Okay, so my D17 is currently rocking some dark violet hair, and she has a lot of fun experimenting with different (temporary - it’s Manic Panic) colors. She’s got a pretty artsy personal style, even though she will likely major in hard science or engineering.
We’re currently planning to do a college visit road trip at the end of April and I’m of two minds when it comes to her appearance. Part of me wants to suggest that she let the color wash out and go natural for the purpose of visits - go “stealth” so she can observe her surroundings without calling any attention to herself in the process. Another part of me thinks maybe she should leave the color in, and if we visit a place that makes her feel uncomfortable because of it, maybe that wouldn’t be the best school for her anyway.
My ambivalence is partly because I don’t have a good sense for how much of a “phase” this is - she’s 16 and taking a break from several years of being heavily involved in classical ballet performances where her appearance had to be very traditional. So maybe she’s just having a bit of fun for a little while and she’ll get tired of having her fingers stained purple from dye soon enough and by the time she is ready to go off to school she’ll be back to hair that is a shade found in nature. In that case, I wouldn’t want her to wind up ruling out perfectly good schools based on how many kids she sees with pink hair, you know? But on the chance that it isn’t a short phase, and she wants to keep this up, I want to make sure she’s in an environment where she feels comfortable.
Any thoughts/feelings/experience on what to suggest for the visits?
They won’t make note of it, unless she is interviewing. Even then, they are used to it at many colleges – probably especially the ones where she would feel most comfortable. Just as an aside, my D2 dyed her hair blue while at an engineering camp (only time in her life she has ever experimented with this) – less than 2 weeks before senior pictures. It hadn’t occurred to me to tell her not to…
I’d leave the decision up to her. I doubt hair color really matters to the admissions office. If it does, well, that tells you something about the school, right?
I think she should just be herself. If she feels uncomfortable then I would note that. Perhaps that college wouldn’t be a good fit for her in that case. I don’t think it will make a difference at most colleges.
Will she interview with admission representatives as part of this road trip or just participate in the standard information sessions and tours. I feel like you are overthinking this, particularly if you are just doing the information sessions and tours - unless you are specifically worried about how admissions personnel who might have a hand in deciding whether to admit her would react.
It doesn’t sound as though she’s taking this to any sort of extreme in personal style such that she’s likely to cause people to be wary of her (as perhaps they might be if they saw someone with multiple facial piercings, tattoos, extreme hair and clothing, etc). Unless you plan on visiting very small, very conservative schools I would expect you’ll see some kids walking around campus with a similar style to hers. Will she be uncomfortable if she gets some questioning looks from the other kids in her tour group?
@ucbalumnus We haven’t settled on an exact list (only definite is Cornell as we’re in-state for the land grant schools and she’s going to be eligible for the NY STEM incentive) but it will be a mix of universities and LACs in upstate NY and New England.
And no interviews at this point, it’s just initial visits - tours and info sessions. She’s a junior and just really starting to focus on the selection process.
@adlgel I’m sure I am overthinking, lol. She’s my first kiddo off to college and I’m the usual jumbled mixture of proud of everything she’s achieved and worried about launching her successfully into the next phase of her life.
I agree with ucbalumnus that different colleges might have different reactions. When I visited Pomona in June with D2, every single kid was in shorts and flip flops, except some girl from the the Northeast in a dress with formal shoes. When we visited Washington and Lee, many of the kids wore suits/dresses and looked nice, like they were interviewing or coming from church. Fortunately, my D had brought a dress so she would fit in.
However, would the girl in the dress not get in to Pomona bc she didn’t realize people dress casually in California? I can’t imagine it made any difference. It might only matter if your D feels funny.
Personal story: My two Ds and I went to Universal Theme Park the day before D1s visit to USC. All three of us got sprayed on temporary tattoos. I got a great big black dragon on my arm. I’m pretty tame looking usually, but it was for fun. Anyway, we went on the tour with our “tattoos”. In the middle of the dept info session, the speaker asked me if our tattoos were real. I said they weren’t. Even so, we did look a bit strange. But D1 got in early with an interview for a scholarship. So no difference.
Cornell only does real admissions interviews for architecture and hotel administration (everybody else gets alumni interviews that don’t count for much, if anything). If your daughter isn’t applying to either of those two programs, nothing she does during a campus visit will have any impact on her chances of admission.
I’d mention your concerns in the evenhanded way you did in your post during a casual conversation, and let her take the lead. She may not have considered the implications of her choice, or she may have specific reasons for the timing that could be interesting to discover.
yesterdays tour had kids with hair of every color of the rainbow, casual comfortable clothing (sweats/hoodies) and everyone blended in just fine. no particular violet haired kid sticks out in my mind, although I admired a pretty shade of greenish teal.
that covered both actual students and prospective ones.
and while I didn’t see any funky haired professors, with the exception of gray…they were pretty casual too.
While it may have been more of a concern 10-20+ years ago…and even then that really depended on the college concerned*, I don’t think it’s as much of a factor nowadays unless we’re talking a minute number of extremely conservative schools in the social and other senses.
Even at colleges which were considered highly conservative in many areas and matters of appearance like Princeton up till the late '90s,. that’s no longer the case.
Saw several Princeton undergrads with bright lavender, purple, neon green, and other unnatural dyed hair colors during my visit to the Princeton campus early last year at the invitation of an Art Prof who was attending a day-long seminar on an topic involving art, politics, and history.
I seriously doubt Oberlin College, my alma mater would have minded even in the early '90s.
Let me emphasize this a bit more: unless you’re actually sitting in an interview, nobody from the college is taking notes on your appearance, your demeanor, your questions, or anything else about you. The tour guide doesn’t know who you are, nor does the person who leads the information session. Unless you do something that causes the campus police to arrest you, nothing you do will have any impact on your chances of admission to the college you are visiting. So do what is most comfortable for you.
Ok, thanks all! My D and I are both brand new to this process, so I just wanted to make sure. I definitely want her to be comfortable wherever she lands - and even if she doesn’t want to be violet-haired all the time, I’m sure she’d want the option to switch back should the whim strike.
We toured 11 (yes 11) colleges with Dd and the only two that stand out to me as being anything but very casual were St. Olaf and Dartmouth. Both were more preppy and clean cut. Dartmouth was very very preppy (to us). So clean and somewhat dressy are always appreciated when interviewing, but if touring, shorts and a t shirt are truly fine.
The TOUR GUIDE at the school D eventually chose had blue hair. And this was a very traditional college, with a dress code. Every admin, prof or school person we met greeted this young lady pleasantly. Not one look of disapproval. On tours where we were not the only family, we almost always saw a student or 2 with unusual hair. Don’t sweat it.
Even if she’s interviewing, it’s more important to be neat and well-groomed than to be devoid of tattoos, piercings or non-natural hair color. Dirty clothes? No. But purple hair? That’s fine.
