Other than the weather and the slightly delayed start, things could not have gone better! The National Merit office was hosting a Scholars to Sooners event for high school seniors this weekend and graciously allowed us to attend some of their events even though D is only a junior. According to their web page the OU’s national merit office encourages prospective National Merit students to visit starting in their Junior year but from the reactions we got I don’t think the very many Juniors really arrange visits through the national merit office.
We stated off the day with a general campus tour. Tour guide was wonderful but it was a lot of walking and a lot of stairs and it was very very cold. School was delayed two hours because of ice which threw off the schedule a bit. I just can’t tell you how much I loved the architecture at OU! The Great Reading Room in the library was something right out of a movie! The tour guide was very interesting and he tossed in a lot of history and school folk lore along the way.
After the tour we went to a presentation form the honors college, I think the goal was to put the parent’s mind at ease that they “get” the bright kids that march to their own drummer. Thumbing through the literature D read about their annual backpacking trip and that was all she needed to convince her that the honors college was the place for her. I was impressed with how they worked different honors classes in every major so that so that the required honors classes weren’t really ‘extra’ classes.
Next we had lunch, the food was amazing! We were given a voucher to enter the cafeteria, students would normally swipe a their ID once inside everything was included and all you can eat. It was like large cafeteria combined with a mall food court! I think they have the only all you can eat Chick-a-Fila and they had the best/largest salad bar I’ve ever seen! It was very impressive.
After that we had a small group meeting with the Assistant Dean of Engineering but she basically showed us how to find various courses on the schools web site. And we toured the the engineering labs which were very hands on. The dean also advised students to not retake math classes that they have AP credit for, which is contrary to some advice I’ve read on CC. She said you should that that you could get an easy A but you’ve wasted time you could have been spending elsewhere and she has seen students fail because they were so board with the class. D thought she might like to do something in engineering but that’s not her primary interest. Once she heard that many engineering majors end up taking 5 years to graduate and that they have very little time for other classes, she was less interested in engineering.
Then D had her music lesson. It was supposed to be a half hour but lasted more than an hour! D and the teacher really hit it off, the instructor kept wanting to show D one more thing… We also found out that the instructor teaches all the applied lessons on this instrument herself, no TAs. This was a pleasant surprise! We discussed instrument storage and availability of practice rooms and she asked about the specific brand/model of D’s instrument and was very please and even offered that D could store it in her very spacious office and practice there instead of in the practice hall if she wanted to do her practicing in the evenings. I thought this was way above and beyond! She also invited D to attend a summer workshop but unfortunately I don’t think the dates will work out. The meeting/lesson really could not have been better!
Thankfully the appointment with the German department was rescheduled for a half an hour later than planned or we would have never made it. We meet with the two German professors, it’s a small department. D liked them both they were both a bit quirky and reminded her of her high school German teacher. We learned one very interesting thing, D was advised to take the CLEP in addition to the AP German test because the CLEP will give her credit for an additional class. They were really concerned that students be placed in the correctly level and not have to take classes that are too easy.
This was a full day! D was just beaming by the end of the day. We had dinner at the Crab Shack I don’t recommend it, it was over priced and and food was just ok, my shrimp was way over cooked. I don’t know why I thought going to a Louisiana Seafood place in OK was a good idea.
Day 3 started early with a meeting at the National Merit office basically to make sure everything went well on the tours and meetings, to go through the National Merit process and their scholarship package (which may change next year). The National Merit office did a great job in arranging everything for us, I didn’t expect to meet with half the people we did!
Our last stop was a tour of the National Weather Station and the meeting with the head of the meteorology department. The tour was great, the building is really impressive! We had a private tour with a current Junior majoring meteorology. She was very knowledgeable and answered lots of D’s questions. After the tour we meet with the head of the Meteorology department. I really liked him, he was very straight forward, knowing of course that our meeting was set up my the National Merit office, he started off by saying the that PSAT/SAT were not a predictor of success in meteorology and that many students start out in meteorology and change majors because they can’t handle the science and math. He asked about AP math and science classes and brighten up when he saw D has been taking AP math and science courses and doing well. He said it’s the kids that come in with advanced math that do well in his program. He asked about D’s other interests and said that many meteorology majors also have music minors and he was thrilled to hear of D’s plans to become fluent in German. The meteorology department has an exchange program in Germany and they host several German students but he has difficulty getting his students to go to Germany because the classes are taught in German and he doesn’t have enough German speaking students! I was surprised at the number and variety of research opportunities available to underclassmen. They are doing so many different kinds of research there and there are also several private meteorology firms near the school that offer internships.
It was a great visit, every one we met was very pro OU and I don’t think I ever heard of a college president that is more revered and respected than David Boren. I was surprised to learn that he teaches at least one class every semester.