<p>I was along with D1 on her first overnight, for other reasons (I mean, stayed elsewhere, but spent about an hour with her and her host.) This was a school she was so-so about. The GC had insisted she go. But, she fit in so well, liked the kids she met so much, liked the “learning atmosphere” and campus that she never even took a formal tour or info session. Nor did I. Because of the nature of the visit program, she did her interview that weekend. Amazing school. That experience bumped it to #1 and she has been deliriously happy ever since. She decided against other overnights because of her schedule. </p>
<p>1012- part of why this worked for her is because she didn’t know the kids she was with. It gave her perspective she couldn’t have had otherwise. That worked for her. Btw, yes, she partied with her hosts.</p>
<p>I also think it depends on kid. My kids both did overnights and just assumed it was the luck of the draw. They understood that that the person they stayed with might never be “a friend” and mostly they used the overnight to get a feel for how “night-time” during the week was like on the campus and what the food service was like. They also got an eagles eye look at the campus as opposed to a formal tour with a bunch of other kids and a tour guide. I’m sure they did much “eye balling” to see if the kids fit their preconceived notions about the student body. Both kids picked a smaller school so the experience might be entirely different at a large campus. </p>
<p>I remember my overnight at the college I picked. The girl I stayed with was very different than I although was in the same major that I had indicated. It was a small school also and I saw her through the years often. We always said “hi” as we passed or when we were in the same class but we never became “friends.” I appreciated the opportunity to hang out in her room and the insight she had but it didn’t “shape” my decision.</p>
<p>Look at it this way the kids are going to get the luck of the draw for freshman roommates unless they have a high school friend they are rooming with. That’s a bigger commitment than one night senior year before you make a decision. </p>
<p>I don’t think I’d let one of mine pick without an overnight. The cost even with travel is inconsequential compared to the costs of college and the aggravation and potential loss of merit money if they “pick wrong.” That said, mine tend to be decisive kids and I trust them to make personal decisions and go forth. YMMV</p>
<p>There are several other threads on this topic. I think overnight stay is a good idea, but the student should use it as one datapoint. A bad host should not be reason to drop a school from the list, but time with a good host (or other related opportunities) can be very helpful.</p>
<p>D did not do any overnight visits. Son, rising senior will not do any overnight visits. I think the chance for a bad experience is greater than having a good one.</p>
<p>DS wasn’t sure about a school that was recruiting him for a varsity sport. Did an overnight with one of the team members. Didn’t enjoy it at all and crossed it off his list.</p>
<p>Ended up enrolling at the one school he didn’t visit until admitted student’s weekend. Just graduated and totally enjoyed his college experience. (he did quit his sport after his freshman year due to an injury he suffered the summer between HS and college)</p>
<p>DD only had the one hour admission’s briefing and the campus tour for the college she ended up attending.</p>
<p>IMHO, both enjoyed/enjoying their college experience due mostly to the friends they made.</p>
<p>IMHO, college visits are over rated as a tool to decide on where to go to school.</p>
<p>My daughter did two overnight stays. Her #1 school dropped to the bottom of her list, and the school that was third out of four went to #1. She didn’t end up going to either one of them, but overall it was the overnight stays that really cleared the fog for her final decision.</p>
<p>It certainly does appear that some colleges don’t do a good job in setting up overnight visits for students. Still, that doesn’t mean that the experience is not worthwhile. I would definitely advocate an overnight (or at least extended day) stay to get a better idea of what the college is really like. As others have noted, probably the best experience is if the prospective student can stay with a friend or acquaintance.</p>
<p>Our daughter was sold after an extraordinarily positive overnight visit (Hampshire College). I will say, however that most of the positive experiences occurred in classrooms, as opposed to dorms.</p>
<p>I have argued here before – and probably will again – that visits in general are overrated and misleading. That would include overnight visits, although I think they provide more opportunity for yielding actual information than the average tour/info session/cafeteria meal.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, both of my kids did a few overnight visits, and the college they attended was one of the ones they visited overnight. Kid #1 (a/k/a the thoughtful one) did her overnight visits at places she was unsure about, not the places she knew she would apply. And her visit to the college she ultimately chose was important in moving it near enough to the top of her list so that she didn’t mind too much when the colleges she liked better failed to like her back. Kid #2, of course, visited Kid #1 at her college, as well as a couple others, but they were all places he would have applied to anyway. All of the visits were hosted by friends, and not set up through the colleges. Most included weekend nights, some didn’t.</p>
