Eat in the dining hall! It’s the window to the soul.
I am continually amazed at the number of reports of host students behaving inappropriately when hosting overnight prospective student guests. Enough so that I’m not sure we’ll go that route.
@alooknac What do you mean by behaving inappropriately?
I’ll echo other people here and say that my daughter found sitting in a class to be very informative. In some, the prof knew everyone’s name and introduced her to them. In others the prof lectured and left, didn’t know the names of the students, etc. In some the students were friendly and engaged, and in others they just sat there. And eating in the cafeteria gave us another window into the school. I found the tours helpful, and the info sessions much less so. If you are pressed for time, you can split up and see more (for example I went to an info session while she sat in on a class).
It’s hard to really get to know a school with a visit, since you could get the worst tour guide or the best, or sit in the best class or one that’s pretty awful. You can get the general vibe of the place, though.
@MamaBear16, at my D1’s final choice, we split up on her first visit and she went to class while I ate in the cafeteria. I was sold based on the coconut cake. 
@mageecrew I will add that before you book flights, make sure that you are scheduled in the Campus Tour that you want. If you aren’t sure about your dates, book the tours just in case. We occasionally ran into schools that said the tours were full and made it clear to not show up if you weren’t booked for the tour. A few schools said “just walk in and that is fine” (Northwestern) but a few were clear about not walking in without being booked (Vanderbilt) Good luck and enjoy! We loved the College tours for S’14 and are actually looking forward to doing it again for D’18. It was fun family time. I will echo what many posters said…if the schools are close 2 in a day are fine, but in my opinion not if they are more than an hour apart. It makes for a long day and the second school always suffers. You always have to account for traffic, parking, finding the Admissions office, etc…It can make the first visit feel rushed and/or the second visit rushed or you get there late, etc…
@mageecrew…one more comment. At most tours, after the presentation by the Admissions department, they typically split the group up among the student tour guides who take you on a campus tour. On most tours they introduced the students, stated their majors and sometimes where they were from. Some schools assigned you to a student and some let you choose. My son always would try to choose his tour guide. He would look for somebody that he thought was “his people”. It made him comfortable and helped him see the school from the perspective of somebody that he could relate to. He was a kid who was very much into sports but was looking at highly competitive schools (in terms of academics/admissions). Although sports was only one aspect that he was looking for in a school, it was something that was important. He had his own methodology for choosing the guide. On more than one tour, we were assigned to a group but we quietly switched to the guide that my son like better.
I will add that although you don’t want a student tour guide to “make or break” a school, they can make a difference. We still can all say which guides we really liked and which we thought were “duds”… If you know of anybody at a school who can show you around personally, try to connect with them. Whether it is a student from your child’s HS or a child or somebody that you know…that personal “extra” tour can make all the difference. Kids who love their school are usually happy to talk to somebody and they don’t need to know them personally. My son LOVES his school and is so happy when a younger student from his HS reaches out to him…or anybody else. He doesn’t care that he doesn’t know them…he is happy to meet them after the tour and talk with the student and their parents. We did that on a few visits and it was really helpful and added a different perspective.
“What do you mean by behaving inappropriately?”
Getting drunk/high, sexiling the visitor, seducing the visitor, vanishing into the night so the visitor is locked out…
Yep, it’s all happened. I saw it when I was a student 20 years ago (in a small minority of cases!). Especially now in the age of cell phones, it’s a lot easier to fix any problems that come up, especially if you prep your kid to speak up and ask for help.
My comment about inappropriate behavior was apropos nugraddad’s post: “I should also mention that Admitted Students Overnights can be very helpful… One of my kids went, and their student hosts cut class in the morning”
So, yes, all the things Hanna mentioned. Not necessarily inappropriate behavior directed TOWARD the visting student, just things like ditching them, drinking, etc. You would think the hosts would be better vetted, and able to be on good behavior at least temporarily.
My kid’s school has very strict rules about behavior during admitted student days/overnights (also first week or two frosh are on campus in the fall). She says they are followed by all students, too.
Perhaps not as important on the first round of “get acquainted” with various types of schools visit, but my kids found it very helpful to independently contact, and schedule tours of specific facilities they were interested in. For instance, one of my kids loves to do ceramics, so when planning tours/info sessions, we emailed separately the art department administrator to ask about getting to peek into the ceramics facility. Often, that led to a scheduled mini-tour of the art facility. That process actually knocked a few schools off the list and moved a few others way up, based on the facilities and also the interaction with the faculty/staff in the department.
Unlike a lot of the parents here, I am actually a big fan of the information session because, although most of the information can be found from the website, the info session is a mechanism to hear what the school emphasizes about itself and there are almost always admission nuggets we took away. Conn Coll info session included an open conversation about the essay, topics, etc., and the reminder that admissions officers know what 17 year olds sound like vs. 45 year olds in their writing. Vassar talked about how test scores are weighed in the admission process. Oberlin said that they do reject kids ED and do not roll everyone into the Regular admissions.
As a parent, the lesson it took me a long time to learn was, when the kid says they are ready to go – even if I’m not – it is time to leave. With the first kid, we had a lot of fights in parking lots before I realized he was just overloaded and needed to get in the car and be done, even if there was one more thing I wanted to see/do. The second kid, we only had one of those fights before I had deja vu and realized I needed to get in the car and drive.
