Just be mindful he may not be persuaded. Dickinson was one of several LACs I took my son to visit during his junior year of HS. He really wanted to attend a LAC along the lines of Haverford, and I knew that would be a reach, so we added a bunch of great schools to consider that weren’t quite as selective (F&M, Dickinson. Macalester, Grinnell). He ruled out applying to F&M and Dickinson because nobody could answer any of his questions about the strength of their mathematics departments. Grinnell probably would have been a great match, but he ended up getting WL’ed, and Macalester very much underwhelmed him with their math offerings when he visited during one of their ASDs. (I suspect he was also underwhelmed with his student hosts, which is really unfortunate, but is always the risk.)
If your DH is biased towards STEM majors/schools, he may not be as impressed as you and your DD. Remind him he’s not the one going to college!
@LucieTheLakie , how did you guess? He has degrees in maths and business. Haha! She wants to study airy fairy stuff like English, art and psych. Initially, he wanted her to apply to Penn State (nope) whihc would be the last place she would ever go to college. I have asked him to keep his calendar free so he can take her to some accpeted student days in April.
My D had a host who basically said hi then took off for the entire weekend to rehearse/perform in an orchestra thing, so I get that. She called me when it happened and I told her to go out on her own and do things,and she did. She attended classes, went into town and checked it out, found other kids to hang with (it was an accepted student weekend), got a feel for everything (except that host, and who cares).
She is attending that school now.
If overnight is an issue, then a second, long visit might work better. At least at the schools that you know she will get into that are serious contenders. There are only 3-4 weekends in April, between finding out and choosing, in many cases. If she will hear from some sooner, then maybe it works to re-see the favorites in that time.
@Sue22 , hilarious! That will be the way my son decides, unfortunately:-) My D is so logical, that she can always find reasons why A is better than B, or vice versa. She needs to know as much as she can about all the options, and makes things difficult for herself. I am thinking, if all else fails, and she ends up being stuck between two choices, we decide for her. And if she hates that decision, then the other one must be right.
My kid’s overnight visit from hell was with a student who was so unhappy with the school that they were in the process of transferring out for the coming year. I think the host just signed up to bash the school which they did all weekend. :ar!
I encouraged D to report hers but she didn’t. What she did do was sign up as a host herself whenthe opportunity arose, and vow to show her charges a good time
I actually called admissions myself and complained. I was actually pretty pissed given the time taken out of my chid’s very busy schedule and the money spent on airfare.
Gotta say, while I understand how overnight visits can be very revealing, I am not convinced they are essential. I wouldnt be happy if her opinion were swayed by any of the nightmare scenarios mentioned here. CC can be so enlightening!
@doschicos, that story is absolutely appalling. I would have been livid. At least my son’s rather uninspiring host wasn’t actually TRYING to turn him off to the school.
I didn’t read through the whole thread, but your D sounds a lot like my D who is currently a happy freshman at RPI (chemE) - small (but not tiny), very academically focused. Her top choice was Chicago. I also thought Claremont and Reed would have been great schools for her and kids like her.
Accepted to University of Rochester:-) She wasn’t expecting to hear unitl end of March so that was a nice surprise. She also had a very good day at Dickinson. We will revisit Roch and Clark next.
If Kenyon admits and is a serious contender, you should definitely visit first and try to get a feel for the social life. My niece had a horrible time visiting there during an admissions weekend. In addition to a disinterested host, she was shocked when several students she was walking with lifted up their tops when crossing paths to show off their new nipple piercings. That night, the kids in the dorm she was staying in spent the time smoking pot and drinking and telling her how great Kenyon was because it wasn’t that hard and the RAs let you smoke and drink in the dorm. Could very well not be representative (I had previously heard great things about Kenyon), but small, rural schools can end up being party schools because there is not much else to do.
Just curious, OP, did you consider Rice? It seems like that would have fulfilled some of your criteria so I’m just curious why not, if you didn’t.
Someone spammed cc yesterday (no seeing them anymore) that Carleton discontinued several language majors. What the story behind that? If true, if could influence students’ choices.
@pittsburghscribe , thanks for the tips on Kenyon. If she is accepted to Kenyon, we will absolutely visit. Pretty weird re nipple piercings. I think I won’t mention that:-) In regards to Rice, I know it seems ideal in many ways and has a great reputation. It has a major flaw though, which for my D can’t be overcome. It’s in Texas. I know, I know. She is happy to go to the Midwest or the Pacific Northwest, but not Texas. She also disregarded any Cali schools, because she really doesn’t like California. To be fair though, she has spent a lot of time in California because my family lives there. So she knows she doesn’t like it as a place to live.
Rice for now is on top of my DS’s list, but he was very surprised because he has a huge anti-Texas bias as well. Once he visited, however, he fell in love with Rice and the little he saw of Houston seemed fine as well.
