<p>Looking for some advice on how to make the most of a college visit. DS will be junior and we want him to start thinking about what schools he might want to apply to. He's been to a number of college campuses for different events. His impression of schools is based on look of buildings, surroundings, etc. How to we get him to be serious in evaluating the characteristics and offerings of a school? To him, college is just a bunch of buildings that he goes to for classes. He's a really bright kid and is accelerated in both math and sciences. For now, he thinks he wants to major in math (probably because it comes easy to him). </p>
<p>Not sure if the typical college tour will influence him. Should we try to schedule time with head of math dept?? WOuld they be willing to talk to HS junior? Lookng for suggestions on what to plan or ask for so that DS can get a good feel of school, environment, and programs??? He doesn't take what he reads on school websites too seriously which makes that not too useful. </p>
<p>Have him do some calculations on what his loan payments will be after graduation, and how many hours a week he would have to work in his work-study job to pay for X (a month's subscription to Netflix, for example).</p>
<p>Have him factor in the likelihood of an education at Univ. XYZ providing him an education that qualifies him for a job he likes that pays him what he needs without having to work too hard.</p>
<p>When you visit, tell him to evaluate what he sees based on what he has calculated.</p>
<p>Attending classes was a big factor for my son. In some, the students sat like lumps taking notes for the test. In others, the students were engaged in lively discussions. He wants the lively discussions. We always did the tour and info sessions, though there was a lot of repetition. They all want kids to take the most rigorous curriculum available, I can assure you. Check out the library and student center when they're full of students and watch interactions. Talk to as many students as possible. Spend some time in the town to get a feel for that. We didn't talk to dept heads, but know people who did and found it helpful. Overnights were very informative for my son, but are not usually scheduled before senior year.</p>
<p>A few considerations. Weather can make a difference. I know we have no control over it, but visiting on a beautiful fall day is a lot different from visiting on a dreary and rainy spring day. Not much you can do about it but try to take it into consideration.</p>
<p>Info sessions are a waste of time imho. Yes go and suffer thru them but they are somewhat equivelent to those time share sales meeting in many regards.</p>
<p>Campus tours are really dependent on the student leading them. I know our son was really put off by the URoch tour guide who spent the most time touring/talking about the rec center and noting that the library was a great place to nap.</p>
<p>Our most valuable time was spent on our own. Being a college prof I am very comfortable in that environment. Classroom building are almost always open to visitors like you. At URoch we went to the CompSci building before our scheduled sessions and introduced ourself at the department office. The office admin called in a professor who spent some time speaking to our son and gave up a tour of the department facilities and labs. Doing the same thing at Case, we were invited to walk around the department building and a department picnic being held that day. We did go and met a number of profs and students. Same at Rensselaer, though we did call ahead so that our son could talk to a professor.</p>
<p>Sit in on some classes uninvited. No, your student cannot barge into a small class of 15 students but most colleges have freshman intro class section with lectures of 50+ students. Our son went to a CompSci 1 class at RPI and was excited to discover that he could understand some/much(?) of the lecture content. I think it was reassuring too. Most colleges have on line schedules where your student can find an appropriate lecture session. If nothing else your student can observe the engagement of the students during the lecture.</p>
<p>Go to the student union to have lunch and observe the students. Our son the computer geek, was happy to see many tables in the McNeil Dining room at RPI occupied by students working with their laptops. We were impressed by the impromptu music recital by students walking in to play the grand piano in the lobby-one classical, the oher show tunes. At Oberlin we were treated to a raggae concert on the union portico, a group seemingly made up of students.</p>
<p>At every college we went into the compsci building to look at the department bulletin boards to see the posting and many colleges had poster board displays of department research projects.</p>
<p>I could go on but you get my point. Wander about and go into building of interest to your student. I can guarantee that in almost every instance you will we treated wonderfully. In general we prof love our students otherwise we would be doing something else more renumerative.</p>
<p>Some of our best information came from an early visit DD did after sophomore year when she thought she wanted to go into marine biology. It was during summer and we wondered into the new section being built, popped head into an office and asked if there was any more detailed info on the degree programs. Turns out to have been the admission person for the department programs, gave her all kinds of career prep and HS schedule advice and reading materials. Turns out when D reviewed it she was not as interested in the reality as she had been in the dream. Good to find that out early.</p>
