Accepted Student Day-Are you going?-Why or why not?

Fauster
Thu, 05 Apr 2012 07:33:49 +0000

My daughter and I attended an admitted student event yesterday. It was a good experience for us and we’re glad we made the trip.

As PortMom said, the opening session was run by students that are Admissions Office Ambassadors. We had a junior and a senior who were both able to quantify their experiences at UD through pictures and verbal descriptions. The junior girl really was able to shine as she showed pictures from her Study Abroad trip to South Africa to work with HIV + orphans. We enjoyed this session better than Delaware - The Musical as it provided an honest and candid view into student life.

Next was the walking tour of campus. We lucked out and ended up with only three students and four parents in our group. All three of the admitted students were engineering majors but unfortunately none of the Blue Hen Ambassadors that day were engineers. Our guide did his best with engineering-specific questions but didn’t have most of the answers. The tour took us to a couple of new spots that we didn’t see on our original tour and ended in the Russell cafeteria where UD graciously picked up the tab for lunch. In fact, a UD ‘credit card’ was issued to us at check-in and covered parking as well as lunch. That was a nice touch. The only piece of information we received that was different from PortMom’s experience was that the gym renovations were scheduled to be competed by Fall of 2012.

I had made arrangements with the biomedical engineering Academic Support Specialist to meet with a professor in the BME department. My daughter had specific questions about research opportunities and how a UD degree would be percieved by graduate schools when applying for a Master’s program. The professor gave us very straightforward answers and offered a detailed tour of his lab to show off the research he is doing with cell regeneration. It took a little effort on my part to arrange this meeting but it was well worth it.

The only real disappointment of the day was with the Honors Program session from 3 - 4 pm. A current freshman in the Honors Program ran the session and pretty much read from the Powerpoint slides. The student couldn’t answer many of the questions based on her limited experience with the program but did invite us to visit with the program administrators after the session. It was over in 15 minutes. We did walk up the street afterwards (just a few doors) and got all of our questions answered.

We ended the day with a walk on Main Street and dinner at the Iron Hill Brewery before cashing in our 10% bookstore discount coupon on a snazzy sweatshirt. For us, it was a worthwhile investment to attend, especially since we’re not available for the two upcoming Saturday events.