<p>“My feeling is this isn’t a ballgame, it isn’t a picnic or a quick run to Wal-Mart. It is a 17-year-old’s equivalent of a very important job interview. I want my appearance to reflect that my D and I have good judgment about many things…appropriate attire being one small example.”</p>
<p>I’m with momofsongbird. I can see NO circumstances under which any male over the age of 8 should be wearing shorts or sandals to a tour or interview. Wear some lightweight cotton pants if you can’t handle the heat. Good God, we’ve got soldiers in Iraq walking around in 120-degree heat in full battle dress…it’s not asking too much that you survive a warm day in Boston without looking like a lifeguard.</p>
<p>I suppose it’s worth mentioning that at the tours I went to with my dad, there were literally several hundred people and the only time my dad was in a crowd smaller than that was in our small group of ten led by a student tour guide. Everyone was wearing jeans. I had the opportunity to meet with some advisers from my program if I wanted to but the intention was for it to be very casual. If an admissions interview were expected my dad would not have worn shorts. I wonder if some of us are talking about two entirely different things.</p>
<p>yK, just because other people look like slobs is no reason for us to do the same. I’m not interested in how the lowest common denominator looks!</p>
Maybe we are; certainly we’re visiting all manner of different kinds of schools. But here’s an example to think about. Granted, it happened at a smaller college, and maybe it would be less likely to happen elsewhere. At a well-attended visit day (250-300 people), there was a brief break after the President’s opening remarks, before everybody broke into their small tour-groups. People were getting organized, having coffee, when the President wandered over next to us and began a casual, friendly chat with my D and me. During the course of 5 minutes, he learned an awful lot about her, and I’m really pretty sure he noticed her (and my) appearance. That’s just human nature. Now I’m sure he didn’t go running over to Admissions and give a thumbs up or down based on what we wore, but this was the president of the college personally chatting with (and calling by name) my daughter. I would not have been happy if either of us had been in shorts and a Tshirt, baseball cap, or other very casual attire. The point is you may think you’re just going to a big anonymous visit/informational day, but you never can tell who will make contact with you, form an impression of you, and remember you. It just seems prudent to make some small efforts to look your best – not formal, but certainly business casual.
Btw, he was in a suit and tie. I really don’t think what he was doing that morning (making a 15-min presentation) was more important than what I was doing – helping my D select the place where she will live, study, work, and be a part of the community for the next 4 years of her life. JMO.</p>
<p>I think it’s important to look clean - but as to the rest of it, pshaw… DD dressed very casually for all her interviews and was accepted to all the schools she applied to. She was somewhat nonplussed by some of the applicants at one school…I’m guessing she was wondering, “Do I want to attend a school frequented by women wearing peter pan collars, skirts, pantyhose and dress shoes, and guys wearing Khakis, and button up shirts?” :eek:</p>
<p>Nobody’s saying fathers should dress up like Cab Calloway, but for those of us who haven’t been arrested shirtless on “Cops,” it’s simply not that difficult to make the tiny bit of effort to raise the appearance bar a bit. I, for one, don’t want to see middle-aged dudes’ bare legs or sockless feet even at the beach, much less in the hallowed halls of a fine college.</p>
<p>“I can see NO circumstances under which any male over the age of 8 should be wearing shorts or sandals to a tour or interview.”</p>
<p>Many to most men on the tours I’ve been on this summer evidently do not agree with you. They are dressed sensibly for the circumstances and what they are doing.</p>
<p>“I want my appearance to reflect that my D and I have good judgment about many things…appropriate attire being one small example.” "</p>
<p>Ok, well then if you’re a guy, and you’re walking around in 90 degree heat for two hours you should probably be wearing shorts. That’s what many to most of the guys are actually wearing in these circumstances. If alternatively you are walking around in a three-piece business suit, the admissions officer, who knows what you’ve been doing the rest of the day there, is likely to think your attire is inappropriate and reflects poorly on your judgement.</p>
