<p>Hi, everyone, </p>
<p>It's that time of year again when colleges have admissions representatives travel the world to spread propagand--er, information about their colleges. I have been bookmarking a few Web pages that have schedules of regional information sessions for various colleges, and will post the links here for your browsing pleasure. </p>
<p>MIT</p>
<p>The MIT information session is great fun and basically not to be missed if your child has even the SLIGHTEST interest in attending MIT someday.</p>
<p>Yale</p>
<p><a href="http://admissions.yale.edu/events/%5B/url%5D">http://admissions.yale.edu/events/</a></p>
<p>I've never been to a Yale session before, so I am going this year. Some of the Yale events happen VERY SOON, so check the posted schedule.</p>
<p>Stanford</p>
<p>The Stanford session I attended last year had an audiovisual presentation that gave a good flavor of life at Stanford, but the admissions officer who went to my town was not used to speaking before large groups. (Usually, in each city a different admissions officer visits each year, so maybe this year Stanford will send a more polished public speaker to the always well-attended information session in my town.) A panel of local kids who had attended Stanford gave interesting answers to audience questions.</p>
<p>Harvard</p>
<p>The main "Harvard in Your Hometown" page</p>
<p>displays results mostly for the "Exploring College Options" joint programs put on by Duke, Georgetown, Penn, and Harvard, and at least in 2004 never mentioned any Harvard-specific meeting in my town in the fall, even though there had been a Harvard-specific meeting here in fall 2003, which I attended and found very informative. (I heard about the Harvard information session, the first specific college information session I had ever attended, after visiting the Harvard booth at the NACAC College Fair in my town.) Anyway, later in the fall there MAY be more information about Harvard-only meetings in your town, and Harvard also travels in the spring, so keep looking for updates if you are interested. </p>
<p>Caltech</p>
<p><a href="http://admissions.caltech.edu/fall-travel%5B/url%5D">http://admissions.caltech.edu/fall-travel</a></p>
<p>Caltech is a school of such specialized interest and small enrollment size that the meetings tend to be intimate and allow a lot of time for very specific questions.</p>
<p>Columbia</p>
<p>Columbia appears not to recruit in my town [sigh]. Maybe the schedule will be updated later.</p>
<p>Princeton</p>
<p>"Our schedule of 2005 regional information sessions will be posted in September." Princeton's meeting in my town last year was quite interesting and well attended. Princeton's financial aid policy is AWESOME.</p>
<p>Cornell</p>
<p>Last year Cornell did a joint meeting with Brown, Dartmouth, and U of VA in my town--unfortunately scheduling it in a hotel near the stadium on the night of a home major league baseball game, which made for hairy parking for late arrivals. I was one of the early arrivals, and really liked the joint meeting--four colleges in one night.</p>
<p>Dartmouth</p>
<p>And speaking of Dartmouth, it has some sessions scheduled already, with this year's meeting in my town listed as "to be determined."</p>
<p>Penn</p>
<p><a href="http://www.admissionsug.upenn.edu/yourtown/%5B/url%5D">http://www.admissionsug.upenn.edu/yourtown/</a></p>
<p>Penn sometimes travels with Duke, Georgetown, and Harvard in the "Exploring College Options" series of joint sessions, and sometimes sends out admissions officers for individual sessions only about Penn.</p>
<p>Duke</p>
<p>As just mentioned, Duke sometimes travels jointly, and it also makes individual visits to some cities.</p>
<p>Posting this list on a local email list yielded the suggestion that people should also check out the Colleges That Change Lives road show </p>
<p><a href="http://www.ctcl.com/events.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.ctcl.com/events.html</a> </p>
<p>which offers meetings about a variety of schools promoted by author Loren Pope, including my dad's (and late grandmother's) alma mater. </p>
<p>My apologies to anyone whose alma mater or favorite college wasn't mentioned here. If you would like to extend the search (please share your results with your friends here on CC :) ) the best way to find these Web pages is USUALLY to drill down from the main undergraduate admissions page of each college. Some colleges have useful site search, in which case you search for "information sessions" or "[name of college] your town," but that doesn't always work.</p>
<p>I have found regional information sessions to be quite useful. I hope you can attend some this year if you are still gathering college information.</p>