Thoughts for Rising HS Juniors - welcome parent advice

Parents Forum
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<p>Hi, I have 2 rising hs juniors (b-g twins). They have really vague ideas of what they want and don't want. They haven't been exposed to all areas of the country and to be honest, they get a little resistant when they feel that mom (moi??) is pushing them to think about colleges. They are quite familiar with the NU campus (have taken summer classes there and parents are alum) and have visited the Tulane campus; otherwise, haven't really seen many campuses.</p>

<p>We (parents) would like to do something whereby we just expose them to different types of schools -- doesn't matter if the school itself is one they would be interested in, but more to show them "this is what a big school feels like, a small school, a city school, a rural school, etc." So, we were thinking of taking them down to U of I just to see what that is like, maybe showing them a place like Knox College to give them a different perspective so they can start thinking about what appeals to them.</p>

<p>This isn't the big "college trip" as that would come after they've identified places interested in (and we have a feel for SAT/ACT scores, etc.). </p>

<p>Does this plan make sense? Thoughts from parents who have been there? The goal is to get them thinking about what they might like in terms of city vs rural, big vs small, etc. Welcome any input.</p>

2

<p>We took that exact approach and it suited the personalities of my kids to ‘get their toes in’ to begin with. We visited all sizes and types of campus settings in a casual way and included ice cream wherever possible! </p>

<p>Sounds like you are in the midwest. We took a few long weekends for our midwestern ‘early’ tours and added the east coast for the next year’s more serious visits. UIUC and Knox are a good contrast. We also did Grinnell, Iowa State (large, but more relaxed large campus setting to contrast to UIUC) and University of Iowa in another sweep. </p>

<p>Be forewarned with early introductions - they can dismiss a school too quickly if they received an unfavorable first impression and if they do like the school you will need to return for a refresher.</p>

3

<p>We did something similar, just visited nearby schools when we were on vacation, visiting relatives, etc. The kids were able to get the feel of a big public (UCB and UBC), small LACs (Claremont colleges), mid-sized like NU were a little more difficult and we only saw them later on the “official” college trips.</p>

4

<p>Pizzagirl,</p>

<p>Are your kids sports fans? Sporting events can be a good excuse to visit college campuses. Big schools like UIUC show themselves off at their best—or their worst, depending on your point of view—on football Saturdays in the fall. I’ll admit that as a kid, I was a Michigan Wolverines football fan long before I took a serious interest in the academic side of the school. Some kids really get turned on by all the hoop-la, the crowds, the revelry of game day. Those that do may also be attracted to big schools; I’ve long thought that for many flagship state Us in particular, football plays a bigger role in the college selection process than either the schools or many of the students would care to admit. Others find Game Day a total turn-off, and that tells you something about the suitability of the school for that student, too. Not that it’s all about football. But football gets you on-campus, gives you an excuse to hit the local bookstores, gets you into some local restaurants, etc. Decent exposure to the campus community, albeit in a particularly frenzied phase. And small-college football can be quite a charming contrast, no less exciting in its own way, but different in ways that say something about how life differs at a small, close-knit LAC.</p>

<p>If sports won’t do it, what about bookstores? My daughters have not the time of day for football, but they’re crazy for good bookstores, and the best are often in college towns or in college neighborhoods in bigger cities. Road-trips to find good bookstores, with perhaps a nice meal (food’s often better in college towns, too) and perhaps a charming place to overnight would have great appeal for them. A sneaky but potentially effective way to expose your kids to a lot of college communities would be to enlist them in a family project to hunt down the best bookstores in the Midwest. A Saturday afternoon spent browsing through Powell’s and the other bookstores in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood is a day well spent, and you’ll trip all over the University of Chicago in the process. That sets a pretty high standard for bookstores. And for colleges. Can anyone beat it?</p>

<p>By the way, the quality of the local bookstores and the range and quality of local off-campus dining options have become criteria in their own right for my eldest D, a rising HS senior, as she evaluates colleges. Not that she’ll have a lot of spare cash for either; but partly it’s just knowing that the resource is there for that rare splurge, and partly it’s the sense of security she gets from knowing that in a town with good bookstores and decent Indian-Mexican-Thai-Chinese-other ethnic restaurants, she’s among “her kind of people.”</p>

5

<p>If you’re heading downstate in Illinois, Illinois Weslyan is just a few blocks from Illinois State.</p>

6

<p>We are doing something similar (see my thread about visiting colleges near Penn State). We are headed down there for something else - figured that if we are driving down there, we can try and see a couple of different kinds of schools to give my D some idea of size/location etc. I am hoping that this will help her decide what kind of a school she would like - so far, she has no way of trimming the list - she’s open to everything! </p>

