So I live pretty far away from some of the schools I want to apply to and therefore I cant visit them but I want a little more perspective on them too. Would it be appropriate to email either the general admissions email account for a school or my regional admissions rep to put me in contact with a current student or is there a better or more polite way of doing this? Thanks!
I feel like you should look around the “official” channels first…many universities have student ambassadors whose info you may be able to find online. Look at threads on here. Check if anybody from your school has home there before. Join FB groups for prospective students or contact leaders of groups for current students.
Your plan strikes me as a little creepy for them to do.
Colleges won’t hook you up with current students on your request, unless it is part of some “shadowing” programs. I agree with bodangles, try those suggestions first.
Does your school print/post a list of the college each senior will be attending? You could look at last year (2014 graduates) and see if any students chose those colleges. Usually it is pretty easy to track them down through the student directories at the high school or your local phone book. (Parents don’t move that often.)
You could ask if the school does alumni interviews in your area. If they do you could request an interview which would give you an opportunity to meet with an alum and demonstrate interest in the school at the same time.
Other ideas to learn about schools include getting you hands on some guide books (ex. Fiske, Princeton Review, Insiders Guide to name a few) which may be in your library or else they can be found at most bookstores and read up on the schools that interest you, you can get on the school mailing list and see what comes, you can check to see if the school newspaper is online (many are) to get some perspectives on the school, and see if the school has any online Q&A sessions.
Usually tour guides give you their email at the end of a tour
I wouldn’t be asking for some random students email I would be asking for someone like you said a student ambassador or maybe a tour guide, someone who has already told the school they are willing to do that type of thing, but I just haven’t been ablue to find anything like that on their websites.
Email the admissions office, and ask if you can be put in touch with a student ambassador from your region. It really is OK to ask about this.