<p>D got into Harvard SCEA, and we now have to decide on Pre-Frosh Weekend. She has not visited any of the schools she has applied to, and I understand that this weekend is suppose to help her decide on Harvard. Going all the way to Boston would cost us a lot of money. It would not bankrupt us, but it would not hurt to save it for other things.
In our minds, there is no reason to turn down Harvard. It is after all Harvard. How bad can it be? And they have given her a very, very generous financial aid package.
I would appreciate your thoughts on this subject. Many thanks.
Nomadmom</p>
<p>First, congratulations to your D!<br>
Am I right that she is waiting on other decisions as well?
Much as I like Harvard, she may find other schools that are a better fit for her for a variety of reason: size, location, type of fields she is interested in, etc... So I would not automatically conclude that "there is no reason to turn down Harvard." There are some unhappy students at Harvard. I would bet that many of them are students who thought they could not turn down Harvard "because it is Harvard."
If she is admitted to some other school that, in her mind, is perhaps as good a fit as or better than Harvard and gives her as generous a package, she should visit that school if possible, then make up her mind. </p>
<p>Having said all that, I hope she does attend Harvard! </p>
<p>About Pre-frosh weekend: It's fun, but it is not absolutely necessary.</p>
<p>My daughter was accepted SCEA last year and I accompanied her to Pre-frosh weekend. I stayed in a hotel and she stayed on campus. With that said, I'd suggest that your daughter does go but if money is an issue, it is not necessary that you attend. They did have a lot of events for parents which were informative, but certainly not necessary. Both parents and students were welcome to attend classes. I barely saw my daughter the entire weekend, until we met at the bookstore to buy her a sweatshirt. She found the weekend to be invaluable. She met loads of people, went to classes and parties, and it clinched the deal for her. She is still friends with a few people she met that weekend. I'd highly recommend it for your daughter, unless it truly is a hardship. Certainly, not everyone attends.</p>
<p>As an aside, I could not count how many parents I met there whose kids were deciding between Harvard and Stamford! (The weather was awful for pre-frosh last year, so Stamford definitely had an advantage there.) There were a few there deciding between Harvard and Yale, but by the end of the weekend those kids were all dropping off their admittance cards - no deposit required - at Harvard. Many of the kids also got a kick out of meeting their admissions officers, which was highly encouraged.</p>
<p>I do agree with Marite. Harvard is not for everyone. Pre-frosh weekend is a good taste of what a non-hand-holding school is like. However, when my daughter arrived in September, it already felt like home.</p>
<p>Harvard isn't for everyone, I'm not sure a weekend will tell you what you need to know though. I agree though, to get the most out of Harvard you need to make an effort to take advantage of what it has to offer.</p>
<p>In addition to the wonderful advice above, can you ask Harvard's admissions whether they can offer any help for students with financial difficulties? I'm not sure whether Harvard, as a member of the Ivy League, can do this, but I have heard of other schools offering some financial assistance in these types of situations. If your daughter goes alone, the only cost should be flight. If you search well, you can probably find a good price. </p>
<p>You may want to wait to make this decision until you see where else your daughter is accepted. If she is not accepted at the other schools on her list besides her safeties, the decision to go to Harvard may be very easy. On the other hand, she may end up with a couple of schools she would like to visit, in which case it would likely be cheaper to visit them on the same trip (fly to such-and-such, stay with a student overnight, fly to Boston, stay with a student overnight, fly back home).</p>
<p>My D went to two weekends for the colleges she got into. It really didn't change her mind. If your daughter has already made up her mind, then she doesn't need to go, but as others have pointed out this should not be based on "Harvard is Harvard" but on whether it is a good fit. A lot of this is personal and not quantifiable. A previous thread two years ago had a list of techniques. One of these is for her to make up her mind she wants to go to Harvard and then wait for subtle physiologic clues like headache or nausea to tell her that maybe this is not her first choice. Again, its nice if she already knows she wants to go there. She did apply SCEA which one usually doesn't do with a "safety" of Harvard's caliber. On the other hand one local girl applied EA to Yale in case she didn't get into Brown. Go figure.</p>
<p>Stamford? Oh my...</p>
<p>C'mon, BusinessGuy, you know Harvard vs. Stamford is a tough choice. Stamford has very good access to NYC on the train or by I-95.</p>
<p>C'mon you two! Besides being a typo, I doubt that Stamford's weather is very different from Cambridge's. Anyway, my S went to a rain-soaked Pre-frosh weekend at Harvard. It did not make him want to attend Stanford. Of course, he's the guy who said he prefers snow that falls on him. Unfortunately, it's his brother who fell on the ice the other day. :(</p>
<p>Go to Harvard. You can't afford Stamford. The real estate prices in southwestern Connecticut will kill you.</p>
<p>Ask the school if there is any financial assistance available. I'm guessing there must be--otherwise it is a weekend for the well-off.</p>
<p>Besides Harvard being Harvard, there is the fact that the Harvard admission committee is a clever group of successful folks. They picked your D because they believe she will find success and happiness at Harvard. Chances are they were spot on in that decision.</p>
<p>Save your money for your visit--perhaps Parent's weekend in October when your D won't be absorbed in meeting exciting new friends.</p>
<p>Nomadmom,
I agree with other posters about asking for financial help visiting. If this doesn't pan out, and your d is ok with it, she can probably attend on her own. Scary thought, I know, but the public transit in Boston is very good. A round trip plane ticket for one is a lot cheaper that a family traveling to Boston, staying in hotels, etc.</p>
<p>I don't think that Harvard is one of the schools that one absolutely has to visit before committing to (although I would highly recommend it, if possible). It is a superlative research university in the middle of a cosmopolitan city; it has both superstars and fairly normal kids attending (extremely bright normal kids, anyway). Your D will be able to find a niche.</p>
<p>ooooops.<br>
I am in Stamford, CT so often that I just automatically typed the <em>m</em> ::blushes::
Their weather is lousy but they do have a nice Amtrak station.
