<p>WITHOUT NAMING THE SCHOOL, what turned you off about a school you recently visited? Your insights could be useful for other families.</p>
<p>We nearly gagged watching the egregious fawning by the admissions staff over one oligarch family who came w their private consultant. The family got a tour by one of the faculty. This potential donor was not to be entrusted to the care of a mere mortal student guide. We don't know how the inappropriately dressed mother (or was she a paid escort?) managed to walk around campus on her 6 inch heels-- maybe the admissions people ordered a golf cart for them. Everyone stared, open-mouthed, whenever the mother stood up from her seat in her immodest outfit.</p>
<p>The admissions staff fluttered around this family, while the 8 other families in the sitting room just watched and waited and waited and waited and waited. We wondered what this development case family was promising the school. </p>
<p>No doubt this goes on everywhere. But MEMO TO SCHOOL: please conduct your nauseating obsequiousness behind closed doors.</p>
<p>At one school we visited, the AO spent nearly 15 minutes of our conversation talking about his new office furniture, how he had chosen it, and the various furniture arrangements he had tried before deciding on one. When the conversation eventually turned to financial aid, he spoke of the school’s development staff and the plan to increase the endowment there. Then he actually identified by name a local resident from a well-known industrial family, and talked in detail about how the school was planning to cultivate a relationship with the person, as they had targeted him as a major donor prospect and planned to ask him for a gift in excess of $500K. Having come from a background in development, I was really horrified – it was the most unprofessional behavior I’d ever seen.
At a different school, (where we should have never gotten out of the car),the AO was stern and unsmiling, the student guide accidentally poked me in the head with an umbrella, and nearly all the students we saw seemed sullen and reluctant to make eye contact with us. We were nearly run over by a group of student athletes on the path to the athletic center, and when we said hello to them, they absolutely froze, as if they had no idea what to do. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough.</p>
<p>“We were nearly run over by a group of student athletes on the path to the athletic center”…</p>
<p>My older daughter still remembers the fact that some students jostled her grandparents while walking on a path during a revisit. It was one of a number of strikes against that particular school.</p>
<p>Asked the student tour guide at a NE school “Why did you choose this school?” answer “To get as far away from my parents as possible. I am from California”</p>
<p>Another school, interviewer kept name dropping their great admission successes to Harvard - about 20 times. This was not a HADES school.</p>
<p>And the famous quote of revisit day “If you choose not to attend (our school), you will regret it for the rest of your life”. Haven’t regretted it yet.</p>
<p>There’s probably more. We literally ran from some of the schools we visited.</p>
<p>We applied while living in Europe and our European credit cards did not work at a couple of the schools. This wasn’t a big deal, we just paid the application fee in cash when we arrived for the visits. All of the schools were low-key about this with one exception. On arrival at this particular school, the admissions staff greeted us curtly and one of them announced rather loudly to everyone in the waiting room, “This family has <em>not</em> paid the application fee.” Upon which she marched to me with hand outstretched demanding, “One-hundred dollars”. I fished it out of my pocket and handed it to her, feeling more like we had stumbled into some sort of hard-up Motel Six off the Interstate rather than a top NE boarding school.</p>
<p>Needless to say it didn’t make a stellar first impression.</p>
<p>We asked a student tour guide if students had school jobs and she stared at us blankly for a full minute. This was a minor “oopsie” compared to others on this thread, but it told me all I needed to know about her school. Next she showed us a state of the art science center, but a little prying revealed that Intel team kids were pretty much the only students permitted to enter through those particular glass doors (or glass ceiling for my daughter)</p>
<p>At one school we were turned off by how many students were walking around with their faces buried in their iphones. Those cell phone rules really make a difference!</p>
<p>At another school we were completely turned off by the ambiance of the waiting room in the Admissions Office. Everyone spoke in whispers and the only thing to read was one copy of the latest edition of the student newspaper (which featured a prominent article about students objecting to changes in the dress code).</p>
