mind. And to play devils advocate, some schools that bend over backward for visitors sometimes are trying to drum up as many applications as possible.
Instead of sitting in on a class, could she perhaps reach out to a prof or someone from the dance department and set up some time? We found that at many schools, if visitors expressed an interest in something particular, the tour guide sometimes would round up a student with knowledge of that for an additional chat. I’m sure she could make the visit to W&L worthwhile. I just think that if she really liked Bowdoin much more than BC, and remembers really liking Davidson, that W&L is going to be a valuable visit, maybe more so than Wake or Richmond.
I don’t think you can draw a correlation between their no high school juniors in class policy and how your child will be treated as a student. I agree with @twoinanddone that they are protecting current students’ experiences. The higher a school ranks, typically the less of a red carpet they roll out because 1) they can get away with it and don’t really need to try as hard to get applicants and students to matriculate and 2) they just have more visiting campus overall. It’s hard to be flexibly when tons of people are asking for exceptions.
Heck, many of the Ivies don’t even let prospective applicants in the buildings on tours absent the admissions building and maybe a student center. We’ve been on a few Ivies tours where they basically walked you around campus and pointed to buildings from the outside - no seeing actual dorm rooms or class rooms.
Could easily be dozens during certain times of year for a smaller LAC. Plus, a good chunk of applicants travel a fair amount of distance to visit. It’s not a regional college. Why should that criteria be the arbitrary barometer of need for flexibility?
From personal experience, I’ll say that usually the professors have complete control over the classroom policy. AdComs can make requests, but faculty get to set the rules on who gets to visit their class and when. Sure, the woman who said “no” to @homerdog could have asked a professor to make an exception, but she probably didn’t have the authority to override the rules on the spot. The faculty at W&L probably set that policy. At my small LAC, professors who are willing to have students sit in on their classes fill out forms in advance with the available dates each semester. At most colleges, Admissions has no authority over academic concerns. They are at the mercy of the faculty in these matters.
I realize this doesn’t help you now, but many of the schools with very low acceptance rates – which are also the ones with the greatest restrictions on applicant access – also have the most extensive and comprehensive revisit programs for accepted students.
In addition to the usual panels, club fairs, etc., they generally include a day of classes and an overnight in the dorms, etc.
These are often what allow students to make a clear decision in April. (I know, not helpful for ED.)
W&L doesn’t need to be sold to anyone. Either you get it or you don’t. Mutual respect is a hallmark quality of the administration, faculty and students. Given the tenor of your responses, you (not sure about your D) will better spend your time at the other institutions you enumerated. In the event you don’t “call an audible” and do visit the campus, make sure you stop at the Lenfest Center. In terms of LAC performing arts facilities, there are few that can match it’s offerings.
@oldchief78 Well, I disagree about any college not having to be sold to a student (or parent). It’s not about “mutual respect”, it’s about finding the right fit. I don’t understand how one phone call that resulted in a minor disappointment about a class visit turned into my not “respecting” a school. Or how W&L having an honor code has absolutely anything to do with our disappointment that D can’t sit in a class.
I think I already explained that I just want D to get as full of an experience as possible so she can more easily compare schools.
When we sit in on info sessions, you bet we want to be sold. We’re spending upwards for $300k for this experience and the school would be getting a student who will be an asset to their campus. We are judging the school when we visit. So, if my “tenor” doesn’t seem respectful, that’s not how it’s intended but choosing a college is a two way street. Kids decide where to apply, colleges decide who to accept, and then the kids get to choose where they enroll.
Our D is listening carefully to info sessions and tour guides to decide if a school is a place she wants to apply. I think kids need to feel like they have some control. It’s not all about the college choosing the student. I remember, when we left Wisconsin’s info session, she turned to me and said they gave her absolutely no interesting reason to apply. Boring info. Nothing stood out. So, she’s looking for information to excite her about a school and I want her to continue to feel empowered and not daunted by the college admissions process. So many of her friends are so anxious and worried and I’m sure she could get sucked down that hole pretty easily. I want her to know that the first ball is in her court. She gets to decide where to apply. and seeing as much of a school as possible will help her get good info. She’s not unrealistic and knows she still has to get her SAT to a certain level but she also knows she has a lot to offer. I hope that doesn’t sound like she’s stuck up because she’s far from that. She knows there are limits on her choices given her “resume” but she also wants to be somewhere she’s excited about.
