Dear CC community, what should a student look for on a visit, when evaluating among two schools, after getting admitted to both? Meeting professors in the deptartments of interest (how easy is that?), touring dept buildings and labs, talking to current students with similar interests? She has already visited 2 years ago, and taken the organized tour but we figure she will look at the place in new light, after acceptance. TIA!!
Check in with admissions to see if they have an accepted students day, or can connect you with student ambassadors who might be able to get you in to dorms and the cafeteria. Also spend some time looking at the surrounding area for services (CVS,Target) and restaurants since the larger community may impact campus vibe. We sat on a bench on a nice afternoon when classes were changing to watch kids and she thought about whether they looked like “her people”. Good luck!
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very helpful! thanks!!
Tours of the department are very helpful. At some schools, D22 had an opportunity to speak with current students and instructors during those tours and personally felt more comfortable doing that than setting up a one-on-one with a professor. She reached out to faculty only where the school had a special program she wanted to ask about and/or questions she thought could not be answered from studying the website.
She also reached out to older students at those schools that she knew from high school and asked them questions. More than once, they connected her with their friends in the majors she is interested in pursuing. That was really, really helpful.
Finally, she mined social media. She followed accepted student pages, department pages, Organization/club pages, etc., to help her determine if the student body was filled with plenty of people she could see herself befriending. She started interacting with other accepted students at her top choices.
Oh, we also made a point at each visit to check out the neighborhoods immediately surrounding the campus to get a feel for what it would be like to live there. If there was time and opportunity, we went to a sporting event, giving us a chance to see the student body in an environment where no one was “entertaining guests.”
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This is so incredibly useful!! Thank you so very much! Best wishes to your DD!
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Meeting faculty and students in the same major is priceless. Have your daughter reach out to the admission/honors college/or whoever is in charge of college visits and ask if there is a student/faculty your daughter could talk to while visiting. If not, a Zoom session is also a valuable option.
If possible check out also the cafeterias, dorms, etc.
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See if there’s a student organized tour kind. MIT and Caltech are doing that to have the student experience few days of campus life including dorm life to classes to labs to food. Lot of factors go in before deciding. Have your daughter feel the vibe and see if she will fit into the community. That’s really important. Another thing we paid attention is whether the community is competitive or collaborative. Even though mine will be fine with either we didnt want the same 4 years of high school repeat there. Luckily both of her top choices are collaborative. I’ll suggest to prepare a list of non-negotiable things your D wants and see if the college satisty that.
I second CMA22’s advise on reaching out to seniors especially current freshman and sophomore to understand more. Mine did that as well.
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Amazing results, congrats! thats a lot of hard work.
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@blessed101 has your son decided on college yet? One of my D’s friend committed to GTech and looking to connect with someone so he can feel at ease when get goes there (Indian-American male kid). I’ll PM you the details later.
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Sure yes, he would be happy to connect.
He decided on Georgia tech and we are planning to commit soon.
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Pulled this from Reddit, so consider the source (I can only confirm Vanderbilt), but assuming it is correct this helps explain many rejects/waitlists for otherwise qualified applicants. Always remember that there are over 25,000 Vals and 25,000 Sals applying each year, and over 15 million total US high school students. Then add international applicants, and consider exactly how many students each top college takes.
And though none of these should be on anyone’s safety list, this is why “safeties” and “fits” need to be viewed differently - in terms of acceptance rate, not in terms of a kid’s stats vs the school average. It also speaks to the importance of the essay, Rec’s, and applicant-driven EC’s.
- Harvard: 3.19% overall; 7.87% REA; 2.34% RD (not including deferred)
- Yale: 4.46% overall; 10.98% REA; 3.13% RD (including deferred)
- Princeton: Not published
- Stanford: Not published
- MIT: 3.96% overall; 4.72% EA; 2.20% RD(including deferred)
- Columbia: 3.73% overall;
*Predicted: (assuming 10% ED rate); 3.00% RD (not including deferred) - UPenn: 15.63% ED;
*Predicted: (assuming 60% RD yield) 5.7% overall ; 4.1% RD (not including deferred) - Dartmouth: 6.24% overall; 20.1% ED; 4.70% RD
- Brown: 5.03% overall; 14.58% ED; 3.6% RD
- Cornell: Not published
- Johns Hopkins: 6.48% overall
- Northwestern: 7% overall
- Caltech: 432 accepted
*Predicted: (Assuming 13,000 applied, similar to last year) 3.3% overall; - UChicago: Not published
- Duke: 6.2% overall; 21.29% ED; 4.8% RD (including deferred)
- Vanderbilt: 6.1% overall; 17.6% ED; 4.7% RD
more here Class of 2026 Admission Results - College Kickstart
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Yes all those. Have them join student group chats. Sketch out what 4 years would look like at all the choices — does it allow for the experiences that are most important?
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I agree. It is not good and it is very annoying.
I noticed it last month and asked @CC_Mike about it. It is a paid advertisement. I try to hyperlink sources into my posts so this makes it look like I’m directing people to a paid advertisement. I get around it by putting an * in front of the word (ie. *research).
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Folks, this thread is about the Class of 22. If you want to discuss issues with advertisers on CC, this thread is the wrong place. Please move on, and please, DO NOT post directly to another CC member if your intent is to carry on a debate. As stated in Forum Rules, debate is not allowed. Thanks for your cooperation.
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Thank you! We visited Tulane for the admitted Honor’s weekend and she really liked it. I liked the campus, not really where it was located. If it was right in New Orleans proper, it would have been a no brainer. She saw GW over the summer and really liked it. She likes urban. I would prefer a bit of both, but my opinion doesn’t factor in and I don’t want to influence her. We will go to the admitted students day at GW this month. It is surprising bc she is usually very opinionated and decisive about everything. All of a sudden when it’s the the next 4 years of her life, she’s confused. 
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The yield assumption for Penn seems low.
Yes. UPenn yield was 75% last year per Ivy Wise, but it’s unclear if that is skewed by ED admits at near 100%. My (admittedly poor) math says that if the overall yield is 75%, it would move the total admit rate closer to 5.82% as they received 55,000 apps this year for 2400 slots. Definitely a crazy low number either way.
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Thank you so much. He could narrow it down to Harvard and Stanford, and now it’s really 50:50 
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One thing I would add to this is that people should try to look at admits by major (if possible).
For example, some people here appear to think that various UCs are “safeties” because they have far higher percentage admits than Ivies. However, when you consider that UC history admits can be ~50%, while CS and ENG in many are around 5% (and 1% in nursing!). You can understand how important major is. Add test-blind and unknown weightings into the mix, and they become really uncertain.
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I thought the received wisdom on CC is to go by fit and not by ranking? 
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