Yes, it is so weird that the psat takes 6 weeks but the sat only takes 2. He got very very lucky that he got what he needed with the SAT this summer and the plan worked. Good luck to your D.
1 Like
PSAT was here yesterday also. S24 said felt it was easier that the SAT especially the reading section. He said he took a 15 minute nap after finishing the Reading section before the next section started 
. He could have used it to recheck his work but that is his problem always.
He was just happy that he is done with SAT/PSAT for now and wants to not think about it. Don’t have much hopes with him making the NMSC as Reading/Writing is his weaker section and with NMSC this makes it even harder.
1 Like
I think endurance and focus play a big factor as it is a 4 hour long test and by the time they get to Math section in the end without practice they may not be able to focus.
Went on U of A college tour yesterday w/D24. My sister tagged along since she lives in the Tucson area. Also went to an honors college info session & tour in the afternoon. You have to register for all of this ahead of time, no showing up the day of as a walk in.
Overall, D24 prefers U of A to ASU, said that she could see herself there for 4 yr of college. She was super annoyed with me, though, for us having to get up really early on a Saturday morning in order to get there on time for the 10:00 am tour.
Random thoughts about the general campus tour in no particular order:
- much more compact campus compared to ASU. This was a big plus.
- more relaxed vibe than ASU. Another big plus for D24.
- liked the mall area. Tour guide said that a lot of freshman classes end up being in the buildings surrounding the mall.
- there were these light up & musical teeter totters set up in front of the main library. When you used them, they light up and make noise. Tour guide said that U of A does something like this every semester around midterms as a fun stress reliever. One year, there were swings. D24 thought that was creative & fun.
- got to see inside of a dorm room on the a.m. tour. D24 liked the dorm room, said it was fine. It was bigger than my dorm room when I was a freshman at a different college.
- Tour guide said that freshman math & english classes all end up to be about 30 students per class. Thought that was pretty good.
- every freshman has to take a “UNIV 101” 1-unit class during their first semester. Honors students take an honors version of this.
- ~40,000 students, so way smaller than ASU’s 63,000, but still pretty big. D24 didn’t think it felt big, though.
- tour guide said her biggest class has been 1st semester general chemistry lecture, about 300 students. Some of MY freshman year classes were 800 students, so I didn’t think that was too bad.
- bikes ok on campus, but not electric scooters.
- saw packs/groups of young ladies all wearing matching bathing suit outfits (i.e., everybody wearing white bathing suits, very tanned, walking with equally tanned dudes in bathing suits)…obviously sorority & fraternity members on their way to some sort of party. D24 thought that the sorority girls all wearing matching outfits “looked ridiculous and stupid.” Vibe is definitely one where if you want to do greek life, it’s there, but participating is not necessary if you don’t want to and you can have a rich social life w/o it.
- Babcock dorm is farthest away from central campus. Tour guide said that you end up there if you forgot to sign up for housing and paid your deposit at the last minute in July. She & honors college admissions counselor recommended to pay housing deposit after you get your acceptance letter. Can pay housing deposit before formally enrolling.
Honors College info session & tour:
- on the map, the honors village looks far away from everything else, but it’s really not. To walk from honors village to the 6th Street garage where we parked took 15 min, but it felt faster than that. The walk didn’t bother D24.
- honors college students self-report as about 40-48% from diverse backgrounds. We thought this was a definite plus. Many different religions, countries, other parts of the US.
- also, about 40% of honors college students are from out of state. D24 saw this as a plus because, as she put it, “I don’t want to go to college with a bunch of people who are exactly like me, I want to meet new people from different backgrounds.”
- Honors Village building has similar layout to the honors complex at ASU, but it’s smaller (1 building instead of, like, 4 connected buildings). Large lobby w/comfy seating. Tables & chairs to sit at outside, too. There were students hanging around. Front desk person was very friendly. Honors college admin offices are on 1st floor of this building. Also, honors classes are taught in a couple of classrooms on 1st floor. Again, similar to ASU.
- Honors Village is only dorm on campus w/an attached dining hall. Lots of students were in the dining hall eating lunch when we were there.
- lots of different study spaces if you need a place tucked away to study that’s not in your room.
- didn’t get to go into an honors dorm room. They’re all full and don’t have a spare one to show to tours. Showing an honors dorm room requires ok from the 2 roommates in 1 of the rooms and they didn’t have anything lined up for yesterday’s tour. But there are room tour videos online on Youtube.
