<p>Add Bates.</p>
<p>Of course, a lot depends on how selective of a school she’s looking for and what her stats are.</p>
<p>I can agree with the statement about Muhlenberg. Our d auditioned this winter and the head of the theater department followed her out to make sure she was going over to Admissions. She’s excited to be starting there this fall.</p>
<p>Skidmore…</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone. </p>
<p>This student is just starting out on the venture to find out what they might like, so will be visiting, for starters, a large school, a small school, urban, rural, possibly even a single sex school (quite along the lines of what xig suggested earlier). This is just a starting point. But in chatting with the parent, we talked about what variables are important, especially in unique circumstanes with the student’s parents living far apart, and the child attending a school in another country, but having the opportunity to visit some schools now.</p>
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<p>If I were to make a list, I would most definitely find my information by culling the … official sources. As far as whatever they say, I would use that in … whatever the GC says, go with the official source. There does not seem to be any end to the tales spread by GCs. </p>
<p>Fwiw, an adcom giving this reason to a GC shows a total lack of professionalism, only bested by the GC apparently discussing the outcome of one student’s affairs with … another parent! </p>
<p>An adcom telling a GC that a student was rejected because she did not visit sounds like a fantastic tale to me, and this in all senses of the word. In plain English, that stands for BS!</p>
<p>I think CMU may depend. I don’t get the impression the School of Computer Science cares about much except your potential in comp sci. (Potential not just accomplishments.)</p>
<p>Well it may be unprofessional, but it served as a warning to us, since we are definitely within driving distance of GW and it was on the list of colleges to be looked at. </p>
<p>It’s been a while, I think the story may have had a happy ending - ie it may have been a waitlist not an outright rejection and that the student got into GW and attended. I have no reason to think the GC was lying, but if you prefer to think she was go ahead xiggi.</p>
<p>We had GW on our list, we were talking with the GC, she warned us to visit and told us why. I’m not lying.</p>
<p>Mathmom, for what it is worth, I know that YOU are not lying. After all, why … would you! We are all here to share anecdotes and learn from the experiences of others. </p>
<p>This said, I have always been highly critical of the GCs in general. To be frank, I do NOT believe the adcom would be THAT unprofessional in offering the lack of visit as the reason for the rejection. But that is not even as important as the fact that this GC obviously did not offer much VALID guidance to the girl who ended up getting dinged WHEN SHE NEEDED it. Or should we assume that the GC found this out only after talking to an adcom? </p>
<p>All in all, my conclusion about GCs remain the same. The few (very few) parents who are blessed with a competent and diligent GC are extremely lucky. It is for this reason that a site such as this one is so helpful. After a while, most readers will find out how abysmal the counseling at our 30,000+ schools truly is, and how irrelevant the GC profession truly is … in terms of college admissions. While GCs want parents to believe they have worthwhile contacts with colleges, the reality is that such contacts are available to anyone armed with a computer. As far as information, most people can do better than a GC. All it takes is patience and dedication.</p>
<p>I attended a presentation by Northwestern a few weeks ago. The adcom was very particular about showing love but he said it does nt need to be a visit from someone in Texas (he did say they don’t look at it too kindly if someone living within two hours of driving had never made a visit but filed an application). Apparently attending his presentation counted as enough and he said if someone called or sent an email asking questions about trying to reach a specific department, professor, they keep track of every single contact ever made through the admissions office. </p>
<p>So even if you know a professor’s name and want to ask a question, it would be better to route it through admissions to show your interest.</p>
<p>^ Yes, I did both of those things! NU is my favorite. (Although now that I think of it, the question I asked was kinda dumb…someone told me coops can earn you $70k per year so I asked about that. Do you think they’ll think I’m ■■■■■■■■ now?)</p>
<p>Liv - greedy perhaps but not dumb to want to know! Is it true though? </p>
<p>I think people are only allowed to work half the year in coop and even then it sounds like a very high salary for someone in the middle of undergrad.</p>
<p>I will add Goucher to the list. They definitely pay attention to visits and interviews.</p>
<p>^^ texas: do you think they’ll actually think that? do you think it’ll hurt my chances?</p>
<p>Liv - No. Being curious about what you have heard and trying to verify that is not interpreted adversely against you.</p>
<p>Okay good! And that’s definitely not the amount you can expect to be paid…it’s more like–I think she said–$20,000?</p>
<p>Not CMU, IMO.
DS never visited or interviewed, but was accepted with good merit aid.</p>
<p>But do add the Claremont Colleges to this list.</p>
<p>(Re: GW) That particular GC was quite young, and I don’t think it would ever have occurred to her to tell a student that she ought to visit a school before that. Our GC’s have 200 students each - they do an amazing job in my opinion given their workload, but we are far enough away from DC that I think it’s pretty unreasonable for GW to expect our students to visit and I don’t think it had ever occurred to anyone that it could be an issue until it was. She didn’t give us the name of the student - I have no idea who it was - there are over 600 kids in each graduating class.</p>
<p>The first GC visit (spring junior year) usually just covers the school’s time table, a list of possible colleges to look at (based on forms that the student and family have previously filled out), and whatever advice they can squeeze in beyond that. Since GW was on the list at that point it was fresh in her mind. But they generally count on most of the advice to come either from their standard handouts or whatever the admissions officers who come to College Night have to say.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth GW says level of interest is “considered”, but not that it’s “important” or “very important”, but if you are the kid who gets dinged because a college thinks you weren’t sufficiently interested, it’s important.</p>