<p>Star and Markgjr:</p>
<p>I actually think Ride the Tide is very useful for a student who has already decided on Swat. My D flew down a high school student and came home a college student. It was immensely valuable in making the mental transition and in giving her a very high comfort level about going off to college.</p>
<p>You sleep in your sleeping bag on the floor of dorm rooms with current students: basically like a swarm of locusts devouring campus. Two or three hundred visitors is pretty overwhelming for a campus with only 1400 people. You eat in the dining hall, lunch one day is with two or three professors at each table to shoot the breeze.</p>
<p>During the day, there are special lectures: basically little sample self-contained class-type lectures by various professors on interesting topics. And, you can sit in on regular classes, some more appropriate than others. There are Q&A panels with student, faculty, deans, etc. Departments have open houses or tours. Various campus groups have events: like Women in Science builds and launches model rockets out on the athletic fields -- a great opportunity to just hang out and ask questions about studying physics or chemistry with current students. At night are various non-alcohol functions: acapella groups, comedy improvs, trolley tours of historic downtown Philly, a samosa eating party by the Southeast Asian student group, movies, stuff like that. They don't don't plan a lot of activities that are out of the ordinary. A lot of sitting around dorm rooms talking to all hours of the night with students and specs. Probably come home pretty tired. College students stay up pretty late.</p>
<p>The only thing that really isn't quite representative is that hosts are not supposed to take their "specs" to parties where alcohol is served. They mostly honor that rule, so some folks come away wondering if there's any "action". Others see a little more of college life, but you would be doing your hosts a big favor if you don't put them in position of having to be your policemen. Swatties kind of expect each other, even "specs" to be sort of responsible and behave appropriately to the situation and it's not really appropriate to do the whole "kids gone wild" thing at a spec visit. For the most part, you are on your own during a day and will link up with your host sometime later at night. They figure you have a schedule and a campus map and with 1400+ SATs, you ought to be able to find your way around. Some hosts will really try to show you a good time; others will leave you to your own devices. The place will be crawling with specs and hosts so just join in any old group in a dorm if your host is nowhere to be found.</p>
<p>If you already know you are going to Swat, you can use the days to to figure out the course progression in the physics department, how calc is split up in the math department, or just see stuff you are interested in, etc.</p>
<p>Weather is starting to get pretty nice. Flowers are just coming out. Grass is starting to green up. Probably need sweater or hoodie and light jacket at night. Today was a high of 73, a low of 56, but it could also be a high in the lower 60s and drizzling.</p>