<p>My son went to several such weekends (at the universities’ expense) after being admitted to Ph.D. programs. </p>
<p>We never even considered the possibility of a parent going with him. These were expensive trips, and surely the university would not be expected to pay.</p>
<p>I think it would be presumptuous of anyone to expect a school to pay for a guest’s visit.</p>
<p>MomofTwins…my daughter was an applicant to Architecture grad schools last year. She did some visits before being admitted, all on her own. After being admitted, she needed to see some schools she had yet to see. She flew or drove to them on her own. By the way, none of these were funded by the grad schools, but were at our expense. Anyway, one of her visits was going to be during spring break when she was here at home. It was not for the accepted student event but rather a privately arranged visit for the day to Cornell. For this ONE trip, I went with her as it is a six hour drive (though would have allowed her to go on her own). However, I did not accompany her with any parts of the visit and just met up with her on campus when she was done and I just looked around on my own and hung out in a cafe and so forth. Like your kid, my kid did it all on her own and owned the process. She does value our input and she enjoyed making that one trip with me only as it was just something that worked out that way given the drive and she was coming from our home. But otherwise, she made all visits on her own. And she spoke to everyone on campus on her own and all that jazz. She still consults us about input on things but it is not like she depends on us but she does value sharing with us and getting input. My advice is if you do accompany your kid on the trips, to not attend the events meant just for students.</p>
<p>No. S2 just completed his grad school accepted weekend visits. All were paid for by the grad school, and from his descriptions, entire weekend was scheduled w/activities on or off campus. After all, it is a dog/pony show for the student to see why I should attend this school, program.</p>
<p>Interesting thread. Vote me as one of the parents that would never consider going on a “grad school” trip. If I read an invitation that included “guest” I guess I would have read between the lines as “spouse” or “significant other” and not “parent.”</p>
<p>I’d agree with momofthreeboys that references to guest is more commonly meant to refer to spouses, partners, and significant others.</p>
<p>My parents never even stepped on the grounds of my grad school until the day of graduation.</p>
<p>Speaking for medical schools, guest does NOT mean parent. It means spouse or significant other (and now some schools have even become stingy about footing the bill for those). The idea is that the person you’ll be living with has a right to visit the school/city along with you. My school, and I assume others, have Parents Weekend and other events (like Match Day) to which parents are invited, but accepted students’ weekend is not it.</p>
<p>momoftwins, if your daughter would like company I think that’s fine. It’s clear you are not going to be attending her events or making yourself a pest. I do agree though that by guests they may well have had in mind spouses and the like.</p>
<p>It never occurred to me to participate in any of my D’s grad school visits. However, when she is at the point of looking for housing, I could imagine accompanying her to check out some places. (We live within a couple of hours of where she will be attending grad school.) However, even with that, I would not be inclined to go along if she were looking into a situation that involved other roommates. I figure it is better to err in the direction of hanging back, as opposed to the risk of being too involved.</p>
<p>Her boyfriend suggested to her that he might want to go along on her housing search outings, but I warned her about that too – any prospective roommates might be concerned that he could potentially be a too frequent guest, I feared. </p>
<p>H and I do hope to visit her in her new location on occasion, however – to take her out for a nice meal as a break from the ramen noodles. ;)</p>
<p>I’d be inclined to go along to scope out housing. Living at home and in a dorm is so different from living in an apartment. I’m not sure that the typical college grad would know what to look for in an apartment, neighborhood, etc…</p>
<p>But I never thought of accompanying my kids to graduate admission events. I am, however, acting as a sounding board and wish S could make up his mind!</p>
<p>I don’t think there’s anything wrong with going along on the trip to help scope out the area, but attending the admission events would be a bit odd (not something I’ve ever seen in my experience, in science that is). To me, this would be like a parent coming along to orientation at the kid’s first job. Help them get situated in the new town, but don’t show up on the first day of work with 'em. ;-)</p>