Do parents attend Admitted Student weekends for grad school?

sra08
Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:02:16 +0000

I just got back to an admitted student day for a grad school program last week. This was for admitted Masters/PhD students in a humanities/social science discipline. I’m a graduating senior, as were a few other prospectives, though most were older. I did fly out with my mom and share a hotel room with her. We spent a bit of time getting to know the area together. But I went to all graduate student events on my own. At the beginning of the day one girl was sitting with her mother when waiting for the official presentations to begin. When the Director of Graduate Studies for the department saw, he said that this event was for students and that it was a small room. The prospective student asked if her mother could stay for the presentations anyway, and he said something to the effect of, “Actually, this is for students, and we’d prefer that she not be here.” So the mom left then. But I definitely was glad that I had the sense not to bring my mom to the actual admitted students day! Even though we were already admitted, that is not the kind of impression you want to make on a future faculty member/DGS at your department.