I think it’s a good suggestion for her to reach out to someone in the dance department and see if she gets a response. And @oldchief78 thanks for the heads up on the arts center. We need to check that out We put W&L on the list for good reasons and I just want it to get a fair shake.
@twogirls I completely understand what you’re saying! I hope for the same thing. We visit W&L and she either loves it or hates it. That would be the best case scenario for sure! The “eh it’s ok” impression for any school just isn’t that helpful!
OP wrote: “you bet we want to be sold”.
At this stage, I think that it is more important to determine what you want to buy. This is still a bit unclear and subject to change over the next year.
@merc81 There always seem to be a handful of schools that get caught messing with their numbers to get their acceptance rate to look lower. Ugh. Stupid USNWR rankings make colleges crazy. That is a big difference in the acceptance rate at W&L so good to know. For D, W&L has some of the highest test scores of the schools she’s considering so I almost think she’d have to love it and go ED to get in.
Until we have SAT scores, we don’t know a lot about her chances anywhere!
@Publisher True, Very true. D may not know exactly “what she wants to buy” but I have a strong feeling that she’s going to know it when she sees it.
@homerdog – You’ve been through this all b4, but also just an anecdote to say sometimes leaving with a a ‘eh ok’ can have surprising results. With D18 we visited Davidson in August before Junior year. It was hot and my D didn’t click with the tour guide. It stayed on the list, but wasn’t super high, def. an ‘eh, ok’ reaction.
Fast forward to accepted students day at Davidson, she did an overnight and everything changed 180 degrees. She texted me within hours of arriving saying how much she liked it. The texts kept coming all night and the next day and when she was driving home w/ my hubby she called and talked literally 2 hours about how much she loved it and it seemed like her perfect choice. We made her wait 48 hours but then went ahead and cancelled 3 other accepted students trips all over the country.
And to think that a few times over the course of the process she wasn’t even sure she would apply to Davidson!
We were looking for $$ so D knew she was applying RD so she never went into visits with a potential ED mentality. I think you’re right to have her absorb as much as she can during a visit since ED is on the table for her. Stakes are def. higher when trying to make that decision!
@homerdog. Fun process huh?
I have not read this whole thing just a page here and there. But don’t let the rah, rah speeches and tour guide help in your decisions. Some are just OK and some are great and some are blah. Plus don’t be hungry when doing them. We did Wisconsin and they were great. Like the next day a friend of ours did theirs and said they were just blah. We also found that we tend to like the schools more when it was a nice sunny day VS a cold rainy one… Not the correct way to evaluate a school. To us the tours were sorta useless. They all showed the “chemistry” building with the new 3 d printer… Great… Also Like every school has that and a squirrel watching the squirrel watching club… Right?
So we tried to get to each school either early or the day before. We found out where the cool eatery for students were and you know these were mainly pizza places (gotta have decent pizza… Lol). We got a lot of good information from the actual students this way plus just seeing who’s interacting with whom. We walked around the campus on our own to get the fit /feel. We stopped a few students and actually asked the famous “Why” this school question to them. Got great honest responses. On the tour days we did it part way then had a meeting with a professor or two. This was very revealing who the school was and got some great “inside” information.
Some schools like Emory is just awesome on their group discussions for admissions. Just awesome.
Tufts… Just awesome. (locally at a hotel talk) Then we met the Tufts rep locally at our schools College fair and the guy they sent was very pompous and basically rude. I could use other words but I would break the Tos… Lol…
Same with UChicago. Amazing visit with professor, amazing rah, rah speech and tour. Then meeting the local rep at the high school college day totally turned us off plus doesn’t have his major etc.