<p>I’ve read that it might be difficult to get a good feel for the campus in summer - but unfortunately, that’s the only time we can do this. Hopefully, it will help!</p>

7

<p>Plan out a trip that involves a few college campus tours and also some bonafide fun activities. Purely as an example, consider:</p>

<p>Day 1: Fly/Train to NYC, go see the sights, take in a show.
Day 2: Columbia and/or NYU.
Day 3: Six Flags or Hershey Park.
Day 4: Swarthmore/Haverford/or some other LAC in that area.
Day 5: Jersey Shore or Atlantic City.
Day 6: Princeton/Rutgers.
Day 7: Keep it flexible…visit another campus or spend in NYC. Return.</p>

8

<p>Pizzagirl,</p>

<p>Alway good reading your thoughts, so I am glad to share ours…</p>

<p>Our experience…</p>

<p>I have a rising senior with whom I’ve done college visits. Granted being a womens ice hockey goalie, it kind of limits the schools, but even with that she started the process with vague ideas of what she wants to study (and even that has changed) and vague ideas of what she wants in a school (now with having toured schools better prioritized).</p>

<p>We started young - before her sophomore year, we took a day and toured schools in and around Boston on our way back to her school. And on our way home a year ago, we did a 12-campus 3-day barnstorming (Vermont, Plattsburgh, Potsdam, Clarkson, Oswego, Syracuse, Utica, Cortland, Elmira, RIT, Niagara, Ohio State). No more than 1 hour on each campus over a Memorial Day weekend. Enough to get a sense of place. And strangely enough, yes you can get a feel for a school from an empty campus. Not the complete view, but often enough to ask questions. And for an educational tour, that is all you need. And from my perspective, priceless.</p>

<p>She’s seen several other campuses on a onesie-twosie basis, but being able to compare several very different campuses in close timeframe (see tour above) did help to identify what is most important in a campus (and/or town).</p>

<p>Now it did help that she was motivated to see these places (why else would you spend 3 days and an extra 16 hours on the road above the normal 16 it takes to get home). Some she was excited to see, others were at my request. Some of the ones she was excited about were disappointments - others were favorable. Likewise some of the ones I put on the list were winners and others duds.</p>

<p>In the end we found out that her tastes are ecclectic, but that really a campus that is designed to bring people together (as opposed to a random set of buildings) in a setting that is spirited and well cared for is more important than size of college or surrounding town or whether the buildings were modern or historic (although one campus’ architecture did leave her cold).</p>

<p>She has seen more campuses since then and now that some of her school objectives have changed, we are needing to broaden our school selection list. So we will be doing a midwestern tour in one state later this summer and another state during her October break.</p>

<p>So as much as the early college tours haven’t yet solved the question, they certainly have helped define the ongoing converstaion.</p>

<p>So I say go ahead, kiss some toads and frogs, knowing that there likely aren’t any princes in the pond. Make sure to have several varieties of each. At least when it comes time to zero in on Prince Charming, they’ll know how to handle amphibians.</p>

9

<p>I also have a rising junior who got to observe the process when his big bro’ went through it a few years back. Here are my suggestions:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Take an “official” tour at NU. Since they are familiar with the university they’ll be more relaxed. Tell them that’s it’s just for practice, so that they can see what it’s going to be like when you do it “for real”. We live in Ann Arbor and S1 & I did the tour at Michigan even though S1 and S2 could find their way around campus blindfolded. Not too surprisingly, the fact that it’s an official tour seems to focus their attention.</p></li>
<li><p>If possible, and I know this must be tough with twins, separate them during the tours. We did one tour as a family and it was completely different than when it was just S1 and I. The family dynamic just seemed to get in the way. Each having their own tour puts more direct responsibility on them to assess a school.</p></li>
<li><p>Again, if possible, have the same parent and the same child go on all the visits together. First of all it’s a great bonding experience and second mom or dad can start to pick up on what works for the child and what doesn’t.</p></li>
<li><p>Have some things you do at every college: I had three questions I asked at every visit; we always (at least) walked through a cafeteria; we also went to each bookstore and looked at T-shirts, (it didn’t take long to realize that if S1 didn’t want a shirt, there was no chance he was going to apply).</p></li>
<li><p>Ask both kids, separately. what their ideal college will have excluding academics. S2 tells me he wants it to have a good hockey team and places to ski nearby. Any input helps cut down the size of the list, (P.S. Of course two days later S2 said he wants a good business school that’s someplace “sort of” warm. Early on you can’t win for losing.).</p></li>
<li><p>Finally, if you’re out and about and just happen to be driving past a school you’d never consider, drive through campus. It was one of those spontaneous side trips that showed me how important a clearly defined & identifiable campus was to S1; no urban campus with city streets running through it for him.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Sorry to go on so long. Good Luck, the process is a blast.</p>