My daughter didn't apply to sunny Stanford. However, it seemed like a good portion of Harvard admits did.</p>
<p>Marite -
Is your son okay? You were certainly right about the freezing icy slush that doesn't seem to ever melt in Harvard Yard. I actually got a request for snow boots. I didn't bother to send them earlier after the many threads on how no one ever wears snow boots (which has always been true in my family!) Hmmmm.... StaNford is sounding better and better! ;)</p>
<p>My D was one of those students who had to decide between Stanford (got in SCEA) and Harvard, and a visit was what confirmed her final choice (H). She attended the official pre-frosh weekend at Stanford but was not able to attend the official admitted student days at Harvard. Instead, with the kind assistance of several CC parents whose children and their friends showed my D around, she was able to get what she felt was a satisfactory -- and in her view, very favorable -- impression of what student life at Harvard was like. Visiting both Stanford and Harvard confirmed how different they were, and in the end, the weather was the only thing she might have preferred about Stanford. The campus layout, the housing system and the general atmosphere were very different, and she found H much more appealing, but she knows a couple of people who made the opposite choice.</p>
<p>I have mixed feelings about official pre-frosh weekends, because those tend to give students a somewhat unrealistic view of life on campus and are certainly well orchestrated sales pitches to the admitted students. That said, I do think visiting is important, if it's at all possible. And visiting anytime should give a student an idea of the layout of the campus, the accessibility of the campus, etc. </p>
<p>I know that Stanford offered financial assistance for some admitted students (based on financial need) to attend their pre-frosh days, so it would be worth asking other colleges if they offer that as well.</p>
<p>I hope the OP's D can make a choice that is more enthusiastic than merely, "How bad can it be?" There are more differences among schools than one might guess merely from looking at the US News Rankings, and no school is right for everyone.</p>
<p>Nomadmom - Our D was a SCEA admit last year, didn't apply anywhere else, but still went to Pre-frosh. It was a great decision for her; she met dozens of people who then friended each other on Facebook. They talked all summer, some that were in-state got together, and they were a great source of advice and support for one another. And it helped to allay any notions that other H students might be haughty or difficult to get to know. The discovery that her prospective colleagues were both amazing and fun was very exciting for her.</p>
<p>It's true that Harvard is not for everybody, and I'm sure that lots of kids choose carefully between Harvard and Stanford. But we know from that head-to-head study that gets posted every now and then that something like 80% of the kids with a choice between Harvard and Stanford choose Harvard (if they choose one of those two, and not Yale or MIT, etc.). So the likelihood of guessing wrong (if you guess that way) is not so high.</p>
<p>Twinmom:</p>
<p>Yes, S is okay. He was wearing snowboots but slipped anyway. As I write, he and Dad have gone to buy sand. </p>
<p>I think the only reason S applied to both Harvard and Stanford was that the Stanford deadline for applying RD was the same day as Harvard's notification date. He did not apply to other schools that were a bit higher on his list because the deadline was Dec. 31, by which time he had heard from H. All of them are in snow country, by the way.</p>
<p>My daughter's schools were all in snow country too. With two going at once, we did not want to add the price of major airfare to the bills, which is why she didn't consider Stanford. The exception was Emory, where she applied because of the Scholars program.</p>
<p>My son was admitted to both Stanford and Harvard, and attended the weekends at both schools. He got a good feeling of what each school was like from the weekend programs, and chose Stanford (although we are from the East coast). Although the majority of students admitted to both schools choose Harvard, he preferred the campus atmosphere of Stanford and felt that it was very strong in all of the academic areas he was considering. (He entered college intending to major in computer science, and graduated with an Economics major and CS minor). He had many great academic, extracurricular, and social experiences at Stanford, so it turned out to be a good choice for him. The insights he gained during the pre-frosh weekends were crucial for him in making his choice, so I highly recommend them for students undecided between several schools .</p>