<p>The school that son is most likely going to attend has invited him to a Discover Day. We have been on campus for a long visit, tour, and met with dept people and housing before applying and then spent a day there for auditions including a question/answer, student recital, on that day. Should we head up again for this day? It's a 2-3 hour drive each way and from the agenda we feel confident knowing the things they will present.</p>
<p>The day goes from 8:30 to 2:00pm and they don't show anything offering an over night, which would make it easier.
They do have an orientation day in the summer that I know he will go to before moving up there.</p>
<p>Also, is it usual for schools to require an in-person meeting with advisement before registering for classes? All info seems to point to an on campus meeting (probably not available on the Saturday of the Discover Day). I haven't called to check on this yet to see if advisement can be done over the phone as he's not 100% sure of this school. In the event that another reach school comes through he'll have to look at financials and still will probably end up at this school.</p>
<p>How do people out of state do all these things?</p>
<p>Do most of you have your kids go to these info days?</p>
<p>If your child has decided to go to X University, there’s no need to go to “Discover Days” or whatever they call it at your school. That’s a recruiting device to help students who haven’t yet decided where they are going to choose X University.</p>
<p>At most schools, advisement/registration takes place at summer orientation, NOT at Discover Days. If they are offering your child an opportunity to meet with an advisor at Discover Days, it’s probably, again, a recruiting device designed to let your child ask curricular questions about X University as he/she is making up his/her mind about where to go to school.</p>
<p>We did this for #1 son with UM - it made up his mind. (he was undecided). We will probably do as many as we can with #2 with whatever the final list comes down to. no need to do it if they have decided for sure though.</p>
<p>We are against going to these days if you are serious about the school. It feels like a cattle call. Everything is so generic that you don’t learn anything about the school that you can’t find on the website. If it is on a weekend, most of the students go home to avoid the mess of people. If you can, it is much more productive to go on a regular day, have a private chat with profs, advisors, etc. Sit in on a class, see the school as your child would see it on any given day.</p>
<p>Agree with the above. If your kid has already decided to go, there’s no info covered that you won’t get from the school’s online info, or from summer orientation. These are helpful for (and geared toward) kids who have not yet made their final decision.</p>
<p>And maybe other posters have had this experience: most of the families that go to these days are juniors who are just scoping out on a prelim basis and ask the most mind numbing questions, making it VERY obvious they have never even ventured onto the website(like how much does it cost to go here!)…</p>
<p>We went to 2 of these. They were still being considered by my son. The one at a LAC was very informative. It was specifically for one area of majors. We were invited to lunch and one professor from that department sat at each table. This lunch was only for parents. Students attended a different event. We also had a chance in the morning to meet other professors. During the day we were able to ask candid questions of students studying in that department. It was very worthwhile.</p>
<p>The other one that we went to was at a larger U. This gave us the chance to explore the campus that we had not seen on our first tour. We could have done this on our own at any time. The rest was very generic, with giveaways like keychains, and speeches, but nothing that day was a “must do” event.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info. I just didn’t know if there was anything that I was missing about these events. Since we know the info and have met with the dept people and housing we’ll skip the drive.</p>
<p>As far as advisement - he’s been offered early registration for classes. This window opened on Monday but they have to do this advisement before they can register. For everyone else the registration for classes starts on May 1st. It seems very early to me but, being a CSU, I know classes fill up fast. As soon as he is 100% decided I will have him call the advisor and find out what he needs to do. Hopefully the advisement part can be done over the phone.</p>