<p>S is on a field trip today to our local community college. They are having a college fair for both high school students and their own CC students to transfer to. All of our state uni’s will be there, along with most of the instate LAC’s and select schools from neighboring states. I told him which schools I required him to stop and talk with, along with several others I would prefer he stop and talk with.</p>
<p>I hope he follows through and does what I asked.</p>
<p>Actually, I really hope he actually got on this bus and into the college fair period.</p>
<p>S reports that the PSAT went well yesterday. Yesterday was a day off for the students after the PSAT, so they had a lot of fun with spirit games. He was more interested in telling us about that rather than the PSAT. Ah well. I am not expecting him to hit the NMSF cutoff - more interested in seeing the SAT score (he took the SAT’s last Saturday). @crowlady - I can so sympathize with you. I see similar behavior with S - but he usually does manage to pull things out. This is their journey - while we can nag/beg/yell, they are finally responsible for what they do. Love the kid on the couch !! @AsleepAtTheWheel - we’ve had that conversation about haves and have-nots too with both S and D. They both realize how lucky they are to have had it easy - and they both know what it takes for them to get to that level too. But I am sure the road to get there will not always be easy…even if they do understand what it takes!</p>
<p>How valuable is to attend college visits at school? And what to expect from those visits? They schedule them during school, so D will have to miss a class to attend. I am not particular interested for D to learn about those schools from those visits, since she can find most of this information on a web, but more to make a personal contact with representative. So what normally happens during those visits?</p>
<p>@seal16, my understanding is that some of the value from meeting with the college reps is in the “demonstrated interest” that sometimes comes into play in applying to competitive colleges. We did not really do much of that with my D13, due to geography, though we did hit one local college fair. I don’t recall it being terribly useful to us.</p>
<p>@seal16 – A few thoughts based on S14’s experience:</p>
<p>-- At our kids’ high school only seniors go to these visits by college reps, so this isn’t a question/issue for us now.
– I think that there is information that one can get at these sessions that goes beyond the facts, figures, etc. on the websites, but that depends on the quality of the admissions rep. Schools have ‘personalities’ that may be more evident in these presentations. Put another way, you don’t go here to find out admission requirements, majors/minors, etc., but rather to get a flavor of what the school’s about and maybe what sort of applicants/students they’re seeking.
– No one’s fooling anyone here regarding the nature of these meetings. I’ve even heard admissions reps refer to these visits as recruiting visits. But that’s not necessarily a negative.
Last year our school’s college counselor asked S14 if he’d go to the presentation by the Eckerd College rep, as she was worried that no one would show up. My son was the only kid there. Eckerd is a CTCL school, and my son really liked the rep. We looked into this school (that never would have been on our radar) and discovered that one of their top programs was Marine Science (which at the time was theoretically my son’s area of interest). He ended up applying early action, and it was his first acceptance (with a significant merit scholarship) with the letter arriving right before Thanksgiving. It was a significant morale booster. S14 considered it a safety that he could see himself at. The point is that he never would have known about it had he not attended the presentation. (Side note: the admissions office was a class operation from start to finish. A lot to like about this school. Definitely a school for some to consider.)
– As you noted, a key reason to go to these presentations is to show “demonstrated interest”. This is important for some schools, and totally irrelevant for others. Fr’instance, Ivy’s don’t care if you show interest, because they assume everyone SHOULD be interested. It is also possible to make a favorable personal impression on the admissions rep, especially if the applicant follows up with emails, calls, etc. However I don’t think this aspect is relevant in the fall of junior year, as the reps are totally focused on this current year’s crop of applicants. If the reason to go is to demonstrate interest and/or bond with the admissions rep wait until next year.
– Regarding your last question, as you might imagine there’s a canned presentation (sometimes with a slide show or video), then a Q and A. Kids do ‘sign in’, usually filling out a card with their demographic and contact data. Typically when the meeting is breaking up kids approach the rep individually, frequently competing to make themselves memorable.</p>
<p>My take on school rep visits…we have over 100+ reps that pass through the guidance office in the fall each year. We have a college fair with over 40 colleges at our school. They allow the seniors first priority for their top 3 then juniors pick three if space is available during the info session they go to those if not they are placed by GC office and it goes down the school year. This is so all of the info session will have attendance for the different schools.
