Do colleges ever pay for visits?

<p>S MAY or may not be a NMSF. Has really good options. One of the school's honors college has been calling quite a bit. After 15 Sep, they may increase their call frequency even more for whatever reason.
The school is a pretty good haul away, but S is interested in the school, but it's not numero uno right now. This university does offer substantial $ to NMF. What are the chances the school might say "here's a couple plane tickets, come visit on us"? Does it ever happen?</p>

<p>It happens at private schools, especially for diversity admits. Not sure that public Us can afford this today, but you could ask - it won’t hurt.</p>

<p>There is a greater chance of it happening if you are low income as well.</p>

<p>It can happen, but it would probably be for a special recruiting event. My daughter accepted one to WUStL (private) and declined one from TAMU (public) and she would not have been for diversity nor would we be considered low income. The invitation from WashU asked that she not discuss the paid travel with others at the event since it was not offered to all. Also the offers from both schools were only for her travel, there was no ticket for an accompanying parent.</p>

<p>Ds rcv’d several offers, all private schools except one. The public was fairly close and in-state so didn’t require air fare. No idea whether they would have paid it if we’d asked/needed it. He is a URM so most of them were tied to a diversity event, but the one at the public was tied to the honors college, not minority recruitment.</p>

<p>For the general population its not too common for undergrad, but more common for lower income families. Most colleges do have some sort of program to spend a night in the dorm with current students that would at least get the student free accommodation but one would usually still have to pay for travel.</p>

<p>For top grad schools in certain subjects (eg science) the story is a bit different and there it is common for the school to fly a student out, put them up in a nice hotel and wine-n-dine them a bit…</p>

<p>It happened to my dd and we don’t know why. One college offered her 1/2 of her travel costs if she came to visit. She is not a NMF, not low income, not a minority.</p>

<p>Notre Dame, Reilly Weekend. They will have two of them. They pay all expenses including airplane tickets.</p>

<p>I am pretty sure ASU offered a free trip to our DD (just one ticket, I think) I do not recall if she had yet advanced from NMSF to NMF, but I think not.</p>

<p>The S of a friend, neither low-income nor URM, was offered a fly-in to a small LAC. They paid half the airfare up front, with the promise that they would reimburse the other half if he enrolled, which he did and they did. He went to a class, met privately with a couple of professors and was put up in the dorm. He fell in love with the place and subsequently enrolled so good investment on their part.</p>

<p>D received an offer from WUSTL (all expenses for her) and an offer from our flag-ship U. This offer was for D and one parent. She received several other requests for visits which included financial assistance if needed.</p>

<p>My daughter (NMF, not low income or underrepresented) had some offers of partly-subsidized travel for scholarship weekends, but this was in the “post-season”-- after she was accepted.</p>

<p>One of my students is going to Washington U., thanks to the admissions department picking up the tab. She is not NM, but has an excellent SAT/GPA. My son, who was NM, got the same deal from Washington U. But he also could have taken paid visits to Texas A & M and Central Florida (hotel only). Alabama picked up the tab when he interviewed for its computer-based honors program. There were a few others, but I cannot recall the schools.</p>

<p>Happened for son at U Florida (four years ago) when UF had outstanding scholarship opportunities for NMFs. They paid travel and a motel in March when they were trying to woo him. S is not underrep and middle class. Don’t know if UF still does this - they have backed off considerably in awards to OOS NMFs.</p>

<p>My son was NMF 4 years ago when schools were more flush with money. he did receive a couple of offers to pay for HIM (only) to fly to visit.</p>

<p>I’ve noticed that those schools aren’t doing that anymore…probably because of budget cuts and because too many kids took the free trip on a lark and didn’t enroll.</p>

<p>Which schools are being considered?</p>

<p>What state are you in?</p>

<p>MIT paid for DS to fly to their CPW. They didn’t offer to pay mom’s airfare though, so if your S is lucky enough to get airfare, don’t count on any money for parents come along. Also note, that they only offered to pay my son’s airfare when he said he wasn’t going to go to CPW (which is their weekend for admitted students).</p>

<p>Texas A&M also offered $$ to my daughter–not URM or low income, but NMSF.</p>