<p>“Do I want to attend a school frequented by women wearing peter pan collars, skirts, pantyhose and dress shoes, and guys wearing Khakis, and button up shirts?”</p>
<p>Exactly. people who are overdressed for what they are doing are making a statement in the opposite direction.</p>
<p>I know you’re trying to be funny, but this is very odd.</p>
<p>As for the rest - still, there is middle ground between “women wearing peter pan collars, skirts, pantyhose and dress shoes / men wearing khakis and button-down shorts” and “t-shirt and shorts that you’d mow the lawn in.” For a woman, it’s just as easy to wear a cute fitted tee as a t-shirt, and maybe throw a cardigan or cute jacket over it if it’s chilly; it’s just as easy to put on reasonably stylish jeans and ballet flats as it is worn-out jeans and sneakers. For a man, it’s just as easy to wear a polo shirt and decent jeans, maybe with a belt, as it is to put on a slob t-shirt and slob jeans. Don’t really get why one wouldn’t want to put oneself together with a minimum of casual polish to something that is, as said upthread, the equivalent of a 17 yo going to a job interview. Why look like you don’t know how to look polished-casual? Why look like a slob or dumpy or like a rube when you don’t have to?</p>
<p>Monydad, do you think everybody here is so stupid that they can’t see a middle ground between a 3-piece suit and the picnic attire you seem to favor?</p>
<p>To me, middle-aged-guy-in-shorts/sandals at such an event is saying, “I am SO important that I can’t be even slightly inconvenienced or uncomfortable in the name of respect and politeness…”</p>
<p>Two of my kids got into a total of nine colleges. Shorts for men are fine.
With what I’ve been wearing I have blended in completely with the parent crowd in the tours I’ve been on.</p>
<p>What you’re saying by dressing this way is I have common sense, and look just like everyone else here. Except that one odd couple over there who are all gussied up for some reason…</p>
<p>It’s supposed to be 105 degrees here this afternoon. I think any parent or child touring SMU today who is not wearing shorts (or, in the case of a D, a sundress) would really stick out in the crowd, as perhaps someone who is not familiar enough with Texas to go to school here.</p>
<p>I guess you have it in your mind that shorts = sloppy. Trust me, we who live in climates where it is very warm for many months a year are entirely capable of looking very “put together” in shorts.</p>
<p>That reminds me, years ago we had a party, everyone there was dressed casually of course and this one couple, good friends of ours from UK, showed up in a tux and evening gown. I guess they do things differently there. It was pretty funny.</p>
<p>I agree that one could look put-together in shorts if traipsing around a campus where it’s 100 degrees, but it would likely require a guy wearing a polo shirt, nice khaki or similar shorts and a belt, rather than a t-shirt with “Bob’s Brewery” and the shorts that you mow the lawn in. For a woman, it might call for longer shorts or capris with maybe a tee and a little cotton sweater over it. Something that says put-together grown-up, not overgrown teenager. </p>
<p>Monydad - I’ll come out and say it – when I’m in a group of middle-aged parents, I don’t want to “blend in.” I prefer to be one of the better looking / better put together ones. And, no, this doesn’t mean big hair or Real Housewives of New Jersey – just reasonably au courant. That doesn’t mean “dressed up” - I wore jeans and a sweater or fitted tee / cardigan to every one of our college tours (they were over the winter and spring). But it meant looking like a reasonably polished fortysomething who was still reasonably happening in her choice of clothing, hair, etc. and not a fortysomething let-herself-go-frumpy-tee-look.</p>
<p>I totally agree. I got in such trouble last year on the thread where we gave “moving in” tips. I said that if the parents are staying for a couple of days of “parents’ orientation”, they should pack something other than the lawn mowing clothes - no one cares how you look to carry a fridge up three flights of stairs, but you might want to change before the President’s Reception or the convocation in the chapel. I was accused of being a terrible snob.</p>
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<p>What I see so much of around here (maybe because I’m a cheer mom?) is women my age in the jeans with the bling on the back pockets…they totally scream “I shopped in a teen store.”</p>