Seniors need face time, Juniors need info time. </p>
<p>S’s college fair trip went fine, he did what I asked him to do. I think that college fairs have some benefit, they are a place to make personal connections with an admissions counselor, to ask questions that may not be answered by the website, and to show interest.</p>
<p>I do not think that college fairs should be the only or primary way to gather information and they should not replace college visits. On the other hand, I do not believe in missing school 12 different times to make 12 college visits. A college fair is a way to miss class for just one day, or partial day, and make contact with several schools. If things are done right, a student and family may then be better prepared to pare down the college list and school/work won’t have to be missed to do a preliminary visit. The visits (and missed school/work) can wait for the final 3-5 schools.</p>
<p>I do have my cyber brunch out and ready. There are bagels, fruit, coffee, and tea. Help yourself and join the conversation!</p>
<p>So D is off to take the PSAT this morning, we had a nice girls night out at the Olive Garden last night while H was getting the boys off to their Boy Scout camp out. D read the very last section of PrepScholar, the part about dealing with test stress, that she had been saving for the night before the test and went to bed a little early. Nothing left to do except hope for the best and wait for the scores in December. </p>
<p>I noticed December 12th was marked on the GC’s calendar as PSAT SCORE, I’m not sure if that is when he will get the scores or if that’s the date he’ll be giving the score to the students. I will certainly be checking Naviance for scores around then.</p>
<p>I took D to a huge college fair at the convention center. It was very crowed and very noisy. You had to rather assertive to get through the crowd I don’t think D got much out of it. They had a college fair at her school that she said was better but it was mainly reps passing out brochures and she was irked that it was a required event and she had to miss class to attend.</p>
<p>We have made some unofficial colleges visits (Eckerd, St. Edwards, TAMU, UT Austin) but are waiting until the spring to start official college visits. How she does on the PSAT will have an impact on where we look. If she does well, I want the score in hand before we officially visit OU.</p>
<p>The college rep visits at our school are open to 11th and 12th graders. I’m encouraging D to treat it like an interview even though it’s billed as an informational session. The college rep is trying to sell their college but they are also trying to recruit the very best students for their college. It’s an opportunity for students to make an a good impression.</p>
<p>I’ve been looking into info about “meeting with your college rep” I’ve found oodles of list of ‘what to ask’ and frankly I don’t agree with most of them because several are easily found with a Google search or are very subjective. I did find some good tips:</p>
<p>Before the meeting:
update your CV (curriculum vitae)
spend time on the college web sight so you are more familiar with the school
look up the name of your specific college rep and get on their mailing list if one is offered on the web site
see if the school offers any specific suggestions on meeting with their rep if they do FOLLOW THEM
have a mental list of 5 or 6 reasons why you want to attend that specific university</p>
<p>On the day of your meeting:
Dress nicely, (I’m suggesting that my D wear a unique piece of jewelry from her summer abroad program, the rep may ask about it which would give her an opportunity to talk about her experience)
Greet the rep by name, shake hands an introduce or reintroduce yourself
offer her a copy of your CV (note she may not take the time to read it then especially if you are in a group)
Be a good listener, pay attention to what she says and if there are other students in the meeting, pay attention to their questions.
Ask open ended questions that can not be easily Googled. If possible ask questions that show your unique interests and that show you have researched the school.
Take notes</p>
<p>After the meeting:
send an e-mail thanking the rep for the meeting</p>
<p>@3scoutsmom – That’s a great succinct very helpful list of things-to-do. Thanks. I would add one simple item to the ‘day of meeting’ list. Smile. All of our kids have wonderful smiles, and there a a few dozen reasons to turn on that smile when meeting the admission reps. May seem simple, but a smile in that circumstance speaks volumes.</p>
<p>@bajamm – Agree strongly that missing all sorts of school during junior year for college visits is not very wise. And as I’ve written here before, we found the visits AFTER acceptance to be much more valuable and ‘focused’ (at least for my older (ADHD) son). That might go out the window for us this go-around – because of the swimming piece S16 may go the binding ED route, which leaves no room for post-acceptance decision-making (which worries me . . . ).</p>
<p>Well, our boy is currently on his way in to take the PSAT’s. Last night we watched all of the sitcoms that were on the DVR. He then went up to his room early, no doubt to do social networking on his phone. Lost a contact lens in the sink this morning, which fortunately his mother located quickly. Grabbed his pencils, calculator, and his protein shake and headed out on the road.
