Hi,
I was wondering your point of view on whether to attend upcoming revisit days or to try to visit at a different time. I have heard of revisit days being big sell jobs, and possibly persuasive to a student for the wrong reasons. What do you think about scheduling revisits during a regular school day, likely that same week that revisit days are being held? Does anyone have experience with revisit days being inconsistent with how schools actually are?
Thanks!
I visited Lawrenceville on a non-revisit day. The “selling” wasn’t too big, the admissions people were really nice though. And you get a t-shirt and some things in a tote.
We did revisit days and, although they definitely were in high- powered “sell” mode, I don’t think our impression ended up being inconsistent with the real experience of the schools. The reason is that the main part of revisit days for the kids is shadowing a student to his or her classes-- so you see real classes-- and go to lunch with the student as well, where your kid can talk to lots of other students. I don’t think that’s less “real” than going on a non- revisit day (And I still think they’d do some selling any day you go). For parents, it’s different-- they have panels of both faculty and kids to present academic life, clubs, dorm life, etc., you often see a performing arts presentation, can talk to coaches and club people, etc. That IS more of a selling job-- although you get to hear from a lot of different people who are all collected together-- which you might not get to do on a non- revisit day. Parents also often observe a class or two, though often not the ones (or as many) their child is observing. So, for the kid, it’s probably more representative, but, for the parents, at least it’s at least a chance to hear from a lot of different people.
The other thing to remember is that they usually set up 3 or 4 revisit days. If you CAN’T make any of them (or say you can’t), they’ll definitely let you come another day and be welcoming-- but, if you think about it from the school’s point of view, it would be very disruptive if everyone did that. So they might make some decisions like: maybe the kid could still shadow a student to classes, but maybe they wouldn’t have parents sit in on classes. I don’t KNOW that they would make those decisions, but they might, so you might not see as much. But they WILL still be welcoming. Anyway, revisit days were pretty informative as far as we were concerned ( in both positive and negative ways), even if the schools ARE doing a big sell job.
What do people normally wear on revisit days? Dressy vs normal school attire?
@Blossom3958 This question will inevitably appear around revisits. I think it makes sense to wear dress code clothes. After all, you are a student for the day.
@Blossom3958 definitely wear dress-code clothes during revisit days as @stargirl3 suggests.
There are many threads on revisit days, including “what to wear” ones. Anyone with questions should look them up.
I’m with the Daykidmom on the point of going to the official revisit days if possible. There’s a reason most schools DO NOT allow “shadow” days in the fall when people are prospective applicants…it would just be too disruptive.
EDIT:
Adding link to 2011 Revisit Thread…
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/1112976-2011-revisits-p1.html
Do the revisit day slots get filled up quickly?
They generally let you know when you get admitted or shortly thereafter. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of a day getting filled…but then again, we don’t have much experience with the “popular” schools’ revisit days (only SPS).
Are SPS and SAS revisit day usually during the same week?
@GryffinHunter Last year’s spreadsheet: http://■■■■■■■.com/ccprepschoolrevisits2014
Many schools already have revisits on their calendars.
Is the student that you shadow usually the same gender as you? Can you request what kind of classes you would like to see?