Good luck, and enjoy!
Wow, what a trip down memory lane! ( It wasn’t that long ago) The primary advice I would suggest is keep it fun! We had all kinds of contests, best tour guide, best information session, best dining hall, prettiest campus, least stressful atmosphere, and conversely the worst of all of these things.
Some may appreciate our experience with these thing’s so I will share, if not I’m sorry!
- Best tour guide Aaron from UVA, when tour guides end their tours quite often they tell their story as to how they came to attend their college. Aaron had me in tears, our daughter looked at me and said “dad are you crying”? It felt like Tom Hanks was scolding me from the movie a league of their own. It wasn’t like that really! I was inspired by his story, he overcame a lot. The Washington and Lee and Johns Hopkins tour guides were close seconds, those kids were hysterical.
- Best information session, Harvard, the distinguished man in the bow tie (David Evans) he made such an impression upon our daughter.
- Best dining hall, The University of Richmond, no other school was even close. (out of 22 schools) Thats where I would have been going.
4)Prettiest campus, Middlebury College. Our daughter was oh so close to being a Midkid. Many schools were aesthetically beautiful. - Most stressful atmosphere, Johns Hopkins, these kids seemed stressed to the max.
Some other observations,
The College most in the middle of no where, Geneseo. Lovely school and one of our NYS Flagships.
The school who tried the hardest to have our daughter attend there. SUNY Binghamton, special honors program reception, selling her hard, car salesman hard. (no offense to car salesman who aren’t hard sell)
The school that she passed up that had me the most beside myself, Lafayette College, beautiful college, great academics, and a $40,000 a year Marquis Fellowship scholarship. I have gotten over it, barely.
The most obnoxious information session, Princeton University, the leader of the information session was basically saying through out the presentation, “why are you here” none of you are getting in. It felt that blatant to me. Guess where our daughter applied early? She was crushed when she was deferred EA and eventually rejected by Princeton, now she would tell you she is very thankful things went that way.
There were so many conversations we had, academics, small school, large school, social climate, proximity to cultural events and activities, student diversity and on and on.
One suggestion that comes to mind is to look at every schools activities calendar, do they have a regular schedule of interesting(speakers, presentations etc.) and fun things going on or is there not much going on and what is going on fluff.
This post has felt some what self indulgent, that wasn’t my intention. I just wanted to provide some insight into our personal experience, hopefully there are some elements of this that are helpful for some and that many can relate to.
We started out junior year looking at schools close to home which would help illustrate different types of schools. One thing that struck me was how similar the sales pitch was at each school. Really, you could easily play College Visit Bingo.
My kid vetoed a smaller LAC school after asking the guide what the students did for fun on the weekends. “Oh, there is SO much to do here!”…and then the guide was at a loss to mention anything specific besides a once a year dance. It became a running joke for us on our college tours. She’d ask the question, and then listen carefully for a truthful answer.
We liked to hang out in the dining halls and people watch. Are the kids relaxed? Smiling? Sullen? Stressed? We liked to walk around the area outside of campus and see what there was to do off campus and size up safety. We liked to ask students where they worked during the school year. We always tried to get the inside info on the dorms and how many students move off campus and where. We liked to ask if the students knew any STEM majors who were able to fit in study abroad. We asked how they got back to their dorms from the library late at night.
Have fun!
I would double confirm visits and interview dates and times. My D1 traveled from California to see three colleges on the East Coast. A costly trip to see three schools that we believed would be a good match for her. Even though we had confirmation emails for the visits and interviews, one of the colleges did not not have her visiting or interviewing on the confirmed date (or any date at all). The college had her sign an information sheet three times because they kept losing her information and she waited several hours for a scheduled interview with an admission officer. Ultimately, it told her what she needed to know and she did not apply.
I agree that visiting safeties and matches are important. Once your kid finds an admission and financial safety that they really like, it takes a lot of pressure off the process. Even better if the school offers rolling admission and you can find out before the application cycle heats up. She had one reasonably priced admission that she liked before many of her friends had even started applying. Visiting this “safety” early really helped!
@mathmom: #8: I have seen people here at CC mention the blue lights in another thread, but never encountered this on a tour either on the West Coast or East Coast.
Has everyone had tour guides mention this?
I’d say the blue lights are the center square in campus tour bingo. They’re a freebie.
Blue lights: Every. single. tour. This is out of 19 tours in the west (though not the coast), midwest, mid-Atlantic, and northeast. (Well, and I guess you can add in a couple in the southeast that we went on for fun just to see a beautiful campus before the whole college search process began.) A couple times even mentioned when talking about things that make the campus unique—I’m guessing those tour guides never toured a college in high school.
@Ynotgo: Right. Was in the thread from which that one broke off. Thanks, though.
@Hanna: I have no idea what that means.
Haven’t you ever played bingo? The middle square is often a “free square” where you get credit for it for nothing. I think Hanna is saying that EVERY SINGLE COLLEGE has a blue light system for safety on campus (threatened? hit the button on the blue light kiosks scattered around campus, and campus security will come running). I have to say, having visited 40 colleges over the years with all my kids, I am pretty sure I never visited a school that did not have blue light…