<p>The only way I could attend is if I pay $60 for a taxi. Before I pay this, is this event really worth going to?</p>
<p>Paying $60 for a taxi to attend the meeting sounds like a lot. You can get much of the same information from right on this forum, especially from posts such as </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/579659-report-harvard-info-session-sunday-28-september-2008-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/579659-report-harvard-info-session-sunday-28-september-2008-a.html</a> </p>
<p>But I do like to attend college information sessions. If there were one of the Harvard-Princeton-UVA sessions in my state (there is not), I would go in a heartbeat, at the expense of gasoline for my car (those meetings are usually in places with free parking) and time away from my other activities. I have been telling my friends about the schedule of those meetings </p>
<p>[University</a> of Virginia, Harvard, & Princeton Admission Presentations](<a href=“Bus Accident Lawyer & School Bus Accident Attorney”>http://harvardprincetonuva.com/) </p>
<p>because I think they will be helpful.</p>
<p>I’m going to one of the sessions tonight, so I’ll make sure to report on it once I’m back…</p>
<p>Your report will be much appreciated. Thanks.</p>
<p>It is worthwhile to attend, especially for 3 elite schools & 3 possible interviews for only $60.</p>
<p>I doubt that there’s an interview possibility there. It’s more as if you’re interviewing the admissions reps.</p>
<p>Post #6 is dead wrong. Don’t believe the second sentence of the above post for a second or you will miss many opportunities.</p>
<p>ColdWind, what kinds of meetings like this have you attended? Have you been to the Exploring College Options programs </p>
<p>[Exploring</a> College Options](<a href=“http://exploringcollegeoptions.org/]Exploring”>http://exploringcollegeoptions.org/) </p>
<p>(which Harvard participates in) for example?</p>
<p>I attended the above meeting with my son; I thought it was a waste of time. The speaker from Harvard was poor; the Penn and Stanford speakers were just fine-but said very little that we didn’t already know. There was time for small sessions afterwards-but these weren’t interviews. I think there were probably 100 people in the audience (students and their parents).</p>
<p>I just came back from the Laredo, TX session.
My experience will probably be different than most, though, since no more than 10 different students were in attendance. This allowed the Q&A session to be a little more informal, and there was ample opportunity to speak with the admissions officers (or the director of admissions) afterward.</p>
<p>I also attended the Exploring College Options (I’ll use ECO for short throughout my post) presentation back in September. Since I’m from a smaller city, I can only compare this presentation to ECO. </p>
<p>The format was identical: a short presentation on each college, general Q&A, and individual Q&A with each school.
In my opinion, though, this session was better than that of ECO. The presentations were more informative although, for example, the Harvard slides were the same as ECO. Maybe this can be attributed to only three schools attending as opposed to five. </p>
<p>The session as a whole emphasized minority opportunity and financial aid, probably because of the demographic makeup of the city. During the general Q&A, there were no pressing questions asked that would give new information to what’s already available here. </p>
<p>I did a CC search before the session and could not find more information on it, so if anyone has a more specific question, feel free to ask or PM me.</p>
<p>As for spending $60, it depends if you plan to apply to one of these schools and you have yet to hear a different presentation from the university. I’d recommend it if you are, but might hesitate if you aren’t. Nonetheless, I was not planning on applying to Princeton, and now I definitely am. You definitely do learn something new at every presentation.</p>
<p>The sessions were set up for about two hundred parents & students–maybe more–in large hotel ballrooms and I believe that they were called Exploring College Options–at least two were. The others I am not certain as to the name. I, as an adult, have gotten extraordinary results, contacts & interviews for students right during, before & after the presentations. It is an incredible opportunity, if you take advantage!
I have also gotten incredible results at college fairs which typically have about 150 schools represented.
My experience is that the representatives are knowledgeable & willing to talk for hours. Some of the schools are Harvard, MIT, Northwestern, Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, Penn & similiar elite schools. Best to spend time with actual admissions personnel rather than regional reps.</p>
<p>While talking to admission officers/regional reps can yield useful information, this is not the same as an interview. We live a 20 minutes’ walk from the admission office. We attended an information session and my S did the tour (even though he was pretty familiar already with the geography and history of Harvard). But when it came to an interview, it was done with an alumna, at her office, a twenty minutes walk in the other direction from our home.</p>
<p>The problem with not going is this: You’ll never know what you missed. </p>
<p>No one here can possibly tell you whether or not, for you, this would be worth $X, because (among other things) no one here can know exactly what your experience would be like. But another, and perhaps more useful, way to frame your question would be this: Would I rather spend $X on something, taking the chance that I’ll later feel that it wasn’t really worth the money, or not spend that money and be left forever wondering “geez, I wonder what I might have learned there, who I might have talked to, etc.”?</p>
<p>(P.S. Obviously I don’t know your circumstances, but I wouldn’t be surprised if, with some ingenuity, etc., you could figure out some cheaper way to get yourself there and back.)</p>
<p>Cold Wind - There’s no doubt that you can gain valuable information and contact admissions reps at these events, but is the quality of that information and contact any different than what you’d receive if you simply called the universities’ Admissions offices? Harvard and Princeton (not U.Va.) require evaluative interviews with trained interviewers for each applicant, and as Marite says, those are done one-on-one at a specific time in the application process. It may be useful to know whether a student’s attendance at one of the road shows is recorded as an indication of interest that later adds positive weight to their application file.</p>
<p>In Harvard’s case (this is the Harvard Forum) as I recall, the statement is that Harvard doesn’t track interest by noting whether or not a student has attended a joint information session, much less whether or not a student has said hello to an admission officer at such a session. The information sessions in my town have LARGE attendance and don’t present an opportunity to interview, although they do present an opportunity to hear a lot of questions and answers and better understand whether or not Harvard is a good fit for a particular college-seeker.</p>
<p>I think they’re worth going to in general, but it sounds like $60 is a big deal for your family. I’d explore other ways to get there – are you sure that there’s no one from your school or town who is attending and could give you a ride? But if that doesn’t pan out, I don’t think it’s worth spending an amount of money that makes you uncomfortable.</p>
<p>gadad: Yes, the info. is more than I would receive from a call to admissions. A few times I have been told of certain types of applicant interests/abilities that are being sought & of new programs/majors planned. But the interviews were the most valuable.</p>