<p>My son is a junior and we are about to start the touring colleges thing again. When I did this with my daughter a couple a years ago, we stopped attending the info sessions after a few colleges. It seemed like 99% of the information covered was already available on the website--and the sessions dragged on with parents asking questions like--"what SATII's should we take?" Maybe one interesting point or question per hour-long session--just not worth the time investment.</p>
<p>My son is Engineering, and those programs often have separate info sessions. I wonder how those are different from the main info sessions-do people do both?</p>
<p>This go-round, the info sessions seem to be scheduled before the tour, which makes it harder to bail and just show up for the tour.</p>
<p>I would think that the info at Rose Hulman would be different than Case Western, which would be different than Purdue, if only based on the size and philosophy of the various schools. If you are only looking at only research U’s or large state publics it may be worthless. Maybe you could arrange to meet a professor instead during that time (or just come halfway through lamenting about imaginary traffic or broken GPS).</p>
<p>I agree that info sessions with a lot of dumb questions are annoying, but I think if you listen carefully they are helpful in seeing how the admissions office is selling the school and something you may want to address in your “Why ___ College” answer. For example Brandeis made a big, big deal of their commitment to foreign study both with study abroad programs and how they taught on campus. Tufts went on and on and on about the essays. (Yes they really do care.) Vassar made a big deal of their mostly open curriculum and just what sort of stuff you could send in as part of their supplement. (My son ended up sending them a pair of origami earrings.)</p>
<p>We’re in the same shoes. Just starting to look for my junior. Did this couple of years ago for my older one. I agree that they all start sounding the same after awhile. But sometimes you will hear something worthwhile. My daughter thought after Uchicago info session that she thought she knew what they wanted to hear in essays. She hated American just from the info session. The rep kept going on and on about how to fill out the application in minute detail. The session was way too long and people kept falling asleep. By the time the tour started we all lost interest and couldn’t wait to get out of there. But if you do a lot of colleges in couple of days they all start to sound the same.</p>
<p>When we were doing college tours, we always did the full thing: info session, tour, and S attended a class if at all possible while we did something else. Personally, I found them all interesting in that they revealed something about the character of the school. But I think we only went to about 8 of them, and they weren’t all on one trip. We only went to one school per day.</p>
<p>If the college considers “level of applicant’s interest” in admissions, it may be helpful to go to the info session enough to sign in to it, to “show interest”.</p>
<p>You get a flavor of the school. You get an idea of how the school wants to present itself. You get an interesting feel for things. The specifics may not matter. They may blur together, but I think that overall, the info. sessions gave us a good feel for the school.</p>
<p>“My son is Engineering, and those programs often have separate info sessions. I wonder how those are different from the main info sessions-do people do both?”</p>
<p>We did both. DS is a freshman in engineering now. I would recommend the engineering sessions. They are more about the engineering programs the college has and some have current engineering students that your son could talk to and ask more in depth questions.</p>
<p>I’ve been college searches with two kids … both independently stopped going to info sessions after just a few. We tended to visit a couple schools a day … so had 3-5 hours a school. Both kids found the info sessions to be 1) a very poor use of time … and 2) very frustrating. In the vast majority of info sessions the time was dominated by … 1) general questions anyone who did some research would know (does This U allow ED applications) … 2) inane questions (when the requirements say 2 SAT IIs does it really mean 2?) … 3) questions specific to one student (I took X as a junior and Y as a senior and want to major in A … what math should I take as frosh). Neither kid thought they were a effective or productive use of time.</p>
<p>That said the two info sessions I have been to that were good … were absolutely terrific. Kudos to Bowdoin and UofChicago who had great info sessions.</p>
<p>Interesting comments about the info sessions being dominated by annoying questions. We certainly sat through our share of those. But I always felt that how the presentation was handled reflected a sense of the school. The schools where the presentation was crisp, interesting, full of useful information, etc. was much less likely to meander into opportunities for pointless chatter about topics the audience could easily look up online. </p>