He apparently has a date tonight. He talks to his mother about this sort of thing – doesn’t think I have anything to add to the discussion. Both he and his brother tell me that I should consider myself incredibly lucky marrying ‘out of my league’ with their mother. He’s not really had a one-to-one date that we’re aware of. The wife’s main concern is that he make sure that the girl’s parents are totally OK with all aspects of this. We’ll see.</p>
<p>D lost a contact lens last year during her AP test. It was a big distraction. She had to take the other one out during the break and borrow glasses from a friend. It was a second time it happened during the test. I think she rubes her eyes when she get nervous. </p>
<p>My son just got started with contacts less than a week ago. Last night when I suggested that he give himself a little extra time in the morning (to get them in) or maybe even forego them entirely, my advice was totally discounted. As you’ve both noted, it’s just one more thing that can go wrong and/or distract during the test.</p>
<p>And BTW, we’re all just a tad nuts being this obsessive about this stuff!!</p>
<p>I spoke with D after the test and she says that she thinks she did well. She finished the math section with 11 minutes to spare to go back and double check her work so now I worry that she rushed and might have made the same careless mistake twice. She said that there were a few questions in the writing section that she answered with “varying degrees of confidence” but no outright guesses.</p>
<p>Only 54 days until December 12th…</p>
<p>me? obsessive about the PSAT???
“If we weren’t all crazy, we’d just go insane.” - Jimmy Buffett </p>
<p>There are so many interesting colleges out there. DD16 is now solid with a very carefully curated current list of 11 schools, with one a super-safety. She just knocked the12th one off her list after a recent campus visit. Not a good match in any way. While I’m hoping her current list will not change anymore, her high school is bringing in many, many great colleges to meet with the junior class this year. I’m hoping she’ll use those encounters just as “practice” for interacting with college reps and honing her spiel, but not consider adding them to her list. She’s looking for a CSWE-accredited undergrad BSW program at a school that also participates in Tuition Exchange that also matches her expected stats (no test score yet). So, right now, her extra energy should go into ACT test prep, imho. Hoping this whole process will be firmly behind us 14 months from now, with no need for her to pursue a gap year to raise scores and try again on college admissions. </p>
<p>@dyiu13 – Wow. I’m so impressed that you guys have gotten so far with your daughter’s college list. We honestly haven’t even started, although we’ll be making our first official college visit next weekend (mainly because we’ll be in the neighborhood (southern CA)).</p>
<p>My son came home feeling pretty good post-PSAT’s, although soon thereafter he started having second thoughts about a number of his answers. Oh well. At least it was rewarding to hear him say (only after being prompted) that he definitely benefitted from the test prep. He had two anecdotes from the test:
– When they were filling out their demographic info, one kid raised his hand to ask, “In the address section I don’t know what to fill in under ‘city’. We live in a town, not a city.”
– One girl asked if she could decline to answer the question regarding whether English was her native language. Unfortunately for her there was no ‘decline to state’ checkbox.</p>
<p>Results in two months. No doubt there will be all sorts of adventures between now and then.</p>
<p>P.S. to @seal16 – wasn’t being critical about us obsessive parents. I realize that for some the stakes are pretty high here. In fact, when it was all said and done S14 thanked me profusely for being such a nut about all the details. I wouldn’t do it any other way.</p>
<p>@asleepatthewheel, aw, that is a super sweet thing for your sons to say about their mom. Consider it a compliment of your good taste. Love to see boys treat their mothers well. I hope his PSAT went well, and that the date is pleasant too.</p>
<p>@3scoutsmom, as always, lots of good information…thank you! Hoping for the best for your daughter too.</p>
<p>D16’s PSAT is done; I suppose we are one of the last groups in the US to finish…well, Hawaii is behind us. She seems to feel okay. Had plenty of time on each section and said she went back and caught a couple of “stupid mistakes” on the math part. She was very unhappy about missing a local half-marathon for the PSAT (it has been a mid-week event in the past, everyone dresses as zombies, but they changed it to Sat AM this year.) Said she had been thinking about it all day, and was checking results as soon as she got back in the car. Soooo, hope that wasn’t TOO much of a distraction during testing, good grief.</p>
<p>It is NICE to have the bulk of the standardized testing completed at this point. I guess we will see what her SAT scores are, but if above 2200, she won’t bother doing that again.</p>
<p>Also, @asleepatthewheel, you would not believe how laid back I was during D13’s college apps. She just picked some colleges, applied, I had little interest or input, lol. It was after the apps were in and I started researching a bit that I realized we would take less of a financial hit if things had been done a little differently. In the end, things are okay in D13’s situation, but I will be smarter this time around, because college is EXPENSIVE, ack!</p>