<p>Can anyone tell me what information you get from a college fair that you can't get from the school's website?</p>
<p>I recently attended a college fair with D. About half of the booth attendants were local alumni (who are no doubt solicited to rep the school at the fair as a means to get these alumni involved and contribute money to the school, the same purpose of having them interview applicants) and the other half low-level Admin Office employees. Accordingly, there were no "points" earned by walking up to the booths and speaking to the representative. In fact, at some point in every conversation the rep told us to go to the school's website for specific information.</p>
<p>Maybe the private high school that hosts the fair gets to use the number of schools that attended as a marketing tool to get people to send their kids to that high school. Otherwise, it seems to me they are a waste of everyone's time.</p>
<p>The answer to the question you asked is “none.”
I was mystified upon going to the two college fairs I have attended. I read you would get good information and that by making an impression on the reps, you would increase your chances of admission. I learned what you learned.</p>
<p>My experience as a parent and a former admissions counselor is different from what you have experienced. When I was an admissions counselor, nearly all the fairs I attended were overwhelmingly staffed by admissions reps, but maybe those are the " low-level" people you are referring to. When my kids went through the process, there were very few alumni staffing tables. I think that for especially my daughter, the admission people gave her a feel for whether she would like the school. The reps from St. john’s College and Reed had great chats with DD, while one Ivy rep would not even speak to her (saved me an application fee). </p>
<p>DD toyed with the idea of attending school in Europe and it was very helpful for her to be able to visit with those reps.</p>
<p>With experienced reps, you can ask a lot of questions about fit and environment that would not show up on the web. You might consider attending a regional fair. Most admissions offices just don’t have the staff to attend all the individual school fairs.</p>
<p>After two, we gave up, too much of a rush scene. Our fairs and smaller road shows were mostly school reps. D1 got there early enough to make contact, but didn’t apply to any of those. Btw, alums don’t work the booths because the school thinks they’ll then contribute more- they have to want to pull for the school, in the first place. We also gave up on info sessions, at the colleges- too much same old/same old and “admissions speak.”</p>
<p>We could compare our bad experiences: coveted school in the midwest, the adcom brought two unemployed recent grads, who were clearly deer in headlights about their job hunts. One had only temped, in two or three years. The other was babysitting. Oops.</p>
<p>Where it really does work is when you are able to make contact with an experienced college rep from a school you clearly know, have already researched, and the brief talk makes you memorable, when your app is read. But, that’s only one small step.</p>
<p>For my son, the value was in seeing that other people he knew were starting to focus on this stage of their lives and to realize that, as crazy as he thought I was, I was less crazy than some other parents. </p>
<p>In terms of schools, he signed some lists to receive information and walked away with some pamphlets etc.</p>
<p>The value was not in the information about any particular school, but the experience of introducing himself to the college rep (whether alum or admissions office rep), asking and answering a few questions, and seeing that this is what 17 year olds do.</p>
<p>I am always amazed when I see parents and kids talking to a school rep for 10-15 minutes. I cannot even imagine what they could be talking about. </p>
<p>For any schools S was interested in, we had already seen their website and read whatever we could about them. What could there be to ask a rep that we didn’t already know from the website?</p>
<p>Are these parents and kids with the lengthy conversations just asking questions that they already know the answer to in the hope of making some sort of impression on the rep?</p>
<p>We’ve been to two kinds-the huge, national convention center size fairs and a smaller, intimate fair run by a tiny non-profit. The large fairs are mostly a place to grab brochures and maybe ask a question or two of the reps. This is where my older D found a school to put on her list she’d not considered before. However, the lines are long, the place is a zoo, and definately not for everyone.</p>
<p>The small fair we went to was specifically for HBCU’s and every booth was staffed by a person from the admissions office. Because there were only a few dozen people in the room at any one time, we had all the time we wanted to ask questions. This fair solidified my younger D’s interest in HBCU’s. It was a completely different vibe too-there were school groups and whole families-no question was left unanswered and even the younger kids were encouraged to get involved. It was like night and day from the other kind.</p>
<p>Younger D’s school is in a district which is holding its own college fair next month-about 90 colleges are expected. We don’t figure it will be as bad as the national fairs but probably not as helpful as the small ones. Then a month later her school itself is having one of those small fair for students only. We expect that will be as helpful as the other small one we attended. D has been solidifying what she wants in a school so her questions now are likely different from those even a year ago.</p>
<p>We know a girl who was quite tentative about her plans, size, distance from home, etc. for college. She attended a county wide fair … I believe it was during her h.s. junior year. She spotted a table with a Breyer horse on it, and with an equestrian backdrop behind. That was enough to draw her into a conversation with the college reps. </p>
<p>That tiny LAC is where she is now a Junior, majoring in the business side of horses (I don’t know the exact major). She is in horse heaven. Horses were her only extracurricular activity, and she thought she wanted to do something in that world, but until that college fair she wasn’t fucused on that goal in practical terms.</p>
<p>For my own two kids, that yearly fair was more of a general idea generator, and a place to get them started in the thought process.</p>
<p>“majoring in the business side of horses”… I’m sort of laughing at myself. Not the most elegant turn of phrase. She’s majoring in something like equestrian management. Running a horse farm, stable, etc.</p>
<p>…related question. What about when reps come to your high school to meet with whichever students choose to gt a pass and go to the info session? I can’t remember if S got anything out of those or what he said happened in them (he’s a college frosh now).</p>