<p>To some extent, their parents and they viewed the overnight college visit as much as a rite of passage as an important source of information about a college, but the latter was at least a meaningful benefit. I never did overnight visits anywhere. My wife had older sisters in college whom she visited alone on a regular basis. (And loved it, even though she was a complete straight arrow and her sisters not so much.)</p>
<p>The visits became relevant with Kid #2 when he had to choose between a college he knew well and one he had never seen that was offering him meaningfully more money. The fact that he had never visited the second college made it awfully hard to pick it over one where he knew he felt comfortable, and that had been one of his dream schools for years. I had encouraged him to visit for months (he had applied in September and been accepted in December), but I hadn’t insisted . . . and that maybe wound up costing me real money.</p>
<p>Our D did one overnight. It showed her that the school has a serious party atmosphere to it. She was able to say if she attended this school she would have different friends. At other schools she was interested in, she looked into making connections with students and meeting them for coffee, ice cream, just a campus walk and talk. Many students took her all around the campus and to the dorms etc. This type of experience served her far better. She spent hours meeting the students and finding out what they do outside of school as well as in class. She also sat in on a few classes. She really felt that was a great test for her.</p>
<p>It really depends on what sort of student your child is, especially at my school.
We’ve had girls on my floor hosted for overnights for academic competitions (and several of them are now attending) and we took them to bingo, out to lunch, around the campus, if they wanted to go to a party we would take them, but we didn’t force it.</p>
<p>HOWEVER, if you were a recruited athlete it was completely different, they took you out and got you drunk. I don’t know why the hosts think this is a good idea, but thats what they did.</p>
<p>Hmm. That’s interesting. I would say I would agree with that, for my kids. Grinnell (where they overnighted) was one of the first colleges we visited, logistics were such that it made sense to overnight (and H and I enjoyed a nice B&B), but you’re right - it really was more of a way to get them into the construct of seeing what it’s like / envisioning themselves in a college setting versus a real vetting of Grinnell itself. And they didn’t feel that they had more info about Grinnell to go on versus their other choices where they only did the tours and info sessions and did not stay overnight. </p>
<p>I overnighted at the college I wound up going to - I was a hs senior, my then boyfriend was a college freshman, and I somehow convinced my parents to let me go up and visit him, and convinced, er, conned, a female classmate from school to come with me to lend some legitimacy to the whole thing (she ultimately applied / went there, too). What were my parents thinking …</p>
<p>For those parents whose students did overnight visits: Did your student(s) feel that the overnight experience yielded significantly more insight than a day visit where they attended a class or two and talked to students?</p>
<p>No, I don’t think the overnight yielded significantly more insight. And frankly mine only attended classes at (I think) 2 or 3 schools. I think attending classes is particularly un-insightful. It’s so dependent on the specific professor and how captivating he or she is. </p>
<p>I think you just get an overall feeling from surroundings, personally, and it’s hard to articulate why that is. It’s probably someone spurious, but so are many things in life. We tended to focus more on what we perceived the school valued as evinced by what they said and how they approached / said it.</p>
<p>In D1’s case, yes, the overnight gave her insight- into college life behind the curtain- how students blended their academic and social lives, moving back and forth between classes and free time. She saw dorm life close up, even the late-night snack run. Part of her stay was on a weekend; she liked that kids were studying in common areas or the library- saw her host’s friends back and forth to meetings and rehearsals. She also partied, then sat up with a group of kids, til quite late. Though the event was “staged” and she had the interview and an informal get-together with some profs, her primary experience was closer to student-like than any tour we took at other schools. It also meant she was quite familiar with the campus.</p>
<p>It may be just our luck that this was the right place for her, but the experience also gave her confidence that she was ready for freshman year.</p>
<p>Son’s overnights at two LAC’s gave him a much better grasp of how small they really were. He didn’t apply to one. The other he did apply to, but the overnight was a major reason in his decision not to attend. Great school, just too small.</p>
<p>He went in a completely opposite direction, and is starting his junior year at our very large state flagship.</p>
<p>Son #2 spent several overnights with his brother, but didn’t want to go to the same university, so he’ll be starting his freshman year in a few weeks at an out of state flagship: similar to our own state U, just lacking his older brother. He visited before applying, and again after he was accepted, but did not spend an overnight there until orientation this summer.</p>
