<p>Hey all! I was not really sure where to put this question and this seemed like the most probable place. I am going to visit some colleges starting tomorrow and some of them are even offering the opportunity to sit in on a class for a while. If I do decide to sit in on a class... do I just go in by myself or does my family come in with me? This may be a stupid question, but I have no idea! Thanks</p>
<p>There’s probably no right answer but if I were you I’d go by myself. That will be less disruptive to the class.</p>
<p>Over the years I have had many prospective students sit in on my own classes, but never any parents. I think that would’ve been a bit awkward. Accordingly, I “sat out” when my D sat in on classes while she was looking at schools.</p>
<p>D is a TA at Wash U for a class where many prospective students have come to sit in she reports no parents inside the classroom,but many standing in the hallway!!</p>
<p>I’ve gone with my sons to visit classes when they were investigating colleges. I never felt that it was awkward. I think people pretty much knew why we were there. This was for both some large and some fairly small classes at UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UW, and UCLA. </p>
<p>My only word of advice is to not sit in the middle of the lecture hall. We made that mistake for a Computer Science class. The professor made lots of mistakes and was very boring. We were trapped and could not quietly leave</p>
<p>dgme17, you’ve put the identical post in three different places. I get the feeling you’re fronting for a company offering such a service.</p>
<p>The short answer is no, I wouldn’t hire some stranger to take my child on college visits. I want to see my kid’s college options myself.</p>
<p>lunitari, thanks for catching that!
I took my youngest sister and my cousin on their college tours when it was time and neither parent could accompany them. I really can’t see involving a stranger.</p>
<p>dgme17 - No way! I’m sure there are some parents that would pay for this service but, ugh, not me. I love the college visits and the college search in general. </p>
<p>I think attending a class is an excellent way to get a feel for a college. My kids were able to do that for a couple of colleges and it was helpful. Like the others have said, a classroom visit is just for the student.</p>
<p>At most schools, you aren’t free to just “sit in” on a class. Class visits are orchestrated by the admissions dept as part of your visit so as not to disrupt the education of the students who are actually paying to be there. Good grief, I can just imagine some parents and their prospective student suddenly showing up at a 15 student class…
And what if you decided to show up for something that sounded interesting, like the Politics of the Middle East class and discoverd they were having a mid-term exam?
The exception to this might be if a high school student had a friend at a large university and attended a big lecture session with the friend.</p>
<p>^^^ I wondered about that. Can you just walk in and sit down?</p>
<p>While class visits are orchestrated by admissions and often steer you to large lectures where an extra body won’t make much difference, the other perhaps more interesting way to visit a class, is to look at the course catalog on line and e-mail the professor directly. I’ve heard of students who had good luck doing this, including the prof telling them what the reading was for that day.</p>
<p>Okay… well, I went to Geneseo (SUNY) today, and my mom and dad came into the class with me. It was probably the biggest class offered in the school (Psych 101) and there were over 250 seats in the lecture hall. We made no noise and the teacher never noticed that we left like after 20 minutes =). I thought it was really funny how there was only like 50 kids out of 250 actually in the classs!</p>
<p>Leaving in the middle of class as a visitor? Most of the schools my D visited were very explicit on what was expected of visitors (students, no parents) and out of respect for the professor and other students, common courtesy is generally appropriate. JMHO</p>
<p>I suspect that the professor and other students knew when they walked in that you were visitors (especially with your parents along… not that many over-40 couples in most classes!)
“never noticed that we left like after 20 minutes”…
wow. you really just got up and left? and you think nobody noticed just becuase they didn’t holler after you ?</p>
<p>I strongly encourage the advice above to contact the professor and ask to sit in. If you go with the class the school orchestrates, its not necessarily representative but selectively chosen. When I taught at a particular Ivy, I was often called upon to offer the open class to visitors (both students and parents would show up). It was because of the nature of what I was teaching at the time and my style and my past ratings. But like I said, that tells you nothing about overall quality of the teaching in a school. </p>
<p>Having said that, I’m not sure how much one gets from seeing any one class at one school and comparing to another class at another school. At every campus there will be huge variation any class you go to so tells you almost nothing about the quality of instruction on average. There are fantastic, highly rated and engaging professors on every campus; and crap ones who should have been dismiissed years ago. Likewise even great professors have bad days and difficult topics: within a given course you will see huge variation. Sample sizes of 1 just aren’t that useful if you ask me. </p>
<p>To me the best value from going to a classroom once comes from attending a discussion oriented class in the field you are interested in and listening to the students (though even there be careful as it can be very dependent upon a particular class and professor and not necessarily tell you how students at school A are like compared to students at school B). </p>
<p>And if you choose the ‘find your own professor route’ at least try to get consistency across your visits by seeking out similar courses for comparison’s sake. So for example, if you think you will major in english, try to attend English 100 on every campus; if its biology, try to attend the required lecture hall class in first year on every campus.</p>