<p>For DS the CTCL fair was a great experience, where the 200+ school fairs were worthless. He had looked at a few schools previously at CTCL and it was talking to the reps that took come off the list and moved some on. he would never have considered one of the schools based on the website, but it was a final four contender until the end based on the conversation that began with the rep and the invitation to visit that he signed up for on the spot. </p>
<p>He always made a point to visit his first-choice school at any fair, any campus visit, etc for all three years he was going to these things. Because it is an all-male school the reps were normally not swamped. Every rep knew him by name, and I can’t help but think it helped make him a finalist for their coveted scholarship. Even now on campus he runs into adcoms at the school who ask how things are going. When he chose a different fraternity he got a nice note from one of the admission reps saying he had hoped it had gone another way but that he wished him well.</p>
<p>For some, college fairs might be worthless.</p>
<p>But keep in mind that there is a huge population of students who are considered first generation college students and haven’t had the benefit or privilege,luxury of having a parent or any family member who has attended college. So going to a college fair can be a place where they can stick their toe in the water so to speak and get a feel for whats in store. It also gives them a chance to meet with adcoms(if adcoms are present)/or even alumns are great in this instance and have conversations… maybe those 10-15 minute conversations are about why going to college is a great idea, how one can benefit from a college education, how one grows during college etc.</p>
<p>I always thought the beneift in talking to an adcom was to intro yourself, make some gentle impression. Hi…interested in your public policy center or the research in xxx or the dance performance opps. Internship support, career services. Ie, some specific questions that show you’re thinking about what that school offers. Not a hard sell, but like speed dating. Maybe a specific finaid question. Not, when’s your deadline, do I need SAT2’s, what’s housing like?</p>
<p>Personally, as a group I find college web sites to be poorly laid out, disorganized, buggy, and often containing information that is years old. It can be a challenge to find specific information.</p>
<p>Both my kids would rather have books and pamphlets and what-not to look through, rather than the web site.</p>
<p>So the college fairs are useful in that regard. They often had questions that the web sites ignore, like “how many kids go home on the weekend” or “what is the surrounding area like” or whatever. And it helps for showing “demonstrated interest” if the school considers that.</p>
<p>For us, it helped to have a plan:</p>
<p>1) look through the list of attending schools and pick out no more than 10.</p>
<p>2) find the booth layout and map out where they all are, and then plan your route.</p>
<p>3) find out when the most lightly attended time is, and go then. This was typically immediately after dinner, 6:00-6:30-ish</p>
<p>4) if you are not wiped out after visiting 10 booths, wander the aisles for a little bit, looking for any schools that seem interesting, and good swag.</p>
<p>Went to one college fair and it was useless. However, when the college reps either visit the school for kids to attend or do presentations at night for both kids and parents - those have value. Sort of like the admissions presentation at the college itself but only shorter. We went to several of those and they were useful.</p>
<p>When my D was looking at schools last year, we did not find the college fair we attended to be helpful (fair was sponsored by a local private high school, not D’s high school, and had a lot of colleges but wasn’t a huge convention center type fair). There was no information there that was not available on the schools’ websites, and many of the booths were so crowded that you couldn’t talk to the school’s rep. We didn’t find the alumni reps to be all that knowledgeable across the board, either. Some were, some weren’t. My D was looking at large state flagships - if she’d been looking at smaller LACs, it might have been a different story.</p>
<p>I attended several college fairs with D1 when she was starting to look at colleges. I’d say she found 90+% of it useless but the other 10% very useful. The booths of most local colleges and a handful of big-name, instant name-recognition schools were mobbed with students elbowing their way in to try to get a word in with the admissions reps. But some very good LACs that don’t get much attention in our corner of the country (Upper Midwest) were represented, and D1 had some very good conversations with their representatives who were almost invariably the admissions officers whose territory included our state. In some cases that chat prompted further inquiries into a school she hadn’t previously thought she was interested in. In some cases it revealed information that made her less interested in the school. In no case was it her sole or primary source of information about the school; that came from visiting the school (we had managed to visit every school she had on her final list by the summer before her senior year, though ultimately she only applied to one as she was accepted ED at her top choice), from careful perusal of their website, from research into various statistical profiles, etc. But for some schools the college fair was a non-trivial part of the winnowing process. It worked because she got to spend some good time, often in the range 10-15 minutes, talking one-on-one with an admissions officer, and to that extent it functioned as a kind of mini-interview, with the admissions officer getting to know her and her interests, and answering her questions about the school, sometimes pointing her in the direction of things she might not have previously noticed. And because the schools she spoke to draw so little interest and so few students from our region, I suspect those conversations stuck with some or most of those admissions officers, too.</p>
<p>I’d say if you go, head for the empty tables. At least in our experience, that’s what made the college fairs worthwhile.</p>
<p>Our experience was mixed. I’d say definitely have a list of 10 or fewer schools to check out unless anything else catches your eye. The one’s here also have free seminars. I found the one on essay writing and some of the others to be quite good - mostly run by local private consultants. We did find that most of the booths were staffed by admissions officers, and meeting them was pleasant. They did seem to remember D when she later visited or interviewed - especially since she had a few meaningful conversations with them about departments. Some could tell her specific kids from her school that currently attend, etc. I’d go, but I wouldn’t expect too much.</p>
<p>@OHMomof2: If a rep visits your school you should definitely make contact.</p>
<p>College fairs depend on the strength of your school. Top tier high schools will receive visits from adcoms and lower tier schools will only have local alumni to rep their school.</p>
<p>But it goes both ways. I pushed my alma mater to send an adcom to her high school. While my daughter selected another college, my alma mater was able to gain several excellent students.</p>