<p>Some schools of interest are having information sessions close to our home, and I wonder if they are worth attending.</p>
<p>Our primary interest would be to get a feel for the school that is not available from the web site or printed materials -- do such sessions provide that, or do they all sound pretty much the same?</p>
<p>One reason I ask is that we received promotional DVDs of two of these schools, and I was struck at how similar the two films were, right down to both showing architecture students working on their projects. (It could be, however, that this was due to both films being produced by the same company....)</p>
<p>Son and I attended four in our region. I wouldn't say the presentations were similar, or that they made all of the schools sound the same. In one case, we left with a bit of a negative impression, as we thought the admissions rep was not being entirely honest about minimal qualifications for applicants. In another, we were enlightened about just how distinct the various divisions of the university were from each other. The sessions were not a substitute for a personal visit, but I think they were worth checking out.</p>
<p>I should mention that my son was considering a wide variety of types of universities, so there were real differences among them. (Some had his major in an engineering school, one in a stand-alone school, one in a math department.) If one is applying to a lot of similar places, the sessions may well end up sounding a lot alike.</p>
<p>One valuable that it gives you the opportunity to visualize other applicants. It allows you to hear questions from those applicants. You can get a feel for the climate in that room at evaluate how the prospies handle themselves. I think there is value in that. Rather like an invite back weekend on any campus. Seeing and speaking to prospies.</p>
<p>fendrock- I must have a wierd sense of humor- as I find it really funny that a "movie producer" may be instrumental in helping us decide which college environment our kids will thrive at. I know people use DVD's to pick summer camps, but now colleges too?? It's probably the same "production company" that makes the camp/school videos. </p>
<p>If you are into checking out DVD's, you may want to look into collegiatechoice.com. It's run by GC's/teachers in New Jersey and they have Videotaped 100's of college tours. It's not going to be as spiffy or professional looking, but it does mirror the info on the student tours. And sometimes having a little insight is enough to make an initial decision. I know occassional my kids would be on campus 2 minutes and come to the conclusion that the school is not right for them. So maybe both types of videotours can save you some time and effort.</p>
<p>Some off campus sessions are better than others- as we're on Long Island alot of schools come to our area. I found it interesting to see the "type" of students from our area that were going to the sessions. We never ruled out going to a school based on these sessions but we probably did do a follow up campus visit to all those schools that seemed promising. </p>
<p>If the info sessions are close to home and it doesn't conflict with any major commitment, you have nothing to loose by attending the info session.</p>
<p>We went to a local MIT session that I thought was reasonably informative. They even videotaped part of a physics lecture that was remarkably similar in its antics to the physics course I took in college. I've also gone to several years worth of sessions at our high school's College Night. They are kind of interesting because you have a half dozen or so admissions officers in the same room. They spend a fair amount of time talking about how things are the same or different at their colleges, both in terms of what you need to do to apply and how things are once you are there.</p>
<p>A well-run info session will have grads from the college who live locally that you can ask questions of. That can be very helpful in getting a feel for a college. Of course they aren't going to bring in people who hated it, but it's real live former students who can bring that perspective to the meeting.</p>
<p>We went to an MIT session once. It's not at all comparable to a campus tour, but can be useful in dispelling myths that you think are true about the school.</p>
<p>The only thing we found annoying were the parents who asked obvious questions, dropping their child's name every time, in an attempt to get the representative to remember their child when the time came. Blech.</p>
<p>We went to several last fall: MIT, Hopkins, Northwestern, Penn and Stanford. Any of these sessions (like the info sessions at the individual schools) will depend on the speaker(s) and to some degree, the parents. The speaker for MIT was dynamic and funny, explained that MIT excelled in "pirate sports". In contrast, the speaker at MIT's info session at MIT was a man desperately in need of a "command center". We found that we were rating the schools based on the snacks they served - MIT was first-class, followed by Hopkins. Northwestern served water in a pitcher.</p>
<p>These sessions are a good way to get your student looking at various schools and maybe getting them to focus a little. They are also much cheaper to attend than almost any actual college visit, but with driving time they tend to kill an evening (of homework). And at least some of the sessions had the local alumni interviewers present for seniors who had already applied to set up interview times.</p>
<p>By the way, we only did three college visits before hand, and then four at the places my son was accepted in April. None of which we had visited before. It's not the end of the world to not visit colleges ahead of time if you have some way of eliminating choices. My son wanted good computer science first and foremost with top rate acadenics overall. The first three colleges we visited gave him big vs. small, city vs. suburb, tech school vs. comprehensive research university. He said he'd be happy at any of them as long as the academics were good. So in the end we didn't worry that much about visits except to insist that he should visit the schools he was considering attending come April.</p>
<p>I wouldn't advise basing an acceptance decision on them but they are a good way to decide if you want to expend the time and money to visit a campus or not. My D attended the Claremont info session (without Pomona) and was able to decide that Scripps seems to be a better fit then Mudd. University of Portland sent one of those DVDs which was pretty well done and they found it compelling enough that we are visiting there this spring break.</p>
<p>We live in a pretty isolated area so the info sessions are especially helpful to us.</p>
<p>I saw no value to college fairs or roadshows. In fact it is more likely that erroneous conclusions will result from the quality of the presentations, or quality of the snacks, or impressions about "the "type" of students from our area that were going to the sessions."</p>
<p>The time would be better spent in visiting any local campus and considering what is important and how to learn from a visit/tour.</p>
<p>I recall attending a rather formal information session from Case Western at some point in son #1's college search. We later visited the college too. IN hindsight, I'd almost say we learned more about the school from the info session at home than the visit. (But, obviously, visits are important too.)</p>
<p>Not many colleges do real information sessions here. They set up for fairs and in the high schools (well, the rich white ones anyway) but they don't do much else.</p>
<p>We attended one for Boston University, which was originally on DD's radar Junior year. After the info session, and a long chat with an Admissions Counselor afterward, she decided it was NOT worth a visit. So in that case, it saved us an expensive campus visit in Boston.</p>
<p>I made my daughter attend a local session for the school she applied to EA. The intent was merely to "show interest." But the school staffed the session with recent grads who lived locally. The formal presentation was a waste but the side discussions with recent grads were very helpful.</p>
<p>It really does depend on the situation the student is in. We live at least 2 hours from anything. We have 3 schools within a 3 hour drive that one or both Ds is considering. Last year was the first ever college fair at their high school. College to our kids usually means Chico Sonoma or Sac State. These are fine school but I am a big fan of options.</p>
<p>I think one of the best things about info sessions is that, for rural kids like mine, they expose them to college options beyond where other kids have gone from their HS. In addition for a rural parent who is new to the process they are a good first step. You do get an idea, albeit maybe an inflated one, of what is offered at that schoool</p>
<p>We went to quite a few last year. MIT's was great but depressing--I remember saying to DH, "Why do they have to make it look so good when only one or two out of all the hundreds of kids in this room will be accepted?" There were probably 250 kids in there. </p>
<p>We also went to several that made the school seem more interesting and exciting than it had looked on paper. </p>
<p>And one that made the school look just terrible, where they did a dreadful, boring, humorless presentation and then answered most of the questions by saying, "You should visit if you want the answer to that question." (It's eight hours away by car! Can you please just answer the question????)</p>