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Well, our visit was NOT successful, if success is defined as convincing the student to go to Alabama. My D is still not sure that UA is the place for her. I am, but it's because of all the information I've gained from these boards, not because of the visit. Unfortunately,we're also quite a distance away and there's not another visit in the cards.
We set her visit up with the honors college about 5 weeks in advance. D and H flew in on Thursday night and flew out on Saturday for a Friday visit to make sure that she wasn't rushed and had time for a full schedule. At the time we set up the visit with Jami Gates (the old Allison), we requested a meeting with honors college faculty, with departmental faculty and with someone regarding CBHP. We also requested that D be allowed to sit in on a class or two (honors and/or her prospective major).
Turns out her schedule didn't include honors college faculty or anyone from CBHP, and the only professor she met (from accounting dept.) was a dud. H said he didn't/couldn't answer their questions, didn't offer much information and was one of the most dull individuals he'd ever met. They struggled to make conversation, and H described the meeting as painful. My D is kind of shy and quiet, so meeting with a prof like this was particularly difficult for her. She did sit in on an honors class (with only 5 students!), but they were still taking care of beginning of the semester housekeeping matters and there was no discussion or substantive learning going on that day. The highlight of the day was the tour of Ridgecrest South, although D enjoyed the campus tour as well. D went in January, shortly after classes started back and right after a big ice storm, so the campus wasn't at its most beautiful. It was also the Friday before Capstone Scholars weekend; apparently there were a lot of prospective students on campus and there was a lot of disorganization in Nott Hall that day. Our lessons learned: check to make sure you're not going at a busy time when you might fall through the cracks, don't go right at the beginning of the semester, and don't go in with the high expectations you might have from reading the posts on CC. Even with the things that went wrong (boring prof, no honors folks, lunch companion who didn't show up), this was still a more personalized visit than D had at her other schools, it just didn't come anywhere close to living up to the experiences I'd read about on here, and it didn't blow D away.
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