<p>Eat in the dining hall. Many admissions offices will give you coupons for a free meal if you are there visiting with a prospective student. You'll get to see if the food is edible or not (for the most part, college food today is light-years better than when we went to school), but more importantly you'll see current students in a relaxed natural setting. Do they look happy? Stressed? Partied out? If you or your child are really bold, you could stop by a likely looking table, say that you're considering the college, and ask the students for their feedback. Most college kids will tell you why they went to this school and if they like it; they were in the same boat as you themselves not very long ago!</p>
<p>After the visit, ask your child for their impressions before you share yours (if you decide to share them at all). I was surprised at the things that turned my son off (or on), and in a few cases he had insightful thoughts on things I hadn't even noticed.</p>
<p>N...., your S is entirely typical. Most kids get very little out of college tours. They might form some vague impressions about the architecture and remember some of the tour guide comments. Generally, they seem to walk around with a dazed expression and are mainly concerned about appearing uncool since they are with one or more parental units. Most HS kids just can't relate to some vague future event like attending college. They don't have the experience to understand what is important and how to gain and evaluate information. I really think most parents don't do much better. This web site includes an especially worthless section called College Visits. Even a brief perusal will emphasize how little information most people gain from college visits. </p>
<p>I think college visits are extremely important, but only if you go beyond the typical tour and info sessions. Plan on spending an entire day for each college visit and if possible also stay in the area the evening before or after. By all means contact admissions and faculty members and schedule interviews. Ideally, this should be done by the applicant but this usually ends up being a parental task. Kids often don't know how to do this and more importantly they are in school during normal business hours when arrangements need to be made. Don't try to do tours during vacation times or weekends. The key admissions and faculty will not be available. For almost every college, we found very positive responses. I can use my D's first college tour as an example. We jammed into the admissions waiting room to hear the initial presentation, we had about a 1 hour student lead tour and then returned to admissions for a brief Q&A session. My W had arranged an interview so as other families were leaving, my D was called in for a brief interview and then we were invited to join the discussion. The director arranged for a faculty interview and departmental tour in addition to the one my W had already arranged. He provided lots of very helpful hints about gaining admission and scholarship awards. He also made arrangements for my D to participate back stage during a student concert. Between interviews, we ate in the school cafeteria, did our own touring and had some extremely valuable conversations with a couple of students at the athletic center. Later the admissions director checked back with us to see how things were going and we finally left campus about 9 pm. We had a very good picture of the academic offers, facilities, and social environment. My D confidently removed this college from her list.</p>
<p>After a few visits, my D became very astute in analyzing colleges. It helped that she had also spent 1-3 weeks in summer programs at each of 4 different colleges. Although summer sessions are different than regular college, there are many similarities and the experience helped her understand some of the factors which were important for her.</p>
<p>We had some family mini vacations doing these tours and in addition to the information gained they were positive family experiences. It is important to avoid pushing your kid. They may need help with travel logistics and making arrangements and they may even need a little push, but it is their input and evaluation which are important. Confer and discuss but mainly try to provide the opportunties for your kids to make their own decisions.</p>
<p>We have spent a minimum of six or seven hours for each visit, and for a couple of schools, closer to 24 hours. For all schools, but one, we have completely skipped the info session and tour, and did this on our own. </p>
<p>We have tried to attend rehearsals or evening concerts,meet appropriate professors, eat in cafeterias or local restaurants where kids hang out. I really think the visits are the single most important part of making or narrowing a list.</p>
<p>My D always made appointments to meet with professors (math, physics) or take a ballet class(for audition purpose). We were very pleasantly surprised how much time each of those professors spent with our D. She even kept up her communication with some of those professors after our visits.</p>
<p>We usually go sit at the student union (coffee shop) for an hour or so, just to watch the students. It gave us a good sense of mix of students - do different race interact well, or are they segregated? Do students look happy and relaxed? Most implortantly, could our D imagine sitting with any of those students. As fate will have it, she is going to a school where "I could totally see myself be friends with any of those kids." </p>
<p>Just a note - when you visit a school, make sure you sign in to let the school that you have visited. It matters to some school.</p>
<p>Info sessions are a repeat of info that is clearly stated on the web. The tour experience is greatly diminished by the overwhelming presence of dozens of anxious baby boomers, sadly. </p>
<p>Tip 1: Arrange for your son to sit in on a class.</p>
<p>Tip 2: Arrange for your son to meet a current student for solo lunch or coffee--a grad from his high school is usually a good match.</p>
<p>Tip 3: Let him form his opinions away from you. If you can stand it--let him go on the tour by himself. Second best choice: go on a different tour--perhaps while he is sitting in on a class?</p>
<p>Quick disclaimer: I'm not a parent, but a student entering my freshmen year of college.
