<p>So what are people's thoughts on college fairs? Are they worth attending? In my opinion, it's a huge waste of time. You'll pick up the same brochure literature that you have probably already received in the mail, learn generic information that could easily be found on the internet, attempt in vain to make a good impression with admissions officers, and spend half of the time filling out information cards! Why not just do some good research, and then actually visit the schools you're interested in??</p>
<p>Thoughts? Tips for making the most of the college fair experience? </p>
<p>I think it is good to get students exposed to the college process. It is an initial concrete step to take.
It is also an easy way to talk to an admissions counselor/alumni. </p>
<p>I go to college fairs as an alumni ambassador and I often find a few kids who have not heard of our school but should.</p>
<p>More schools are going to scanning a card and then you enter it on line.
I recommend making some address labels with your pertininent info to stick on the cards. Easy peasy!</p>
<p>There are threads like this every year. You get out of them what you put into them. THere really isn’t a reason to stop by the overcrowded tables of schools you already know about, but you might pass by a table of a school you hadn’t heard of and stop there, get a brochure, go home and do more research and ultimately apply. That’s how my older D found one of the colleges she got into.</p>
<p>Also, some of the smaller fairs that are more targeted may offer the chance to speak in-depth with an admissions person, or whoever is manning the table. MY D and I met the director of admissions for one HBCU last year and on our tour this summer got a personal welcome and 30-minute visit as a result. At another, we had the chance to speak to a parent and grad who gave us the real story about some of the rumors we’d heard. Also, the workshops can be very illuminating. </p>
<p>My D personally was able to meet with an admissions officer at the Seattle National College Fair 3 years ago. It was busy, but he made it a point to interview me. She was subsequently offered about 40K per year scholarship to Bard. </p>
<p>The rest of the fair was alright. The brochures seem like a complete waste of paper, and the information did really apply to us. </p>
<p>I personally like college fairs. Sometime it feels outdated to fill out name cards and stuff. But I got used it. It helps to get into a college’s database and who knows what that is good for. I hear of some friends getting recruited since they attended a college fair.</p>
<p>I ended up applying to, and am now attending, a school I discovered at a college fair. As a student whose parents went to community college/didn’t attend college at all, I think college fairs can be really good for families without much college experience. Of course, a lot can be done with research, but some families don’t know that. So I think college fairs can be useful.</p>
<p>@whalebone7, some college fairs allow you to register online beforehand with your name and contact info. You print out a card with a barcode and take it to the fair, and the college representatives can scan it to get your info. That eliminates the need to fill out a card for each school.</p>
<p>Also, another opportunity to “demonstrate interest” in the school.</p>
<p>We have been to several, and, believe me, the third or fourth time they see you after the last couple years, they know you, and know you are sincerely interested…</p>
<p>We only went to 1, and that is where my son ended up enrolling and graduating from. We had received a simple postcard, it was over an hour away. Neither of us knew much about this U. At the meeting, there was an admission rep and 3 local alumni. They showed a film of school. When my son wrote his essay, Why X?, he wrote of this presentation.</p>
<p>The following week Yale had a presentation. There were so many people, that being there would have added little to what one could find online. It is the lesser known colleges that add information. </p>
<p>My daughter and I have been to two college fairs. The first one was the huge crowded " scan and move onto the next college" type with over 300 colleges in a shopping mall (after stores had closed) on a Sunday evening. There was little opportunity to talk to the reps because it was so crowded. People just shuffled from table to table and got their paper scanned… D talked to maybe four college reps.</p>
<p>The second fair was targeted to a specific audience with less than four dozen schools. Much fewer attendees, so my daughter could spend more time talking to each rep. She probably ended up talking to about a dozen schools and gained a lot of insight about each school.</p>
<p>So, it depends. The big college fair may be good for students who need ideas of what schools are out there. The smaller fair worked well for showing interest and talking to the school without actually visiting.</p>
<p>When our older D fist started looking at schools she didn’t get how schools would be different. At the first fair she went too I gave her a list of tables to go to and picked really different school from different parts of the country. I told her to just observe the other kids clustered around the table, listen to their questions and answers, and see who the schools sent to represent them. She came away with a much better sense of style, fit and variable appeal of different schools. It helped her to narrow what she was looking for.</p>
<p>Our college gives out a postcard with a QR Code (Square bar code) and the student would scan that in and it would take them to a website where they would enter their name, address, etc. The postcards are coded per college fair.</p>
<p>It’s a waste of time to use a college fair merely as an opportunity to collect brochures. Best plan is to try to identify schools of interest in advance and visit those reps at the beginning before the crowd hits or at the end after the crowd has left. If there are any schools that you really like or where you “click” with the rep, send the rep a short thank-you referring to something specific you discussed. This is an easy way to demonstrate interest at a school that tracks it but may be too far to visit until after you are admitted.</p>
<p>It was fun and it was eye-opening for D. You can see lists of schools but seeing all those booths with actual people manning them gives a kid a broader sense of just how many options are available. It helped her understand the diversity (we’d gone to many elite college info nights which were lovely but rather intense too… the giant college fair offered a picture of just how “do-able” getting into college was for her.) In our case, stopping and talking with different reps gave D a clearer sense of what she did and didn’t want. At the time, that was quite valuable for us. I plan on taking my S next year when he’s a Sophomore. </p>
<p>Like all things, it’s great for some not for others. Trying to make a sweeping generalization about their worth just isn’t practical in our diverse world.</p>
<p>College fairs are great for either a) the kid who has no idea where to start or b) the kid who has one or two colleges in mind but needs to branch out. Kid A can just visit around and get a feel for what’s out there. Kid B would benefit from some advance prep to see which of the schools represented are similar to the ones he’s already considering, and then focusing on those. And my kid was both A and B at different stages!</p>
<p>D has been to several. First time was to see what it was like (a crush!). Not the same schools made it each time she attended. This last one was useful, as she found information that is not necessarily on the web site (things learned from conversation, as opposed to straight question and answer). </p>
<p>My D realized after visiting a few tables at one fair that they always asked her what she was going to major in and then went on about how great their program was. So she started asking, before they could, “What are your best 5 programs?” to see which ones said her area of interest on their own. I thought that was pretty clever of her </p>
<p>We had the opposite experience. When S mentioned his major, two of the school rep’s we were talking to candidly admitted that those were not strong programs at their respective schools. Very refreshing, and if I had been one of the bystander parents listening in, I would have believed them when they discussed other aspects of the schools.</p>
<p>We’ve been to a kind of micro-fair held by the five Claremont colleges, which was pretty interesting. Even though D already knew a lot about the two schools she’s applying to, it was interesting to hear the five reps give their presentations, because they obviously had to focus on what was unique about their particular school compared to the others. The only one that didn’t do that was Pomona – that rep pretty much just said “we’ve got something for everyone.” </p>
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