Jan 15 - A Day with Andover

<p>I think my family will be attending this event. Anyone else?</p>

<p>I’m attending this with my dad! I hope other people from CC are coming.</p>

<p>We’re looking forward to meeting more staff members than we saw on interview day. I hope they’ll have time to chat with us!</p>

<p>I wanted to attend but neither of my parents wanted to go, so…</p>

<p>If Andover is high on your list, “A Day with Andover” is definitely worthwhile. You will be able to have easy one-on-one conversations with faculty, admissions staff, students, and coaches. It’s admittedly a marketing initiative by Andover, but that does not detract much from its high value to applicants.</p>

<p>Actually, Mainer, we had the exact oppposite experience a few years ago. Prospective applicants and parents asking pompous questions during the Q&A, huge lines to try to talk to faculty and admissions (and even when it was finally “your turn” others would interupt). Our older son never applied there because of this bad experience.</p>

<p>@CKSABS: That’s classic, isn’t it…people asking questions to show how “smart/in the know” they are instead of asking genuine questions.</p>

<p>Amen, Seven.</p>

<p>In fairness, when my younger son was considering schools to apply to this year, he only looked a couple initially. We had him add Andover because of the academic and athletic fit. We had a great visit last fall (even though it was a holiday and very busy in admissions). Andover exceeded our expectations when we had time to meet with faculty, admissions, a coach, and students…not the prospective applicants. Touring the campus in the fall is also nicer than in the middle of January. You appreciate the campus more and the surprisingly close proximity of everything (for a supposedly “large” school) when you’re not trying to keep warm hustling quickly from point A to B.</p>

<p>I appreciate the perspective, but we’ll try our luck anyway. I figure we have to make a major decision based on relatively little face to face time on campus, so we’ll do our best to get as much as we can. My expectations are not terribly high- I hope we can have a minute or two with certain faculty members and figure we will listen to some well planned speeches.</p>

<p>We plan to be there, barring blizzards and flu.</p>

<p>Rellielou, if you already know that you’d like to speak to some specific faculty, it’s a good idea to drop them an e-mail n advance of of visiting to request a few minutes of their time.</p>

<p>Agree with CKSABS. Our experience last year is that there were boat loads of people. Some of the “tips” if you will from the admissions office came too late for us, app already in. The Finance guy will make a plea to get something, anything in that can help them with their awards. There were very long lines to talk to the teachers…we couldn’t get to talk to any faculty. There was a swim meet going on that was somewhat fun to watch, though not worth going just for that. The meeting with coaches in the gym wasn’t comfortable. Mostly the coaches were rubbing elbows with all the recruited athletes. It was like they had a secret handshake or something, and the rest of us just felt like third wheels. The hot chocolate and large marshmallows were good…otherwise a waste of time.</p>

<p>Thanks, Mainer, for your excellent suggestion. I will definitely have ds follow up with that . </p>

<p>Do other New England schools have these sort of events as well? I haven’t heard anything from the other schools of interest to my son.</p>

<p>@Rellielou,
Middlesex did. I went to their arts open house and their regular open house. Other than that, I can’t think of any other schools that offer something like this.</p>

<p>I’m attending. It sounds like a great event.</p>

<p>How did it work out for you folks? It was a cold day. Parking? Long lines? Did you get to talk with coaches?</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/1071818-reflections-day-andover.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/1071818-reflections-day-andover.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;