One of the reasons your son may not be interested in "the characteristics and offerings of a school" many of the schools have similar offerings. All the schools I visited showed us lists of their extracurricular activities and gave us their latest course listings. It just wasn't helpful because they were all so similar. Instead I used visits to these schools as a chance to evaluate the surroundings, what your son is apparently doing. For me, in the end when I had decide what school I wanted to go to (after being admitted), my final two were similar in most aspects, academically, financially, and in terms of prestige. It was the surroundings that made the final decision, I simply couldn't see myself going to a school that didn't have a real campus (NYU).
I'm sure the people in the department your son is interested in would be happy to meet with him, even if he is a junior. Many people who do college visits are juniors.
I agree with cheers, let your son form his own opinions independently. It may not be necessary to have him take his own tour, just detach yourself from him physically during the tour; linger in the back and let him interact with the tour guide and his possible future classmates himself. Afterwards, you can share your opinions...but don't try to change his, just make him aware of yours.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for their input. Sounds like we really need to make each visit at least an overnite one. I will certainly make sure that either DS or I make contact with the depts that he is possibly interested in so that we can arrange to get people to speak with (professors, students).</p>
<p>The biggest challenge will be timing. He's very busy in fall with marching band and winter/spring he's got debate. These make scheduling difficult. Guess we'll have to look at taking him out of school a couple of times. His attitude right now is that it's too early to even think about it. But I don't want to wait till late spring or summer, because then tennis season begins!! As much as I like the fact that he is involved, it does make it hard to schedule around.</p>
<p>Any suggestions on how to tackle the scheduling problem?? Plus I have to figure out when I can take off from work too (but that becomes secondary issue)</p>
<p>Hope I survive this process of just getting him to pick out schools that he is willing to apply to. Next fall will be the bigger challenge of getting him to actually get the applications done!!</p>
<p>My son was also in marching band. My daughter did marching band, drama and the Spring musical. My strategy was to look at the school calendar and every time the school had off for an in-service or a holiday I would match it up with a likely college calendar and make arrangements for visits. If you start that fall of junior year, you can get in quite a few colleges. I don't know if overnights are worth the time until you have narrowed the list or gotten acceptances. </p>
<p>One of our best ways to really find out about a college was to do the info session and tour but also to make arrangements to meet a current student and over lunch talk about the college. At most of the schools we visited within a two hour range, we knew someone that was attending that had gone to HS with one of my kids. They in turn also knew someone in the major my kids were interested in.</p>
<p>It is really not that unusual or difficult to take off a few days for visits. You or your son will need to contact the teachers and administration. Just be happy you do not have a kid interested in dance or music where auditions are needed. In addition to visits in the Fall, my D needed to miss over 2 weeks of school for auditions. Picking the right school and learning what is needed for acceptance is probably more important that missing a few marching band, debate or tennis events.</p>
<p>njmmmom, I would suggest starting with visits to different types of schools. Large and small, urban and rural, etc. Your son needs to spend enough time at an example of various types to get a sense of whether it would work for him. Many is the tale of a kid who wants to be off away at a small college until he's actually standing in one for a few hours and realizes "this is it?", or the one that ones the excitement of the big city until after a few hours he realizes how anonymous it can feel.</p>
<p>The ones you visit at this stage should just be ones in your area that are convenient to visit. Once you've settled on the type(s) that work you can start scheduling visits to schools of interest.</p>