<p>My son was just accepted to a prestigious mid-western university. We live in the New York State area.</p>
<p>When he received his acceptance package, it contained an offer of a "grant" to visit the university for a one-night stay with a student, get tours, sit in on classes, etc. All transportation would be paid for by the university. We'd never heard of such a thing, and it's not like we are disadvantaged or minority either, if that was why these grants are offered.</p>
<p>However, my son seems to think this is common with some universities and colleges. One of his friends was flown gratis to Grinnell for the same kind of overnight tour.</p>
<p>I have a couple of questions:</p>
<p>1) Is this a common practice? Or is it offered to certain kinds of students, whether they be a certain distance away or paying full freight?</p>
<p>2) Most of the universities my son applied to will let him know about acceptance/rejection on March 27th, which is two weeks away. Should we book the flight now (through the school's travel agent) and take our chances, but cancel later if my son decides on a different school, or do we book on March 28th, taking the risk that he may get shut out (?) or there won't be students he can stay overnight with. Is there some kind of strategy involved?</p>
<p>Anybody have any experience/strategy in these kinds of scenarios?</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>These are usually fixed-sum grants, so the longer you wait to buy the ticket usually the more out of pocket expenses you end up with. There’s something about your son that this school wants (it’s not that he’s from NY) in its student body. That he’s Ivy material is certainly part of it. But the school also has trouble holding onto admitees like your son because students like your son will spend most of April trying to decide on which Ivy, visiting their campuses for the first or second time, in many cases. Places like WashU would like to have a chance to show your son their best face before he goes off on his trips to the ivies and never even sees their campus and what their school could offer him. What have you to lose? a couple days of senior doldrums? BTW, this strategy is a whole lot cheaper than trying to lure him with a 4-year tuition scholarship.</p>
<p>1.) About half of the colleges I got accepted offered to fly me there or covered the costs of ground transportation. For me, it may have something to do with the fact that I come from a low-income background. But, as far as I know, most of the kids at Yale and Stanford were offered some sort of travel money, regardless of socioeconomic background and distance, so it may be common practice. The only thing that varies is the amount of money, depending on distance.</p>
<p>2.) I would say to book a flight now. Some colleges give you a “suggested” price ceiling, which can be surpassed often times with a simple “The flight cost this much more…” explanation. However, others will give you a strict limit, and therefore, booking a flight early may save you having to pay extra money. In addition, some flights are slightly more expensive, but are fully reimbursable, so if you cancel last minute, the college gets its money back. As for being scared about booking late and not finding kids to stay with, that’s rarely an issue. There are more upperclassmen (usually) than admitted students willing to host, and there are also many admitted students that never show up and leave empty spaces. </p>
<p>It isn’t common, but is isn’t exactly uncommon either. They will fly out target students they want to attract.</p>
<p>I would take them up on the offer regardless of other colleges. It can help you decide what you want in a school and to see if that college might be a great fit. The whole point is to do a visit before making a decision, right??? Or you are basically saying this college is nothing to your son and he doesn’t want to go there in the slightest and would pass an invitation if any other college on his list accepts him? </p>