<p>Just asked ds1 the question posed in post no. 32. He said yes.</p>
<p>1) Unless it’s a commuter college, the life of a campus is 24/7. An overnight gives you the ability to see what the place is like after class is over.</p>
<p>2) More time on campus just gives you more datapoints. If you can spend more time on campus, why wouldn’t you? (He’s pragmatic)</p>
<p>3) Even if you have a bad time and feel like this isn’t the place for you, isn’t it better to know that now? (Again, a pragmatist).</p>
<p>I asked him whether he thinks spending the night at the third LAC he applied to that was much like the ones where he did the overnights at would have made a difference for that school (he applied there, was accepted but it seemed to be a distant third to the other two). At first he said no, then he quickly added, “Maybe. But it already was a distant third so I can’t imagine how good my overnight would have had to have been in order for it to overtake the other two. Then again, if it was bad it would have confirmed what I already thought.”) </p>
<p>FYI, the financial/merit aid was similar at all three of the LACS, so cost wasn’t a driver when choosing between the three. It was all about fit. Another issue to consider is how much school can your student afford to miss. We couldn’t possibly have visited every school he’d been accepted to. The overnights were only at the ones that seemed most likely to be The One.</p>
<p>Yes, the overnight visits played a pivotal role in my son’s decision. He went to the overnights as an accepted student at each of his top three choices, so it was his second visit to each. My son is reserved so he hadn’t really interacted with the students much on the first visits, though he did attend classes, took tours, ate in the dinning halls, etc. One was eliminated immediately after the overnight, just not his people. </p>
<p>The other two were quite a bit alike and he really loved them both, they both had sporty nice kids with ambition and great academics. He loved hanging out in the dorms and meeting the guys, they took him all over campus and he did go to parties. He was able to plug in with the other students.</p>
<p>He literally went down to the wire making his decision. He made lists, went back to the websites, checked the guidebooks for the 900th time. Finally, I told him to stop being rational and to try to remember how he felt on both campuses. He appeared half an hour later with his answer. When I asked him the next day what had been the deciding factor he said he just felt more at home at the place he chose.</p>
<p>Personally I’m a big fan of overnights … and think they are the option most likely to provide good info about the fit of the school. While it’s true an overnight with a small group of students might not provide a realistic or a too narrow view of life at the school isn’t that also true of a tour, an info session, sitting in a class, or visiting a prof. In addition, I think overnights tend to expose prospective students to more students in more environments and to interact with more students than any of the other options. I really do not understand the idea that spending less time on campus (avoid overnight) is better than spending more time on campus (include overnight). If the concern is an overnight might provide bad info and that is to avoided and that is also possible for the other on campus activities isn’t the logical conclusion that visits should just be avoided … which seems totally silly to me as someone who believe in fit.</p>
<p>For me personally my overnights were very important in my decision making. Ironically, I do not remember anything about the overnight at the school I picked which had already sold me before I got to the overnight. However 30 years later I remember more about my overnight at the highest rated school to which I was accepted and was my #1 choice before visiting but turned down than I do about anything else from any school visit … and given what I know now (including attending this school for grad school) I believe my impression about the school was dead on … and my overnight really drove that impression home.</p>
<p>DS1 did an overnight as part of the college’s scholars weekend. He came away shellshocked. He experienced the worst of dorm life not from his host who was very accomodating and friendly but from the other occupants of the floor. (Loud sex taking place next door and drugs/alcohol etc.) He did decide to attend the school anyway because of great interactions and a one on one lunch with a prof the next day where he discussed what happened and the prof gave him some good advice. He now signs up to host students for the same scholars weekend event but works very hard to let the other students on the floor know they should be on there best behavior plus he is in a substance free dorm. Since DS2 has visited DS1, he didn’t feel the need to overnight but did spend 2 days visiting classes, and having lunch with students at the school he’ll attend this fall.</p>
<p>Your student is going to spend a lot of time in class interacting with students from those classes more than those they meet in the student union. I can see a push to go and sit in on classes at a desired school but what makes a student think that those kids they meet for 24 hrs are like the ones they are going to hang with? </p>
<p>The kids in that dorm they spend the overnight are not the ones your student will be rooming with? Maybe that was the party dorm or the serious dorm.</p>
He visited before applying, and again after he was accepted, but did not spend an overnight there until orientation this summer.</p>