<p>My son had a great weekend, not only with his host and friends, but he was very taken with all of the activity on campus - not related to Honors Weekend. He loved seeing all the intramural games going on around campus. Everyone was having a great time which is different from just enjoying the great weather. All of the students we came across had a smile for us - not the oh look, there’s a potential newbie kind of smile - they just seemed friendly. One comment that my son did make was that it wasn’t as “fratty” as he had expected it to be. He said that in a very positive way which is particularly funny since I consider him to be pretty “fratty,” but in a laid back kind of way. The rush of kids up and down McAlister on Monday was kind of fun for him to see. </p>
<p>I am not sure about the registration process though. They have him signed up for Spanish at 8am four out of five days a week and that is never going to fly. Also, I have paid attention to the teacher recommendations that gabby and tulane14 have so graciously shared with us, and there were virtually no teachers listed for anything he had signed up for. I hope that it is easily changed. I am wondering when they will assign teachers to the different sections. He is not too concerned right now, but if he ends up there, and I think he will, he will be concerned in August when it might be too late! I think it is a lot to decide in one hour, even with a potential list of classes going into it. If I had any recommendation for the next group of Honors Program Invitees, it would be to look over the class schedule available on Gibson and make a somewhat flexible plan for the Fall.</p>
<p>To be fair to Tulane and all schools, they probably hold back on assigning profs to sections for exactly this reason. Word gets around, fairly or unfairly, about which prof is “easy” or which is “funny” or whatever. If they then indicated which profs were in which sections from the start, it would be at least as unpalatable to the students that registered later as the current system. I think you can see from the administration’s point of view there is no good answer here, someone is going to feel screwed either way.</p>
<p>With regard to the 8 AM Spanish, lol. I hear that. As long as he can make everything else work out in his schedule, he can probably change it later. Someone correct me if I am wrong on this, but I think he ought to be able to do it online just about anytime, not in one hour in August. I thought that was one of the benefits of being in the honors program. If you are thinking of going to Orientation, that would be another opportunity. If you need some help in using the online scheduler, PM me.</p>
<p>It all sounds very positive overall. No school is perfect of course. God knows Tulane has things that could be better, and that is not even a negative comment really. There are limited funds, as there are at all schools, even Harvard, although obviously some have more to work with than others. Tulane is actually in really good shape, but they can’t just blink and build all new dorms. Even if there were funds, they need to have a place for students to sleep while a new one is being built, if one were to tear down Monroe, for example. That’s one of the unfortunate things about having little free space on campus, at least enough free space to put up a whole new dorm which then substitutes for another you are tearing down, especially one the size of Monroe. The dorm they are building now was one of the last spaces left in the dorm area of Tulane. They must have a plan though, because the goal is to have all the dorms be the Residential College set-up, like Wall and the new one, within 15 years.</p>
<p>Anyway, my last comment (for now) is that while I can definitely see how a visitor might get the feeling there are “extremes” in terms of party/not party types, I would think that is because you were there only there 24 hours so there really wasn’t a chance to see any depth or get to know many people. I think like gabby says, the reality is that many, probably most, are actually in fact in-between these extremes most of the time.</p>
<p>I’m going to the Honors Weekend in April and was just wondering how the hosting part works. Is it you,your host + roommate, or are there a few prospective students per host?</p>
<p>When a student signs up to host you are given the option of up to three prospective students. I decided to take only one, but my roommate took two. Needless to say, the room was very crowded. lol</p>
<p>I see I’m a little late, but I’ll just say I thought the whole weekend was great. President Cowen’s speech was awesome, as I knew it would be when I saw him in the auditorium. My tour guide was extremely informative, as were the prof at my lunch table and the profs giving the lectures on Sunday afternoon. My hosts were extremely friendly and we had a lot of fun just walking around. I was already committed to Tulane before going, but I came away even more excited about it.</p>
<p>I am going for Honors weeken on April with my D and this is a question that probably only a mother would ask…</p>
<p>It has been mentioned that the host can have several guests for the overnight. I have seen the dorm rooms and they are so small. Where do all the visitors sleep?</p>
<p>I just got my D home from the honors weekend not 5 minutes ago. She waited until today to fly out since she wanted to spend most of the day on campus yesterday. She flew to Kansas City, normally a 3+ hour drive home, and it took us almost 5 because of storms and tornadoes. </p>
<p>Anyway, she seemed to have a good time and really enjoyed the biomdeical engineering prof she met. He talked with her in his office for a long time, I guess. Biomedical engineering had been her chosen major until a few months ago when she switched to biochemistry. Now she is signed up for the biomed track for the fall semester. We’ll see in a year or so where she’ll land.</p>
<p>Would it be weird if a parent showed up without the student? I might not be able to go because of visa problems (I’m international) but I would really like to see what it is like over there My mom knows me well so she might be able to give me some feedback on whether or not I’ll like Tulane.</p>
<p>It would be unusual but you have to deal with the circumstances as they are. If your visa problems cannot be worked out and your Mom can travel, which is obviously the case right now, then you take advantage of the resources available to you, which in this case is your Mom. I can imagine situations where the parent really couldn’t substitute for the student in any way, because they wouldn’t learn anything you wouldn’t already know from the written material and here on CC and the only point is your experience. But there are things your Mom can experience and bring back her impressions, only you can decide if you and your Mom are alike enough or if she is empathetic enough with you that her take on it will suffice. Of course the other advantage is the comfort level she gains with Tulane.</p>
<p>Is it worth the cost of coming from Country X? That is a harder question to answer, since she certainly won’t get as much out of it, and therefore you won’t either, as if you were going. If the cost of it isn’t much of an issue for you or the money is already mostly already spent and you cannot get it back, then sure it could be worth it depending on my initial comments.</p>
<p>I think she should just have a very short explanation already planned and rehearsed a bit so she can set the circumstances when she is talking to profs and others. Something like “I know it is very unusual that I am here without my daughter, but we are from Country X and her visa application ran into a red tape snag. But I was able to travel so she wanted me to come and see what I thought and also to ask some questions for her, and of course I wanted to see Tulane. I hope you understand.”</p>
<p>Mumof2: We were told in an email just before the weekend to bring a sleeping bag. I would definitely plan on that unless her host tells her otherwise.</p>
<p>i’m too lazy to read back more than a few posts above, but i must say that i felt honors weekend was a huge hit! i had a ton of fun with my three prospies, and i think the trip confirmed their decisions to attend here!! :)</p>
<p>i’m looking forward to hosting two more prospies in april!!!</p>
<p>Super visit!..gracious faculty, staff, and students are found all over Tulane’s campus. My son is impressed with the academics and the honors program options. Sometimes programs look good on paper but the reality on campus doesn’t match. I think Tulane exceeded his expectations. His overnight on campus was low key but gave him a chance to chat with several students and prospective students; his host was great. The overnight was helpful in giving him a sense of life at Tulane.</p>
My mom knows me well so she might be able to give me some feedback on whether or not I’ll like Tulane.</p>