<p>I just got something in the mail from Exploring College Options (special event hosted by Duke, GT, Harvard, Penn and Stanford)...anyone else receive it/has anyone else gone to one of their sessions?</p>
<p>If so, was it worthwhile or was it basically an information session that you would receive when visiting these colleges?</p>
<p>This is essentially an abbreviated info session that these colleges present together. I've been to similar ones before for Hopkins, Davidson, Swarthmore and Duke (or some variation like that). Go if you want an overview of the schools.</p>
<p>And yes, my son received the same invitation in the mail yesterday.</p>
<p>We attended the last two years in the fall. The event was held in a large hotel ballroom downtown and hundreds of people showed up. The questions were probably the best part as the panelists were very honest, sometimes brutally so, with their answers. Most of the questions were a variation on "how can I get accepted" so they got a little impatient with that. After each school gave a brief talk and answered questions then the admission officers split up into different corners of the room and you (and many other people) could go and talk to the person from the college you were most interested in. That was mainly a question and answer thing too very informal since it was pretty loud in the room. I was surprised at how many people showed up for this but it was a lot of well-known schools traveling together. I thought it was worthwhile. If you have a specific question you could probably get it answered but you might need to be a bit pushy about it.</p>
<p>yeah i got the same thing a few days ago, i dont know if it was because of my psat scores (which were lackluster, to say the least) or if because i'm on most of these school's mailing lists. I plan on attending, but i doubt i'll learn anything that i havent learned from CC. i guess i'll just go to sum up my local competition for next years admissions process :></p>
<p>I attended one of these events in Westchester last year - it was mostly attended by prep school/magnet school kids. Out of the above, I was only interested in Georgetown and had already visited. I didn't think that it was overly informative - I certainly didn't learn anything about Georgetown as I'd already done the tour/info session.</p>
<p>Depending on what geographical area you're from, the admissions counselor giving the presentations might not be up to snuff. I remember the VP of Georgetown's Admissions Dep't gave their presentation, but Harvard and Stanford had recent undergrads who weren't well versed in the answers to the questions parents asked.</p>
<p>Basically, it was really long and boring with only one or two dynamic speakers. BUT you got this neat folder with all the requirements for those colleges written on the back (quite helpful when it comes to checking stuff off), some nice fruit platters, and the chance to ask your regional admissions counselor (depending on the college) questions at the end if you stayed all the way through. Some of the kids there seemed to be networking with each other as well - exchanging fbs and such. It was crazy long though.</p>
<p>go... but bring a friend</p>