<p>Again, I think how it is handled reflects on the school. Certainly the admin cannot control who is in the audience, but he or she can set the tone for how questions are answered, and focus on what is relevant. If the admin cannot control the audience and use the time to present what is important, maybe there is not a lot to present! In other words, if you’re going to waste my time, maybe the pace of instruction will waste my son’s time also. I know that’s a leap, but I think a simplistic presentation is a poor reflection on the school.</p>
<p>Wow, it is has been six years since we went to the Bowdoin info session, and I also recall it as very good (maybe the only good one we have ever been to, honestly). I think a guy named Elmer who was actually a Muhlenberg grad did the session… amazing that I can remember that!</p>
<p>But other than that, we found them mostly to be not useful. Very little info not on the website or in the Common Data Set. D2 in particular loathed them, so we stopped going. Tour, class, eating in cafeteria, checking out the art building – all okay with her. But not the info sessions.</p>
<p>Yes every information session has the same information - we look at the applicants holistically, we have every club under the sun, we want a rigorous course load, we want to see dedicated ECs, yadda, yadda, yadda. They all also have the same annoying parent questions - some already pointed out. But they also do reflect the vibe/feel of the school and its culture. </p>
<p>At Brown the admissions person neglected to introduce himself, at Vassar the admissions person said we don’t want to hear that you just stayed home and read in your spare time (and my daughter the avid reader was immediately turned off), at Northeastern the admissions person said that his first coop at a law firm made him decide not to be a lawyer and saved him from wasting time and money in law school, and so on.</p>
<p>I could list many more examples but the point is that the admissions presentation does have things which might influence your opinion of the school and/or help you to answer the why XXXX question.</p>
<p>In addition I would say that they wouldn’t hold separate engineering presentations if they didn’t cover different material so it might be worth attending those.</p>
<p>We visited many colleges and almost always attended info session and campus tour. No regrets whatsoever. Personally I can’t imagine making the effort to visit a college and skipping. But each family needs to decide priorities. </p>
<p>I will say that our extra time to just “hang out” on campus, visit library, attend class where possible, etc was also useful. </p>
<p>At one campus we had the opportunity to have 15 minutes with a current student, daughter of somebody I knew through work. That was also very useful… as supplement to info session and tour.</p>
<p>I agree with maggidog & kiddie. While I am at the point that it is beyond painful to sit through another info session, we still glean something from it.</p>
<p>My pet peeve is the schools that send every tour in the exact same sequence so that groups are competing to gain access to the model dorm room or waiting while one group moves on from a specific statue on the quad. Why doesn’t someone designate four or five routes so that traffic doesn’t back up?</p>
<p>I found the info sessions very useful in getting a big picture view of the school’s values. They are not all the same even with schools that look very similar on paper (or on web). I was more irritated when the exact same information was repeated by the tour guide. Do the tour guides not get told the content of the info sessions?</p>
<p>We are going through process with D2 and went through with D1 a couple years ago. We had mixed experience with the general info sessions. Generally if there were a separate engineering info session, it was much better and made the general session largely unnecessary. In smaller tech/engr schools there was usually only one session that covered everything and it was pretty good.
As far as listening to painful questions, I found the skill of the speaker in moderating this to be hugely variable. The best could gracefully redirect and even cut off as appropriate. We often sat near an aisle so we could exit without disturbing others if it got too painful.</p>
<p>It was a mixed bag for us. Sometimes we went to the info sessions, sometimes not. They do tend to blur together after awhile as it “feels” like they all follow the same outline. And yes, I agree with an early poster that almost all of the “questions” can be found on the website.</p>
<p>Maybe one reason we did not find them useful is that we did quite a bit of research on colleges before we visited them. Had a list of questions we wanted answered about each college, and did as much research on those before visiting as possible. This helped us avoid visiting those that weren’t a fit for obvious reasons. So we had already perused Fiske, the website, and the forums out here at a minimum. We still probably went to half the info sessions on campuses we visited, and I can’t remember even once where we were surprised with new info we didn’t already have. We just found time spent for my D to go to class, eat in the cafeteria, and in some cases talk to a professor was much better spent for us. So the idea that we were somehow coming all that way and “skipping” a key element of the visit doesn’t seem accurate to me. But I do think those who haven’t done much research or visited many colleges might find them valuable.</p>