<p>So I'm wondering, my D wants to try EA for several schools, but she's also planning to attend some of their "showcases" in local hotels which are hosted AFTER she's planning to get the apps submitted. </p>
<p>Is there ANY reason to wait until after she has gone to the dog & pony show to submit her applications? Or does it make more sense just to get them in early and learn more about the schools after submission?</p>
<p>Has she visited the schools? A visit is a much better way to assess the school’s fit, than a dog and pony show in a hotel, which is basically a marketing event.</p>
<p>But by all means, yes, it’s fine to apply and then visit or go to the hotel or whatever.</p>
<p>In years past, I would say that a frivolous application might take a spot from someone who really wanted to go, but these days, everyone applies to lots of schools that they have not yet visited. So the only issue would be work put into an application to schools that might not actually appeal to your daughter once seen.</p>
<p>Is there ANY reason to wait until after she has gone to the dog & pony show to submit her applications? </p>
<p>No. these dog and pony shows are basically worthless crowded mini conventions. Colleges have booths set up around the room and there is little chance to actually talk to a college rep, which would be the only reason to go. It is a marketing tool by colleges. There are far better ways to find out about schools, and the students , but the best time really is after acceptance letters have arrived and choices have to be made.</p>
<p>I think that OP is talking less about a College Fair (a zoo) and more about a college (or sometimes a handful of colleges) putting on a presentation at a local hotel. The latter often have at least one (and sometimes more than one) admissions personnel, local alumni and sometimes current students in attendance. </p>
<p>But MPM is right–it’s all marketing. Attendance isn’t required.</p>
<p>What about schools that ask about interest? For instance, several schools ask about college visits, meetings on the supplemental applications.</p>
<p>While in hindsight I think these mini-conventions with many schools offering information & brochures from their booths were not crucial in my two D’s decision-making process, it was definitely beneficial to ME to scope out all the possibilities out there.</p>
<p>The 16 or 17 year-old mind can’t really grasp the concept of having broad ideas of ‘wants’ right off the bat, then narrowing it down. They seem to gravitate towards, ‘well, I want THIS out of a school’, then 2 months later it’s ‘I don’t want THAT, I want THIS instead’. These college fairs, if you will, provide that overview, and it’s also kind of retro in a way, a tactile opportunity to actually talk to a rep.</p>
<p>First semester junior year is a good time to attend a couple of these. And personally I really enjoyed the opportunity to spend one-on-one time with each of my D’s, at a time when those are few & far between.</p>
<p>sujormik, Perhaps you want to clarify what kind of presentation you are talking about. I’ve been to both kinds - College Fairs with over 100 colleges and a presentation at a hotel with one college. I would say that the timing is only important if your child is on the fence about the college. If your student likes what she sees, it may give her more fodder for the application to talk about why she would want to attend. If she doesn’t like what she sees, one less application to do!</p>
<p>Elon does a nice on-the-road presentation. We saw it after my son had applied but before he was accepted. They are one of the colleges that are known for wanting you to visit and “show them the love”, which is one of the reasons why we went.</p>
<p>One consideration, as noted above, would be whether the school weighs “demonstrated interest” in their admissions decisions, or asks for a “Why this school?” essay as part of the application.</p>
<p>Some schools (not all) prefer to admit students who have made a strong case that they might actually enroll, and track every contact with the admissions office, visits to campus, etc. And they want the applicant to be able to articulate what it is he/she likes about the school and why he/she would like to enroll there.</p>
<p>If your daughter is applying to schools that don’t track this type of thing or ask for this type of love from the applicant, and it’s not a burdensome cost for her to toss the application in, there is probably no reason to wait.</p>
<p>If some of the schools do place an emphasis on these matters, then going to the local showcase (and checking in for the record) and finding some way to mention something she learned about the school in the application somewhere might make a difference.</p>
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<p>My daughter went and glad-handed the reps of the colleges she had already applied to when they visited her schools. I actually think it helped her. She met the AO who would be reading her file and he definitely remembered her.</p>
<p>Thanks all for the responses, I was indeed referring to the sessions conducted by a single college with their admissions people, etc. We would at this point I think only attend those we have a strong interest in and applied to or ones we were unable to visit first.</p>
<p>Living in the Chicago suburbs we have definitely been to the big hundreds-of-schools college fairs…other than running into old friends I have found them relatively worthless in terms of getting real information. </p>
<p>I asked on another thread but if anyone here is still reading lol do any of you have experience with streamlined apps? We visited a number of schools but I don’t think my daughter has received any email invites to go the streamline route. It would sure help me get her willing to do a couple more if she got the option!</p>
<p>Thanks again.</p>
<p>We’ve gone two two different mega college fairs and a smaller one (5-6 schools) twice. One school was at all four. With the last one, we met four different reps. She loved the initial rep, hated the second, and the other two were in-between. I think it helped DD recognize the influence of the quality of the rep since we knew the school remained the same. There was a commonality among all four, however, and the four data points helped us see that.</p>
<p>We visited a couple of distant schools during spring break during DD junior year. She has set up second interviews with their reps on days when they are in town for smaller college fairs. We will not be attending those fairs since her visits to those two schools lasted all day, and we know she will be applying. She interviews quite well and has two significant updates in her ECs since last April; otherwise, I am not sure we would have bothered. </p>
<p>OP: If you and your daughter think she interviews well, why don’t you see if she can set up an interview when admissions rep is in town for the showcase? That way, he or she can put a face on the application and she will have an opportunity to say more than 500 words about herself.</p>
<p>For many schools the bump you get for applying early is so valuable that you shouldn’t wait. That said, my younger son found it harder to target applications for schools he hadn’t visited. (He did get into the EA school he applied to early and I don’t think he would have if he had waited.) It was Chicago - and we’d had family at the school so he found a good approach to the “Why Chicago” question based on info he had from first hand sources.</p>
<p>The only streamlined application either kid got was one from RPI for the oldest. He was NMF etc. so they were courting him.</p>