<p>Actually I don't know. But I'm asking you guys! :D
How should I go about visiting/interviewing at the schools that I'm on my list? It's going to take a lot of money and time to travel 800+ miles to visit all 8 of the schools I'm considering (not final decisions yet, but hey, I wanna know) and I want to make the best of my visits, knowing that I might not be able to revisit and such.
So, interview tips, tour tips, etc? for these schools:</p>
<p>Andover (definitely applying)
Exeter (same, a definite)
Choate (also a definite)
NMH (I'm pretty sure, but not quite)
Deerfield (a maybe)
Hotchkiss (a maybe)
Loomis Chaffee (maybe)
St. Paul's (big maybe)</p>
<p>Visits are most useful when they're well planned and executed thoughtfully and thoroughly. If you're like most kids, your adrenaline will be pumping and the admission's tour and interview will pass in the blink of an eye. To the extent you can, plan ahead the questions you'd like to ask both the student tour guide and the admission's officer. Either have them memorized or jot them down on a card (a little geeky), but be sure to ask each school the same set of your most important questions. It gives you a good baseline for later consideration of your experiences.</p>
<p>Pay special attention to dining halls, games, dorms and walking around!! When you're with the tour guide, pay attention to how people greet one another and how they greet/acknowledge you. Dorms are great places to see how people treat one another as well. Usually, guides will want to show you the best dorms/cleanest rooms etc. If you can, ask to visit a freshman dorm. (By the way, expect chaos and mess!!)</p>
<p>If you can, try to eat in the dining hall. It might feel intimidating a little bit, but relax. All those kids were once uptight interviewees themselves! You can tell a lot about people watching them come together for a meal. </p>
<p>I also think it's great to ask if there are any home games that day and to arrange your schedule to watch one. It's unlikely to be part of the official tour, but the School will certainly be happy to have you. Games are great because you can see whether other kids at the school come out to support the teams, how they interact with one another. You can get a feel for sportmanship too.</p>
<p>I think it's a bad idea when making such an important decision (boarding school) to limit your entire interview experience to the couple of hours (+/-) necessary for just the tour and admission's officer and then immediately jet out to your next visit. It's often the unscripted time that you spend on campus that's most meaningful.</p>
<p>I agree completely with ThacherParent and would just add that keeping a journal so you can jot down your thoughts/notes/impressions after each visit is key as you can easily become overwhelmed by the amount of information especially if you visit multiple schools in a short time period.</p>
<p>Go when classes are in session; if you get a chance to see classes, do, and don't just go to ones you're interested in; walk around aimlessly as much as possible; see a dormitory; perhaps most importantly in my decision, do not let the admissions building, committee, or interviewers influence your decision. Whether you think they're the nicest or most annoying people you've ever met, it doesn't matter. I saw the person who interviewed me for 0 times so far in my Andover career, and have stepped foot in the admissions building period once.</p>
<p>My daughter and I visited 7 schools in five days. We also squeezed in three colleges. It was exhausting but worth the effort. We also tried to meet with particular teachers and were able to meet a few (Mr. Feng at Exeter was awesome). We only ate at two of the schools (Groton and Exeter). My daughter isn't very athletic but we were also able to meet a couple of soccer coaches. My husband wasn't able to come but he wanted a report on each school so I started by taking a picture of the sign so that I would know which group of pictures belonged to which school (they can run together in your head), and then I carried around a pad of paper with a list of questions that I asked each school and then I also jotted down my impressions of each school in the notebook after the interview and taped the interviewers cards in the book so I wouldn't lose anything. It was a pretty good system. My daughter didn't carry anything with her and just asked her questions from her memory. It gets repetitve. The first school is the hardest and then after that you feel like you're repeating yourself over and over and over. But at every school I reminded my daughter no matter what, act like this is your favorite school because in the end the one that accepts you WILL be your favorite.</p>
<p>photoOp, mind clue-ing me in on how you managed to do that, by PM if it's too up front in a public forum?
im doing several schools in a very limited amount of time, and not only is it costly but im not sure how we can manage to time the transportation perfectly.</p>
<p>I Am 24 Yr Old Enginering Graduate .and I Likes To Study Mathmatics.though Inspite Of My Passsion I Was Not Able To Complete My Degree Inmathmatics,so Can Any One Help Me To Study Mathmatics?</p>
<p>Pictures! When you get to each school, take a picture of a gate or sign with the school name on it. Then you'll know the pictures between that pic and the next school name pic are all of School X. Take a few videos as well, but don't spend all your time behind the camera! Talk to kids, teachers, and administration. First take the generic tours, then ask more specific questions to teachers and administration. Talking to students, because it can be such a biased experience, is last. Try to get in with a few different social groups and kids with different academic interests (science vs. english, for example). They'll give you the scoop on both academics and social life. </p>
<p>And definitely do a sports game! It's a good way to get mingling in.</p>
<p>I wish I'd done the pictures thing. Until revisit days, I would have sworn that Andover's chapel and it's belltower (on opposite ends of campus) were switched in place, that Sam Phil (main academic building) didn't exist, that admissions and Addison (also on opposite ends of campus) were within 15 feet of each other. Interestingly, I still have a memory of that campus. It isn't another campus, because I revisited at the others also and know what they look like. I can still see the parking lot in the completely wrong place...anyway, moral of the story, you won't remember anything like it is when you're that nervous.
It's still sort of a running joke among my friends and me that the buildings on campus like to move around without telling us. :)</p>
<p>Pictures help tremendously. My niece did what PhotoOp & ThatcherParent described and it made it so much easier to keep the information straight. </p>
<p>One more little tip: arrive the late afternoon before your tour and interview, then at least do a drive by / find the admissions office so you know where to go the next day.</p>