<p>So, what happens when a HS senior visits a college and stays overnight? I assume he attends class(es), right? Does he stay in a dorm? Sleep on the floor? Eat in the dining hall? Party? </p>
<p>What kind of college student hosts the kid? Or is he with an RA? In a frat? =:-O</p>
<p>Is the sleepover a preliminary step in the search process? Or just limited to accepted kids trying to decide between a few schools? </p>
<p>Who can fill me in? Thanks.</p>
<p>As a high school senior I had 1 overnight visit. It was for a accepted students scholarship weekend, but depending on the school many will allow overnight visits to prospective students as well. Also depending on the type of overnight visit, a student will attend classes and/or information sessions.</p>
<p>In my situation, they matched me with a freshman student who was an out-of-stater like me with the same major so I would be able to ask questions. I slept on the extra futon that the host's dorm room had. It was a Thursday night, but my student host chose to do homework and watch a movie with her friends and I just tagged along. Then at 11pm she strongly suggested that we go to sleep. No parties or anything of the sort, as she was part of the honors hall and seemed to be more of the studying type. In the morning she gave me a dining hall voucher to eat breakfast. </p>
<p>This is certainly not how every overnight visit goes. I'm sure there are those who end up going to crazy frat parties and get majorly drunk during their overnight visits, but that wasn't the case at all for me</p>
<p>You generally go to class with your host, hang out in the dorm, get a tour of campus, and maybe get a slice of the nightlife if you're lucky.</p>
<p>It's usually an admissions ambassador or someone like that.</p>
<p>I'd say that the sleepover is generally towards the end of the process, it's a great way to get an idea of the school's vibe that you can't get from a regular tour or a guidebook.</p>
<p>Normally the kid stays in a dorm, and does whatever the host kid does. My D would not sleep over when she visited. I think it was TMI for her at that point. Generally, it depends on your child's temperament. If he wants to sleepover, fine, but there is a big difference between a 16 or 17 year-old and a 19 year-old, and the disparity may not favor a kid who is less-than-very-outgoing.</p>
<p>DougBetsy - DD spent the night at UMBC while involved in a "Women in Technology" weekend. She also spent the night at Messiah in PA for an "Engineering Weekend". On the Friday before the "Weekend do-dah", she sat in on two classes (Engineering) and had lunch with another student that was majoring in a subject DD was also interested in. I HIGHLY recommend spending the night. She felt that she could get a much better "feel" of the school that way. At one school she knew that she wouldn't want to attend, at the second school she felt like she fit right in and was comfortable. We are going to arrange an overnight at St. Mary's this fall (also have her sit in on classes, if possible). At one school she took her sleeping bag, at another she didn't. The school will let your child know what needs to be brought from home. Both times DD was with a student, not RA.</p>
<p>my friend stayed overnight at his college. he basically followed around his host and leanred about the college and what it feels like it be at the college</p>
<p>wow, i'm really surprised with what I'm reading here.</p>
<p>I had an overnight visit to all but one of the schools I applied to (and visited one I ended up not applying to). For all the visits, I called up/e-mailed someone from my high school at the school and not a freshman (how can someone who's been at the school for only a few weeks really help you determine if the place is for you?) and would stay with them. Depending on whether or not they had classes I wanted to see, I would either go to class with them or just walk into a class with a title that appealed to me. I'd also go to the info session and go on the tour. At night they would try to find a party going on (I actually usually did my visits thursday into friday or friday into saturday so that i could see the weekend nightlife in addition to classes) and we would go to that. I also would eat with them at the dining halls and talk with them and their friends and ask questions. I usually slept on the floor (bring a sleeping bag) or on a couch/futon if I were lucky.</p>
<p>overnights are in my opinion the best way to see a school.</p>
<p>Between the two of them, my older kids have covered most of the options for overnights: arranged with a friend (first year), arranged with a friend (upperclass), arranged through the admissions office, and arranged by a coach.</p>
<p>Though they're obviously not possible for every kid at every school, I think overnights are tremendously informative and worth arranging if at all possible. Nothing else can give a prospective student as realistic a picture of what it's actually like on campus. (Yes, visits that seem out of character for a given school can happen, but a full overnight visit that includes classes, meals in the dining hall(s), social time, etc., is almost always going to show most sides of the real story.) S1 is still in the visiting process, but I know for D, her overnights crystallized her first choice and rearranged the preference order of her backups significantly, knocking one front-runner - where she'd already attended classes and loved them - out of the competition altogether.</p>
<p>Most often, if you arrange through the admissions office, you're placed with a first-year (somehow they seem to think this is less of a shock? or less corrupting? who knows) who has volunteered to host prospies. I know a lot of people see these as something that should happen after kids are accepted, but we've always tried to get them done early, to narrow the field and/or help see whether there's such a clear choice that it's worth applying ED.</p>
<p>(I saved the texts D sent from her visits that fall. They're priceless. :D)</p>