But… Try not to let these people turn you off to an otherwise great school. People all have their good /bad days. I also expect them to be on all the time but not realistic. When we got a great tour person it was always a better experience. When we got the Zombie kid that we couldn’t hear… Well… We were the people that changed groups to go to the over excited maybe too much caffeine tour student guide. Always a better experience and to us it shows us the school in a better light. Just a fyi. Have fun.
My D never sat in on a single class until she visited as an accepted student. And my S would have thought attending any class voluntarily would be a colossal waste of time, haha. In fact, do most colleges even allow students to sit in on classes before they’ve applied? I remember when D looked at Brown, she thought about doing it, but we were told that she’d have to choose a specific class and they would email the prof to see if it was okay. Even as an accepted student, some classes she wanted to sit in on wouldn’t allow it because they were testing that day, or there was a small group discussion going on, etc…
I honestly don’t think a lot of students who are merely visiting sit in on classes, especially as juniors. I can see why schools might not allow it. Perhaps profs at W&L found it disruptive, and it became policy there.
BUT, if it turns her off, that’s fine. Students have to have some way of narrowing the list, and if that’s how she narrows it, that’s not a bad thing. Brings to mind the classic thread about stupidest reasons a kid refuses to apply to a college (not implying that your kid is stupid, homerdog 
): http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/705291-stupidest-reason-child-wont-look-at-a-college-p1.html
haha @Lindagaf my son would have been the same!
It doesn’t turn her off. It’s just one less data point we have when she determines which schools she applies to. I don’t know. Sounds like not many of your kids sat in on classes but S19 did and found it helpful so that’s the plan for D as well. We think it’s akin to sitting in the cafeteria and watching the kids but maybe even a little bit better since you can see how the kids are participating, if they are friendly with each other when they enter class, etc. Remember that these are mostly small schools so it would be different if she was visiting larger classes.
When S19 sat in on class, he knew it was just one class and what he experienced wouldn’t necessarily be what it would be like in every class. BUT some professors were more welcoming, some kids actually introduced themselves to him and, at other places, he was more or less ignored. Of course he liked the schools better where he felt welcome. Could he have liked one of the schools where he was invisible in class? Yes, of course, but it was just another way for a school to stand out to him.
@AlmostThere2018 I agree that finding the right place might not happen until after being admitted. That’s why a place like BC is still on the list. I could totally see her becoming more excited about it if she were accepted. We’re only taking schools off the list where she absolutely, positively could not see herself. S19 only had one school like that as a junior.
Let me explain. You call the admissions office at W&L. You’re busy, I’m busy and I guarantee the woman who answered that phone in Lexington was busy. And then this happens:
The website says no class visits. The woman on the other end of the phone says no class visits and then listens politely to your pleas - travelling far, only visit. She says a second time “no”. Then, you say everyone else does it, and she says sorry again no (the third time on that call). Then, you report her here to be “rude” since she would not explain the reason for the rule. Well, I for one might find that to be a lack of mutual respect. She gave you her time and courtesy and yet you decided to blast her on this forum. Perhaps she had other calls to answer, perhaps she recognized that “no” was an answer you would not accept, there are a myriad of other reasons that could have prompted her to finish the call then. Failing to grant her the courtesy she apparently granted you is the lack of “mutual respect” I referenced.
You’re conflating things here. I said the honor code meant the school followed its rules and expects its students to do the same. Without question, without exception.
If you do go to W&L, I invite you to engage in a social experiment. Arrive early - go to the coffee shop, or the cafeteria, or even the Lenfest Center; go anywhere. Make yourself comfortable and place your bag, your jacket, your computer or iPad, and anything you have down at your seat. When your tour is ready, take only what you need for the tour leaving everything else behind. To make this more interesting, leave a $10 bill at your place (I am old school and still regularly use “folding” money as Jed Clampett would call it). Take the tour and then explore. Mingle with students. Enjoy yourself. Then, come back to your original spot. I guarantee everything will be as you left it, even the $10 bill. That’s just one part of the honor code.
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