Colleges charging to Visit

cptofthehouse
Thu, 14 Apr 2011 10:06:47 +0000

If the charge is not worth it, don’t pay it, don’t go. Go visit on your own and save the fee. You and the kid will get a better idea about a typical day at the college when you don’t go to the Accepted Student Day carnival anyways.

I am more miffed at the orientation fees that are more substantial and are pretty much requred. You can end up visiting a school for an idea of what colleges are like, visiting again for the purpose of putting it on your list or not, visiting for an interview, visiting for Accepted Student or trying to decide to go there or not when accepted, visiting for Orientation before you drop the kid off there only to find the Family Day invite in your mailbox. It’s getting ridiculous.

My son will have made 3 trips to his away college before moving in there. The Accepted Students Day would not have happened for him if the charge were substantial to us. The plane ticket alone was enough money spent, and we’ll be doing this again this summer for the Orientation with one of us going with him then. As it was, we got a cheap flight (still around $200) and friends who picked him up and hosted him for 2 nights he stayed there. The meal cards they offered were incidental in cost and he paid for them personally. If there was a charge of $100 for this event, I would not have paid it.

Now the other school he was considering picked up the tab for absolutely everything for the student other than transportation, and paid for parent meals too. And my college son even got a travel allowance that paid for his plane ticket to his school a few years ago for Accepted Student Day. Found out later only certain kids go that, however, those who got merit money.