Geared up to prepare for admitted student day for my D. Would appreciate any advices, lessons learned and best practices from the veterans:
(1) Presumably we will down select to 3 schools to visit among accepted schools, would you schedule the school that is deemed the best fit on paper as the first school to visit? Or let the visiting sequence solely based on logistics? My concern to put the “best fit” one the last is D might get somewhat worn out from the first two school trips.
(2) Putting aside travel days, would it be best to spend 2 days at each school or just 1 day as planned by the university?
(3) What activities should we focus on, as we have already gained foundational knowledge from past information sessions and campus tours during the application phase?
Visit the top choice first if possible. If she’s happy, she is done.
You haven’t mentioned it, but I’ll add that overnight visits can be good or bad, depending on the host and other factors. I don’t think they are necessary. I don’t think two days are necessary. That’s potentially a week of time missed from school. She still needs to keep her grades up.
She should definitely try to sit in on a class. Dine in the cafeteria, check out the library, get a snack or coffee somewhere else on campus. Visit the student union to see what activities are being advertised.
We were limited by logistics. First choice school was first visit and that is where he decided to attend. However, he still wanted to visit the other two schools just in case.
We spent extra time at the distant school. Admitted students events were on a Sunday and he met with a professor on Monday. Seeing the campus bustling with activity on Monday made a positive impression.
For second kid…we didn’t get a choice about accepted student days. Luckily they didn’t conflict with each other. One conflicted with our state all state music festival. So the kid went a different time. School was terrific.
The other two…the second choice was first on the schedule…and the first choice second…luckily the same week…across the country so only one plane ticket.
You might need to wait to see the actual schedules to make your plans.
You can most likely find out the revisit dates from each school by calling or on their websites. Then you can make preliminary travel plans. We choose 3 revisits last year, the first On the schedule happened To be DD’s 3rd choice, the 2nd visit was her first choice, and she was 95% sure, didn’t want to revisit the 3rd, but we insisted so she could be as close to 100% sure.
I would schedule based on logistics, and I would stick to the schedule the school has (without adding days).
Most will make it possible to sit in on classes, meet current students, explore activities, etc. For many kids, just hanging out with the other accepted students (some of whom may have committed) as well as current students is often very telling in terms of “fit”, especially at LACs.
If there is anything that is of particular importance or interest, this can be a good chance to dig deeper.
DS found overnights to be helpful but everyone needs to be fully aware of the serendipity in these. Your host might be a perfect match or not, and either way, you could be seeing your future or not. I would just make a point of understanding upfront what these reveal and what they don’t.
Logistics and scheduling might make all of your decisions for you. Several of ours overlapped and we had to cut one. They seem to be pretty much in March and April only, and if you have spring break plans, that takes two weekends away from the seven or so available. If you are definitely doing three, and that’s three weekends in a row, I do think a student could be burnt out by the third.
Other than that my tips were mostly trying to get my kid to picture themselves there…pointing out where they might shop, or walk to for food or coffee, the travel arrangements getting there, and yes, trying to get a feel for the student body at places like dining halls and hangouts.
We were living overseas and my child didn’t have the opportunity for admitted students day (we had visited the colleges earlier though). So you don’t necessarily even have to do them.
I would also take finances into account…if one college is unaffordable and two are, don’t visit the unaffordable one.
Definitely no more than 3 though…but ask your child how many and which ones they want to visit. If they are happy with 2, don’t push for more just because you want to make sure they really have checked out every single little detail.
I don’t think you have to do 2 days… I think the student will get a feel if they will fit in or not after a day.