<p>-On-campus convenience store
-amazing new fitness facilities</p>
<p>Pet peeve on the last campus tour: “We even have a Sleeping Club!” This was highlighted on the slide show and also mentioned by the admissions rep. So of course DS raises his hand and asks about the Sleeping Club. Rep responds that he is not really sure what they do, maybe sleep?</p>
<p>Regarding study abroad, we visited two schools (LAC and directional U) back to back and they use the same campus for their study abroad program. Very unique!</p>
<p>Every time I see those blue security lights, I think of the university facility built near our old neighborhood that had about 15 blue lights for one building. I kept wondering, what the heck are they DOING there? Turns out it’s a biotoxin research lab. Nice.</p>
<p>Or have questions submitted in writing, so that they can answer several related questions together. Also, they can more easily remember what the most frequently asked questions were and incorporate the answers into the main presentation.</p>
<p>For us, some of the best info sessions were at small LACs, sometimes just 2 or 3 prospective students (each usually accompanied by one or more parents) and an admissions rep. Those became extended conversations tailored to the individual interests and questions of the prospective students, skipping over all the routine stuff that everyone had already gotten from the school’s website. More like a 2-way group interview than a lecture/q & a.</p>
<p>The worst were cattle-call info sessions at some of the Ivies and other prestigious research universities, hundreds of eager-beaver prospies and their parents packed into a giant lecture hall, with the admissions rep droning on about all the routine stuff that we had already gotten from the school’s website. We felt these were of limited value, and depressingly similar from one school to the next, to the point that after 2 or 3 of them you could pretty much anticipate what the admissions rep was going to say next, and found yourself checking off a mental checklist of standard points (“I wonder if she’ll remember to mention study abroad? Research opportunities? Flexible dining options? Late night escort service?”).</p>
<p>They even told the same tired joke: “Students often ask us whether it’s better to take the AP class and get a B, or to take the less rigorous class and get an A. Our answer is that we want you to take the most rigorous class and get and A!” (Yuk, yuk!) Must have heard that one 15 times at 15 different schools.</p>
<p>Mostly we did the info sessions, though. Didn’t want to miss anything.</p>
<p>That was an interesting observation about the LAC/Big U difference. I have to agree … any cattle call info session was next to useless … if everyone fits in a pretty small room you have hope. Thinking along the lines besides the size of the school the timing of a visit probably matters also. With my oldest we went during spring vacation week in the spring of her junior … which is prime visiting time … so we hit cattle call after cattle call. With SecondToGo we were working around sports so went at more odd times and hit smaller info sessions.</p>
<p>I definitely agree that the smaller the group the better the session.</p>
<p>Our kids finished school a week before Memorial Day. We visited a number of schools immediately and had great success with small groups. At Notre Dame, we were the only family for the afternoon session - we had a two-hour personal conversation with our adcom that only covered what my kids were interested in.</p>
<p>Our Spring Break experience was similar to 3togo’s - repeated cattle calls involving late starts, standing room only, no time for questions, huge tour groups that couldn’t go inside any buildings, etc.</p>
<p>The funny thing about our recent visit to the one school was that the director was familiar with pretty much every school on the east coast that offers major in the field my daughter wishes to study and he gave his input ( not in a negative way ) about other schools. This will be helpful when we visit the next two schools, and possibly impact the decision down the line</p>
<p>I agree that you get the same “you can design your own major/make your own club/study abroad” stuff at the info sessions but you also get a sense of how the college views itself.</p>
<p>At Princeton, they were not trying to sell themselves because they don’t have to.
At others, they would show you all the statistics about them because they were trying to sell themselves to you.</p>