- Honors Village dorm can house 1100 students. Returning students get 1st dibs. Usually it’s about 200 sophomores-seniors who sign up for the honors dorm. Not all honors students live in the honors dorm. Honors college tour guide lived in it during her freshman year last year, said it was a good experience, easy to meet people, etc.
Other random thoughts:
- in case anybody’s interested, the Tucson airport is about a 30 min car ride from U of A.
- food court in the student union now has a restaurant serving Indian food. Thought that was pretty cool.
- U of A’s Eller College of Management is a short walk to the honors village dorm. Tucking that away in my head for when D26 starts looking at colleges down the road.
- honestly, I could see both of my kids being happy there.
2 Likes
thanks for the detailed post. It was very useful and gave a good feel of the university.
1 Like
I always enjoy reading your detailed and informative posts!
1 Like
Forgot to mention that <5 min walk from the honors dorm is a light rail station, which you can use to get to downtown & 4th Ave (4th Ave has a lot of college hang outs, so does University Ave). There are free rides through Dec of this year. After that, students can purchase a pass at a discounted rate (no idea what the cost is).
U of A also has a Cat Tran bus which makes loops around campus. Cost is free to students. There’s also a late night ride service, available Mon-Fri 5 pm-midnight. Free up to $15 and after that you have to pay extra. The late night service is provided by Lyft.
The a.m. tour had a mixed crowd…1 family from CO. 2 families from CA. A couple of families from Flagstaff, couple from the Phoenix area. 1 mom (who declared she was from Scottsdale) expressed dismay to the tour guide about ‘all of the homeless people in Tucson’ and asked about the shooting of a UofA professor that happened earlier this month. Tour guide handled that well. The shooting was an isolated thing and the shooter was a former student of the professor’s…the shooter was a man in his early 40s. In other words, it was a singular targeted thing. Tour guide said that, like anywhere, you shouldn’t go walking around off campus at 1:00 am by yourself and have some street smarts. A mom from San Diego said to Scottsdale mom, “Oh, it’s nothing here. You should come to San Diego and LA. The homeless problem there is really bad. You don’t have anything to worry about here. You should get out more often.” 
1 Like
Thank you for detailed review! It was very helpful. We are in state in Arizona and have plans to do the honors tour at U of A at some point. Did you think it was a good idea to do both the campus tour and the honors tour?
2 Likes
PSAT Saturday for my kid too. Already done with taking the SAT since his score is good enough. Hoping he may qualify for National Merit but it will be tough. We live in a high qualifying score state and writing and language is where he’s the weakest. Missing just three questions wrong, could totally rule him out.
3 Likes
We are in the same boat, seems my S thought the same as many that the english wasnt too bad but the math which is his better section was hard. We had him take it because NM commended is not nothing and if he squeezes out NMF it is amazing!
The honors tour is short but includes and info session. I think it’s worthwhile. It’s only offered on specific days, though, so check the “Events” section of the campus tours page to find out which days it’s on.
1 Like
I am wondering what people’s thoughts are on the best time & strategy to have class of 2024 kids tour potential colleges. For S23 we did not start thinking about college until the end of his junior year, which was really too late. We toured a bunch of schools over the summer, and while it had some value I felt like maybe it would’ve been better to tour while school was in session.
I made S24 tag along to some of S23’s tours that I thought might also interest him, but he has a list of 25 other schools that might be possibilities for him. S23 had very specific requirements and his list was never more than 10, visited 6, might still visit 1 or 2 more if he doesn’t get in to top choices EA.
What is the strategy you use to decide when and which schools for your junior to visit? I don’t see any way he would visit 25 schools, or have the time to (especially during the school year) even if he was willing.
I’m in the exact same boat (with a D23 and D24). D24 came along with some of D23’s tours last fall (so D24’s sophomore year) and honestly I think it was good for her to start thinking about the reality of what was coming and how fast it would be.
I have several OOS visits scheduled with D24 this fall and we’ll do several more instate early in the spring semester, based on what she thinks about the fall tours.
In some ways, I think the earlier the better to get their brains wrapped around what they REALLY want.
One tip I read somewhere (here? who knows?) was I crafted a questionnaire and the D’s fill it out after each campus visit. The same questions so they can look back and compare what their immediate reactions were.