<p>friendlymom- the phone in the face is an epidemic even in my own family. constant source of reprimand. many of the administrators of these schools try to stay connected to the student body using social media which has its ups and downs. </p>
<p>Just a fair warning, you will see many articles in the school newspaper that may be provocative. The papers in most cases are uncensored and the kids have freedom to speak out. Recently my son’s school implemented a policy of NO Grinding and Appropriate Dress at school dances- you can only imagine the editorial comments after that announcement.</p>
<p>My son and I arrived early to one school visit and since it was raining, we waited in the car outside the admission’s office. Classes let out and we watched the student body move about. We witnessed a cluster of obviously “popular” boys pass a rather “nerdy” boy and spit at his feet. My son had a wonderful tour and interview, but it proved difficult to get over the image of what we saw.</p>
<p>We were just driving thru to take a look at a well known school son was only marginally interested in. I thought it was a stunning campus befitting its reputation. His friend in the car said this place is creepy. So ended any interest in that school?</p>
<p>At one school, the man in a suit who my mom heard was a trustee was taken on a tour first, but it was nothing like GMT’s situation.</p>
<p>There was a parent presentation at a school’s open house, and someone went up there and said, “Yeah, the kids at Andover should get their money back.” I still like the school, but it just reflected badly on that particular man.</p>
<p>Ive got one from several years ago during my son’s admission year. At a very sought after school which shall remain nameless, my son’s interviewer was literally falling out of the front of her dress. When we got in the car, i looked at my son and said, “so, how’d ya like her dress??” Wink wink. He said, “oh my god, I’m so glad you noticed that too!!! The whole time i was thinking, ‘look at her eyes…keep eye contact…don’t look down.’”</p>
<p>A pretty horrid thing to do to a 13 year old boy, if you ask me. I told him to give her tbe benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was a nursing mother and it was two hours past her baby’s scheduled feeding. </p>
<p>At one of the schools we visited, the History teacher we met in between classes told us almost verbatim that he has 55 minutes to teach a class and 55 minutes of lesson planned, so any time he has to use to answer students’ questions is “time wasted.” In a World Religions class, the teacher was literally reading from her notes the entire time and the kids just sat there taking notes - not once did she attempt to engage the students in a discussion of the material being learned. Just like that, the school went from a close second to being crossed off our list. We lost all interest after the fact, but still had to endure another hour of touring before we were able to escape. We still went to their Open House, but at that point, it was just a formality to let them know we were not going to continue the application process there.</p>
<p>DS had a similar experience in a classroom – the teacher literally read from his notes forever without stopping (even with a student’s raised hand being ignored during). We thought…“and this was the class they had him observe? What are the others like!?” </p>
<p>His tour guide also told him (when she asked where else he was applying), “Ugh. I could never go there. I hear it’s really hard. It’s not as stressful here.” </p>
<p>This all made him feel better about his LPS being his plan B! </p>
<p>@booklady123 - Hubby said the exact same thing, “And these are the classes they had us observe? YIKES!” Also, the lady doing the tour rolled her eyes at me twice, which I felt was extremely unprofessional! I think she’s used to a particular sort of family coming for visits, and we were looking for entirely different things from a school - at the end of the day, it just wasn’t a good fit. I know lots of kids who have gone there and done great - it’s a challenging school with excellent ISEE scores and competitive AP test scores. It just wasn’t a great place for Moosieboy. And they were very upfront saying they have a limited FA endowment, which was the proverbial nail in the coffin. The only reason we were looking into that school is because we know some faculty and a lot of Moosieboy’s friends go there. But the school he decided to apply to is literally a <em>perfect</em> fit if there ever was one! </p>
When we got in the car, i looked at my son and said, “so, how’d ya like her dress??” Wink wink. He said, “oh my god, I’m so glad you noticed that too!!! The whole time i was thinking, ‘look at her eyes…keep eye contact…don’t look down.’”</p>