<p>An Exploring College Options kind of information session is not really a setting for giving admission officers any information about the student other than filling out a contact card (which will put you on the mailing list of all the colleges in the information session consortium). My preferred approach is to listen to the general session (last year I asked one question to the whole panel, a question that came up often on CC last year), and then when the general session breaks into small groups specific to each college, go and listen with the group of people around one particular college admission officer. If your child and spouse are both there with you, you can "divide and conquer" by going to different corners of the room. I just like to stand and listen, although for one particular college we now take care to introduce ourselves to the admission officer, just by walking up and saying hello. </p>
<p>If your child's high school is not well known to the college, much of the stuff homeschoolers do to get on the radar screen will apply--taking external tests such as SAT Subject Tests or AP tests, participating in extracurriculars with national-level competitions, and writing really thorough essays. The College Board mailing lists for colleges </p>
<p><a href="http://professionals.collegeboard.com/higher-ed/recruitment/sss%5B/url%5D">http://professionals.collegeboard.com/higher-ed/recruitment/sss</a> </p>
<p>are based on all the different College Board tests that students take, so doing well on multiple tests helps a student get more recruiting letters.</p>
<p>Is there a difference between all those college letters and recruiting letters?</p>
<p>Oh, I'm just referring to the general letters about colleges that most students get dozens of. Sometimes by replying specifically to some of those, you can get more detailed information. In between my oldest son's "safety" college and the "reach" schools he has known about for the longest, we are requesting information from some other colleges with good programs (I DON'T call them "match" colleges) that we know less about, as those colleges send out those letters, which I called recruitment letters in my previous post. Now one college has replied with a specific email address to reach the department that would be of most interest to my son at that college. I don't think he has sent out any email to the department yet. That college doesn't appear to travel to this part of the country to conduct information sessions, but it's reasonably well known nationally.</p>
<p>The Exploring Educational Excellence consortium of Brown University, the University of Chicago, Columbia University, Cornell University, and Rice University has announced its spring 2008 travel schedule. </p>
<p>Exploring</a> Educational Excellence </p>
<p>The R.S.V.P. links on the site under </p>
<p>Exploring</a> Educational Excellence-Information Sessions </p>
<p>don't appear to be working yet, but they should be soon.</p>
<p>Rice University's visit schedule is up </p>
<p>Rice</a> University | Prospective Students </p>
<p>with more details promised soon.</p>
<p>Brown University has put up its schedule. Most meetings are joint meetings with Yale and MIT. </p>
<p>Brown</a> Admission: Brown Near You, Spring 2008</p>
<p>My son received a postcard today inviting him to a meeting called An Evening with Lawrence from Lawrence University. He is not in the market for liberal arts colleges in Wisconsin, but I'll post here the webpage </p>
<p>Lawrence</a> Admissions - Find Events Near You </p>
<p>where you can find other Lawrence events. If you see a postcard in your mail inviting you to a local college information session, could you kindly post that news to this thread, as a clue that there may be other meetings of that kind in other parts of the country? I'll try to search websites, as I searched Lawrence's site, to find the general links with the overall national schedule.</p>
<p>Cornell's info session list for spring 2008 is up. </p>
<p>Cornell</a> University Undergraduate Admissions Office - EVENTS</p>
<p>Last year a "hot" question to ask at spring information sessions of various colleges was how the college treats applications submitted with more than one set of test scores. Does the college "superscore," or does it take the best single-sitting test score, or do something else? It would be good to review this spring what each college says about such policies when you attend college information sessions. </p>
<p>This year one hot question seems to be whether a college cares or not about where else you are applying. What is the effect of NOT saying where else you are applying? What is the effect of saying, and mentioning more selective colleges (or less selective colleges) as part of your list? </p>
<p>Another hot question this year is whether it really makes a difference how a student self-identifies as to ethnic category when applying to college, and whether it is possible to totally leave off information about ethnic category without consequence for admission. </p>
<p>Those are some questions I'm seeing coming up in quite a few threads. What hot questions do you see this year on CC that would be good to ask college admission officers at regional information sessions?</p>
<p>One question to ask at admission information sessions might be the frequently asked question, does it look bad to self-report "low" AP test scores (say a score of 3, 2, or 1)? My guess is that self-reporting any AP test score looks better than not taking the test at all, but this is something we could all ask about.</p>
<p>The University of Miami has posted its spring information session schedule for 2008. </p>
<p>Register</a> for Spring Information Sessions | University of Miami</p>
<p>Duke has announced its spring 2008 schedule of regional meetings. </p>
<p>Duke</a> University Admissions Website</p>
<p>The Brown, MIT, and Yale joint meetings have their own consortium website. </p>
<p>Brown</a> + MIT + Yale | Spring Travel</p>
<p>Got an invitation in the mail to a college fair "in our area" for Bowdoin, Carleton, Pomona, Swarthmore. I looked on a couple of these colleges sites for a more complete list, but didn't see one. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, my daughter is not able to make the closer location and the other is too far for us on a school night. She is also only a sophomore, so I hope this group travels again next year we would try to make it</p>
<p>The dates included in her letter are
May 13 Clarion Hotel Portland ME
May 14 Doubletree Suites Waltham MA</p>
<p>7:30 start, no end time listed.</p>
<p>Thanks for letting us know about those college fairs. Best wishes to your daughter for finding out more about colleges that interest her.</p>
<p>Boston University has announced its schedule of spring 2008 receptions. </p>
<p>Boston</a> University Admissions - Receptions</p>
<p>Thanks to sybbie719 for mentioning that the sisters colleges (a consortium of famous women's colleges) are having an information meeting in New York City. </p>
<p>The</a> Sisters</p>