1 Like
I agree that it’s not possible, or at least it’s very difficult and expensive, to tour 25 colleges.
For our family, we have started out with colleges that are nearby. Went into the 1st tour with the attitude of “Let’s just see what it’s like.” D24 balked a lot, but perked up when seeing the inside of a dorm room. Only after that did she talk much about “I liked this” and “I didn’t like that.”
We are going to spend spring break on a road trip to NM & TX to look at 4 different colleges. Doing a road trip since it’s cheaper than flying and the colleges we’re going to look at are legitimate possibilities.
We are not doing any tours to lottery schools. Or schools that I know are not financially possible for us. Why go and test drive the Maserati when you already know it’s never going to happen?
Not sure if I’ll be able to get D24 on a tour of Centre College in KY before she starts applying next fall. That might be one that we tour in spring of senior year after acceptance letters & financial aid packages come out.
If your kid has a range of big & small schools, maybe start out by touring 1 of each?
1 Like
I think that the questionnaire is a good idea. After each of our 2 tours so far, I ask D24 to give me her top 3 pro’s and top 3 con’s to the school. It helps in her providing more focused feedback than answering, “Fine,” to when I ask, “So what did you think?”
1 Like
I just did a Notes doc and after each visit I send them a copy on their phones so they can answer easily and it’s lead to some great conversations that help then hone in (hopefully) on what they’re going to like.
3 Likes
We started very early due to time constraints during the school year and paranoia due to loss of all opportunities to see schools with S21. Touring 25 schools seems insane. We started with trying to decide on size of school first and eliminated most of the list based on that very specific criteria, if your kid really wants a big school, why look at small ones just in case? The lesson we did learn though from S21 was that there is time after acceptance to go on tours and once you have a general idea to narrow down the list to apply picking the exact school can wait until acceptance. We are touring now the few schools that would help S decide if he is going to apply ED and to see the music performance facilities when everything is very active.
2 Likes
These are all great tips! Thank you, it is exactly the kind of advice I need. Right now there are about half big public schools and about half smaller private schools on the list, with a couple big private schools thrown in. Probably we should focus on visiting one or two big public schools and one or two smaller private schools to get an idea of what he prefers.
And, I think we have some rural schools and some city schools, so maybe one of each of those. (We visited BU with S23, and S24 was uncomfortable with the city. So my guess is he will probably rule big urban schools out quickly, but I’d like him to visit another before he says no city schools.)
And thanks for the advice on the questionnaire/notes template. I think that will be really helpful to him.
2 Likes
Wish I had a good answer on this.
With D20, we started at beginning of Jr. year. She was excited to start looking and for better or worse said “I really like this one!” about almost every place we visited. Unfortunately, by the time she had acceptances in hand 18 months later, she had a hard time remembering the vibes at some of the schools she toured early on. So, we ended up going back for a few accepted student days, which helped her decide. That led me to think we could have started later, and not necessarily visited all of places she applied until after she had acceptances. So…
I’m taking it a bit more slowly with D24. We have gone on one tour, just to get a feel for a school, in general, since she is not really ready to be thinking about it so intensely. We are likely going on one or two low-key visits while we are on family trips to Boston and Charleston, SC this fall, but more just as a curiosity. We will probably really use spring break to see 2 or 3 more schools and she will then likely apply to some schools just based on the “brochure”, once she is able to narrow down the type, size, location, et al… that feels right.
3 Likes
After a long time I was having a conversation about college with S24. Dont have a college list and he was having a tough time ruling out any thing. So we started looking at the Fiske book that arrived and as part of that somethings that came a priority.
- Wants a school with something to do wants both Academics and social life. Does not want only Academics focus school.
- Prefers a school is city/urban but is ok with a bit rural if it has a D1 sports team (he said" if rural and no sports team to go watch what do I do there")
- May want to go to a school that provides study abroad/Co-Op options.
- Does not want to go to south (His words" Not going to school in Ok or Alabama" Irrespective of the school
- He initially said no to Texas but then qualified by major cities in texas ok like Houston and Austin.
Based on this I plan to have some more talk in next few weeks and identify some colleges to visit. I would ideally like to take him to a couple of privates and couple publics ( CA and outside CA. so he can compare)
2 Likes