So how much might a college overnight help determine fit? Is it any help at all? Do you try to pair you up with a student with similar interests?
We visited a top LAC recently and it was a great visit but my son wasn’t sure (assuming he got in) that he would fit in- it is big on frats and athletics and like other top LACs has a preponderance of wealthy students.
How much of a feel for the reality of the college social life can he get from one of these overnights sponsored by the college and how sanitized do they make them? Anyone have any experience with this?
DS1 ruled out a school based on a weekend trip paid for by the college. Just didn’t see his people. He wasn’t a hard-core partier, and he wasn’t totally nerdy either. He ended up one night by himself in a lounge watching the World Series. Eventually four athletes with two of their girlfriends joined him. He didn’t want to have to hope someone like him walked by every weekend.
My daughter’s best friend ruled out Cornell after her overnight… she thought the student she was paired up with was a shallow partier. Later she said, I know it’s unfair to judge Cornell by this one person and her friends/lifestyle… but I was just turned off!" She went to Wesleyan instead, and was happy there.
My D also determined that a school was not a good fit from an overnight visit. Sarah Lawrence paid for her to visit overnight and she found that it was way too small for her. She ended at the State flagship and was very happy.
Short answer: it depends. For many schools, the revisit weekend is an opportunity for the schools to sell themselves - the student has been admitted to one or more places, and now the school is looking to boost its yield. So the school may be presenting itself in the best light possible, and the student may not be able to see the warts for the make-up. Additionally, for many colleges, this will not be a typical weekend; there are many special events planned to woo the student, but the student may not see what “real life” is like.
Additionally, to be fair to the student hosts, these weekends typically come at an inopportune time for the college students - finals are coming up, papers need to be written, psets need to be completed. The academic life for the college student does not stop because high school admittees are descending in droves. That, unfortunately, may color the admittees’ perception of the school.
Obviously, the first time that one sees a college campus should not be as s/he driving in for move-in day (although I know many, many people have done that and been very happy at the college). If the student has already visited, explored classes, talked with professors prior (i.e. more than the typical tour), revisit days is probably not necessary. If s/he can do an overnight at another time, that may be more ideal. For me, I was fortunate to have friends at the college I will be attending, and as its revisit days conflicted in part with Stanford’s, I opted to visit my college on a “typical” weekend and go to Stanford’s Admit Weekend.
Would my choice have been any different if I went on revisit days instead? Probably not. I was lucky to have had options. As is always the case, what works for one family may not work for another.
It depends. One night in the life of a college dorm may not tell much. My son attended the Caltech preview weekend. He took a picture showing a bottle of Vodka in his guest room. This does not mean Caltech is a party school.
My kid deleted a school from contention because of a horribly organized accepted student overnight. Her opinion…this should have been icing on the cake, not a complete turn off to,the school. The hostess student actually never came back to the room. My kid and another accepted student were left to totally fend for themselves. Luckily the other girls on the floor at least invited them for pizza.
My kid hosted a number of overnight guests as a student when she was in college…and made sure she showed the school in a positive light.
D1 was a shallow partier, she was paired up with a studious choir person at her top choice. After her overnight she crossed it out because she didn’t have a good time. I told her that one student didn’t represent the whole school, but as an 18 year old she assumed all students were like her host. She ended up going Cornell and loved her 4 years there. She also never signed up as a host because she thought it would be a burden to her and who was to say she was a typical student when there were 13,000 students at her school.
When I was in school my roommates and I volunteered a few times to host overnight prospects. What I’d say is that the experience will be very, very different depending on who they end up staying with. My roomies and I were pretty normal guys but not into frats or parties. We’d get our work done, go eat together, play table tennis, hang out, etc. I’m not sure what the prospects took away from the experience; hopefully that perfectly normal people attended my school! If those prospects had stayed with the party guys down the hall or the frat guys a couple blocks over, or the nerds upstairs, they’d have left with a radically different impression of the student body.
I still remember one odd prospect after all these years. He dropped his bag off and disappeared. We didn’t see him again until late the next afternoon when he picked up his bag and left. I think we exchanged maybe 10 words with him total.
Overnight visits can help. My S did two and it moved one school up on his list and it knocked another school out of consideration. My D shadowed a student for a day (no overnight available) and it solidified her #1 school in her mind. Still, it is important to remember that these experiences end up being largely dependent on the host (who I understand the school chooses but that doesn’t guarantee a great fit with the visiting student) so a single visit, even an overnight one, should not be taken for a 100% representation of the school.
My kids didn’t do overnights until accepted student visits, although they did day visits ahead of applying. The overnights were VERY useful to them. 24 hours on campus when the school is trying to put their best foot forward is very revealing. (They sure aren’t always successful in that “best foot” attempt!) D2 reversed the order of her top 3 picks based on those visits, and is super happy with her final choice.
A relatively small proportion of students host pre-freshmen for overnights, and they are unlikely to be typical of the overall student body. Your kid’s experience depends very strongly on the host, and it’s easy to get an impression of the campus that reflects the life of the host, not the life of the vast spectrum of other students.
Oldfort has often described her D1 as an outgoing young woman who likes parties and greatly enjoyed being a member of a sorority. My daughter is introverted and conservative; she would prefer to spend her time alone or with a few good friends rather than going to a large party, she doesn’t drink, and she never set foot in a Greek house in her four years at college because she found Greek life utterly unappealing.
Both of them went to Cornell. They were in the same graduating class and the same major (Oldfort’s daughter also had a second major, but that’s splitting hairs). Both of them loved their four years at Cornell, and both have been quite successful in the years after graduation.
But if your kid had done an overnight at Cornell as a prefreshman during their years on campus, she wouldn’t have stayed with either of them because neither ever volunteered to be a host. And therefore she wouldn’t have learned that the spectrum of kids who prosper at Cornell includes both of them (and also thousands of kids in other majors).
Totally agree with Marian. At a large Uni, it is very easy to find one’s tribe. I think a good way of seeing the student body is to go to school’s dining hall or student center. You can see how students interact with each other. D2 noticed at one school that men and women tend not to walk together. At a small, supposedly very white school, D1 noticed students of different race interacted very well. They ate together, worked together, and looked like they were having fun together. I often asked my kids if they could see themselves be part of any group of people at the cafeteria or student center.
On the other hand, due to various circumstances neither of my kids were able to attend admitted students day and do any overnights and it worked out just fine.
My D was excited to do an overnight at a large state school, and attend classes the next morning - but her hosts decided to stay out late, sleep in and cut class - not what my D wanted. Fortunately, an acceptance letter from #1 choice was waiting at home in the mailbox. So, thanks Party Girls for making the choice even easier!
My son2 was set to apply ED to a university with a great English/ creative writing program but that’s more known for its STEM majors. He did a formal overnight (they offered a few overnight options before the ed and rd apps were due ) the week before his app was due.
It was a good thing he did it bc it completely changed his mind. He had seen the school the summer before and thought based on that first visit and what he read about it that it was a perfect fit, and we thought so too. After the overnight & two classes he visited the next day, the school was no longer in his top 3! He spoke to several ppl in the dorm who were also humanities majors and they were sorry they were there bc the campus felt so lopsided. Others complained about the stress and the lack of a sense of tight community. And the two classes --writing workshops–were completely silent to the point that one was dismissed early by an irate professor who then was kind enough to speak with my son for 10 minutes. Told him to disregard what had happened bc the dept faculty were so good. But for my son, those classes made him realize that the most important criteria for him was a super engaged student body. And he had seen that in some of the other schools on his list when he visited classes. And the schools that most struck like that became his top 3 choices.