<p>We've got some schools to visit. Have you found it better to visit on Admitted Students Day and gotten the dog and pony show or to visit on another day?</p>
<p>I think it’s more efficient to visit during the regular admit weekends. At most schools, the student organizations have some type of meet and greet, which can help your student get a sense of the kids already involved in the activities they are considering for college.</p>
<p>Visiting on a dog and pony day has its pros and cons. The biggest pro is that your student will be able to see who his/her future freshman classmates are (it was a major selling point for D). Professors, coaches and other staff members are usually freely available on the admitted students’ days, while they may not be available for a meeting with your child if you visit the school on a different date. You’ll be able to tour the facilities that otherwise may not be easily accessible to random visitors. Of course, on a dog and pony show day, the college lawns will be neatly manicured, and the cafeteria food will not taste as the everyday fare…</p>
<p>Maybe the best is a two-day trip. Go the day before (or after) the Admitted Students Show to see classes, see how students get along, etc. Weekends would be best but there are not enough meetings.</p>
<p>We’re going to one dog and pony show this weekend (one day). S has been to that campus before, though (in fact spent two weeks there for a summer program). Two more schools’ dog and pony shows are later this month (again, he’s been to those campuses before). One school he spent three days at for scholarship interviews (the full ride one he got), so he doesn’t need to go back there. Two schools are in the midwest, and he won’t go to either of them until and unless the finaid packages are decent. The remaining two acceptances are no longer under consideration.</p>
<p>I have no problem visiting for the admit days. After all if you don’t like them when they are looking spruced up, how will you like them on ordinary days. I can’t say that any of the places we visited had spruced up their food. At all places there was at least one giant lunch (tastiest at RPI, and CMU got points for having Pittsburgh specialties, but I am no fan of them!) CMU also gave students a card to eat meals at their regular places and they were just as mediocre as they were when he attended. Most places had students with a variety of majors and experiences talk and take questions. This is better than getting just the one tour guide. CMU had extra tours of each sub-school, a dorm tour as well as the general campus tour. Also the sub-schools gave informative presentations about their particular requirements and offerings. Overnights were part of two of the schools and provided some extra insight into the schools. Two schools encouraged staying over through Monday so you could attend classes. I have to say, lawns looked no better or worse than they ever do. Obviously schools put their best foot forward, but from my observations the differences between the four schools we visited were obvious from those admitted students events and we attended the ones for his two safeties as well, for comparison’s sake. (There was also merit $ at those two schools.)</p>
<p>If you can only do one or the other, I’d probably recommend the planned admitted student day/s. </p>
<p>Son visited the last two schools on his list for accepted student day functions on the same road trip. There was a very different feel to the two schools on those visits, both of which he had visited before. One gave the impression that the whole affair was something they had to do, but no one really cared; no professors or current students were available for chatting, there was no banquet/organized meal. At the end of the day, there was a get-together for all of the accepted students, but by then many had left town. We got to sit through poorly planned, boring meetings with administrators, a talk at which the school bragged about how many PAST Nobel prize winners had been associated with the school, and a bus tour of the surrounding neighborhood. The other school had professors from every major collected in the banquet hall for casual discussions, and when the meal started, the professors spread out around the room and ate with the students. Small meetings with current students allowed for questions about internships. Students interested in various majors went off to meetings with professors from those majors. And so on.</p>
<p>We got a very different impression about how important the undergraduates were at the two schools. (Both were top-20 USN private universities.)</p>
<p>DD’s top two choices…which she is equally enthused about at this point, but she’s never visited either…are hosting their admitted students on the same dates. So she needs to choose one dog-and-pony show and then visit the other during regular school days.</p>
<p>I’d love to hear any additional tips on this point that might help DD decide. It almost sounds like the decision is, “Which school shows better on a regular day?” And in that regard, is there anything DD could do in advance of the regular visit to optimize it? </p>
<p>Thanks for all your ideas.</p>
<p>If you named the schools or asked on the school section at CC, you might get some opinions. Are they far apart? No way to do half of both?</p>
<p>For us, the admit day was helpful even though we had visited the campus previously - got to talk with some professors (although one who she liked at the session turned out to be horrible in the classroom and one who seemed hostile turned out to be very, very positive in class), saw the student activities groups and met several current students, and most important, checked out potential classmates. Since “campus culture” was the deciding factor between D’s top two choices, those interactions were useful.</p>
<p>mathmom, the schools are Smith and Reed–opposite ends of the country! </p>
<p>Those boards aren’t particularly active, and I’m not sure how I’d word a query so as not to offend. Maybe we have some proud Smithie and Reedie parents here who could chime in.</p>
<p>Ouch! That is far apart! I know there are parents of students at both schools so you should get some advice and maybe their kids remember what the accepted students events were like.</p>
<p>Reed has a definite flavor – admit day might give one the full Reed aura. Then she’d know!</p>
<p>They’re both great schools. Is she up for 4 years of all women?
Reed is probably quirkier, both are in nice locations. I think Smith would be better for art/art history. Reed has a more spacious feel to it. Portland is a great city.</p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback, all. I think the all-women culture question persuaded her to go for the Smith admitted days; Reed seems consistently quirky, so she’ll visit there on regular days!</p>
<p>Depends. A lot of my friends were very interested in Loyola University in Chicago, and they all went to visit on Accepted Students’ Day… and they all hated it. A few of them ended up staying an extra night, sleeping in the dorm with a current student, and they came back a lot happier than the others. They got to attend a class and spend some “normal” time on campus, which was apparently much better than the accepted students’ stuff.</p>