<p>To me, it’s knowing when you’re going out and coming back (for the OP, I’d assume this is when she and S enter and leave the country), but not making specific plans within that range until one has more info.</p>
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<p>Accepted students receptions can actually be quite useful if there will be actual students of the school or recent alums there, or even just alum boosters. It can be a way to ask questions in a setting that is informal and more personal than a cattle-call accepted student’s weekend. Your child can meet some local students who may become his college peers, you can share questions/concerns with other parents. </p>
<p>That being said, going to the reception will probably have no bearing on their merit aid decision. Attendance is not usually reported to the school, or if it is, it’s just so that the admissions office can remember to send a follow up postcard. So if that’s your sole reason for going, you might as well stay home.</p>
<p>KathieP and Countingdown: The concept is as you both imagined. Book your longest cross country (or international?) flights first (nonstops, hopefully), from home your home town and back again. Fill in the details of your actual itinerary later when your student has heard from most schools. </p>
<p>That’s my advice if cost is a factor, and you know exactly when you can leave home and when you must return. For some families, neither travel costs nor time is an issue.</p>
<p>boiledegg:</p>
<p>Not a master list, by any means, but here is a compilation that we started:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/851176-admitted-students-days-2010-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/851176-admitted-students-days-2010-a.html</a></p>
<p>Everyone please feel free to add to it.</p>
<p>As for the most important thing for an accepted students’ day, for my son it was that his mother and I stay home! Actually, I tend to agree.</p>
<p>OP, have you asked if it is possible for your son to miss some school later in April for college visits? I don’t know how strict your son’s HS is where you are, but what can they do if you say he HAS to see the colleges during these events? We did NOT try to fit the admitted school visits into my son’s spring break, as they did not coincide. Instead, son was out of school for 4 days total later in April, visiting 2 colleges back east during their accepted students events. All his teachers were fine with this, as he had asked for his homework assignments in advance, and completed them either on the plane rides or while I drove between schools. Just a thought…</p>
<p>My older son had two accepted students days which included one or two overnights plus an opportunity to go to classes on Monday. At Carnegie Mellon each school did presentations, some ran tours of their departments and there were tours of the campus and a tour of one of the dorms. There was a lunch to which parents were also welcome, I went on the tours because I’d never seen the campus, but for the rest stayed out of the way or explored on my own. (I went and looked at the architecture and art departments which interested my son not at all.) Harvard actually gives a map of Boston to the parents and tells them to get lost ASAP. They have one presentation just for parents though at the end of the weekend. The other two schools he visited had one day affairs. Parents were definitely around. There were fairs which had all the clubs with tables, and tours, but no overnights and RPI scheduled their event on a day where there were no classes. </p>
<p>Even knowing that each school is putting their best foot forward I thought they were very helpful. Hard to quantify what’s most important.</p>
<p>We did a similar trip for my oldest a few years ago - planned around the preview weekend at one of her top choices. We added visits to 2 other schools with the goal of comparing 3 schools in a one week trip back to the US. What ended up happening was interesting because the comparisons were not equal.<br>
School #1 - We had done a summer visit and campus tour so instead my d contacted the department she was interested in (Nursing) and scheduled an interview and asked to visit a class and meet with a current student. My mom was a graduate of the program and ended up coming with us - since she is a donor to the school the dean came in and met with us and several of the department admin people took us to lunch. All 3 of us were at the meeting and asked questions and learned about the highlights of the program. We all 3 attended the class- mainly because my mom was interested in how they teach compared to her nursing days. The class unfortunately was a class for bridge students (older students who are changing careers) and my d didn’t relate well. They had not planned ahead and when my d reminded them that she wanted to see a class they just looked to see what was currently being taught in the building and took us there. They also did not schedule time with a current student so she left without being able to visualize herself at the school. We stayed with family an hour away so didnt get a good campus feel either. She had done all the scheduling with the department and I think they didn’t take her requests seriously and even assumed that she would attend due to family connections so they really were unorganized and casual with the visit. </p>
<p>School #2: My d had been deferred here but it was still her top choice and admission notices were being sent out the day of our visit. We had not visited previously so she scheduled the admissions presentation and tour plus a meeting/tour with the Nursing dept. She also emailed an aquaintance from her highschool who was a freshman and could give her a personal tour of the campus and her dorm. This particular school only does snail mail admissions and the admissions office refused to tell her whether she was admitted. It made the whole visit very awkward and to make matters worse it would take 2 weeks for the mail to get to us in China so she had to call them the following week to find out she was waitlisted. We considered it a bad sign that they would not tell her but I truly think they did not know whether she had been admitted - they were just very strict about their rules and their tradition of snail mail. She left loving the school and I think the difference was viewing it through the eyes of someone she knew from home who loved the school and was thriving there. </p>
<p>School #3 - The preview weekend for parents and students - WOW. This event was designed to recruit and impress - presentations from faculty, receptions with the dean, lunches in the mummy room at the campus museum and at the football stadium, panels of students, etc. My d stayed overnight in one of the dorms with a group of other admitees and went to a dance performance and out to dinner in the city. The best part of the event was meeting other admitted students and their families and hearing how great the admitted class was. This is a school with a great acceptance of offers (can’t remember what that statistic is called!) and they had 90 kids out of a pool of 110/120 attend the event - even kids who were early decision applicants and were definitely attending the school. The admittees were strategically put in groups and paired with current students - the girls in my d’s group could hardly stop talking to each other long enough to look at the things on the campus tour and my d was paired with a junior who had also been an expat. She left with a feeling that this was a great fit for her and I left totally impressed with the school and program. How could she not choose this school. </p>
<p>We had so much fun on this trip - saw family, ate some great American food, did some major shopping and stocking up, and got a good look at what college life would be for my d.</p>
<p>edited to add that with my son we didn’t feel the need to take such a trip. He picked the school based on program reputation and a scholarship and had not visited the two other schools under consideration. However in his case a trip would have had to be made in April which meant missing a week of school right before APs.</p>
<p>Thanks for the thoughts and suggestions. We really are tied to spring break, but luckily the schools he wants to see, one of which he has already been admitted to are not on spring break that week. We will extend ours and go back a couple of days late. So we will make plans and try to get him an over night at each of two schools, with a traveling day in the middle, a weekend to see older son at his school before and a little flexibility to throw in another school or not if he feels the urge. I am setting up my role as driver, and transport director. I have asked what he wants to see, if he has an idea what would help him make up his mind (very vague answers to both of those which included quite a bit of mumbling) to which I said well then guess you"ll just see when you get there.
The most interesting thing of this is I was willing to let him make the trip alone; he wanted the “cruise director” to come along. He will start contacting the school he has been accepted to and organizing his time there. The one we haven"t heard form yet I may call in a couple of weeks and try and set up something tentative if they will do that.</p>
<p>ShaghaiMom,</p>
<p>Thanks for the great descriptions. Do you think school#3 visit gave an accurate view of the school? Now that she is there, was it what she expected?</p>
<p>I do think school 3 used well-honed recruiting skills during their Admitted student weekend but I also feel that they gave an accurate and detailed look at what their program would be like. Since it’s such a specialized major they want students to be fairly sure the program is what they want. The students on the panel were very honest about their experiences in clinicals and labs - they even had a SIM man demonstration where one of the seniors had to interpret the symptoms and act accordingly.<br>
My d has loved the school - her biggest complaint would be that it hasn’t been easy to figure out the system - she messed up on her clinical clearance paperwork, she took 2 electives freshman year that didn’t count for her distribution, she didn’t know what to expect at her first hospital clinical, etc. But that’s part of figuring out how to “do” college.</p>