<p>heidi ~ the tour guides were a much bigger factor than I had expected. UCLA was written off completely based on some information from the tour guide that may not even be correct…S and D (9th grade) just can’t see past it. USC’s guides were fabulous, and perfectly coordinated…they passed us from person to person to describe different aspects, and everything was so professional you might have thought it was Capitol tour. We also saw Stanford (fabulous), Cal Tech (fabulous and frightening, with regard to work load), and UCSD, which unfortunately replicated the UCLA experience. Harvey Mudd was very good, and the admissions director actually came out and spoke with us for 15 minutes. That was impressive, I thought. Penn State was truly very good (redeeming the big state school category), although the efficiency was very good at CMU as well.</p>
<p>By the way, the essays will begin this August because self-descriptive essays are hard for my S, so he wants time to reflect and edit. Perhaps your S is just faster!</p>
<p>This is one of those details you really wish your parents would keep to themselves. I don’t know if she meant we probably/possibly will, or if things keep going how they are we might. Maybe it was just something impulsive she said…I don’t know. I knew things weren’t perfect, but I didn’t think they could even possibly be this bad</p>
<p>Celebrian, if it’s any consolation, I personally think the whole visit thing is overrated – especially if the visit is going to take place at a time when school is out of session, such as over the summer. I do think it’s important to try to visit the college you will attend, if possible – but that can wait until after you are accepted. But you can do a lot to narrow down choices using resources available on the internet. If the school is a reach, then a visit may be a waste of money anyway – I mean, visiting Harvard isn’t going to increase your chances of getting in. </p>
<p>I honestly think you will be better off if you spend time doing research to find what colleges have strong programs in areas of interest to you, focusing on schools where there is a high likelihood of admission. I’ll give you a specific illustration as to why I think that visits can be counterproductive: my daughter was invited to accompany a friend to visit University of Chicago earlier this year. She had a great visit and fell in love with Chicago, probably strongly influenced by her friend, who was a senior also had an on-campus interview. Well her friend didn’t get in, and Chicago is not only a reach for my daughter, but I’m not all that sure that its studious climate is quite the right place for my fun-loving daughter. She fell in love with a campus and a city and an ambience, without really considering whether academically that is the place for her.</p>
<p>Now my daughter still has plenty of time to consider options, but I’m thinking that in her mind, she may tend to compare each campus she visits to Chicago, and in a lot of ways, that’s a hard school to measure up to. The problem is that she is looking at superficial issues, things like architecture and how friendly the handful of people they met were. So while I am glad she had the opportunity to visit, I hope that she will spend more time thinking about what she wants and researching options before there are additional visits.</p>
<p>My son had a different approach. He did not visit colleges, but developed in his own mind a concept of what he wanted in a college. Once he had developed his own personal rubric, it was very easy for him to choose a set of colleges to apply to.</p>
<p>Given your family’s financial situation, you probably should also be researching to learn about which schools will offer good financial aid, and which are places where you might qualify for good merit awards.</p>
<p>Pet peeve about the applications process: I hate those stupid essay prompts -mostly they are completely BOGUS - S had to be beaten with a club, kicking and screaming, to write them on time as he was entirely adverse to the “show, don’t tell, reveal-myself” expectation. He felt that this requirement was analagous to ‘busy work’ homework assignments and I agree. Chicago was really the only breath of fresh air - reasonably stimulating questions. </p>
<p>I wish that the schools would write more thought-provoking questions that emphasized a student’s ability to reason and grapple with intellectual issues, rather than a prompt that amounts to a subjective creativity test. It reminds me of those dreaded “poster” projects that some teachers require. Yuck! </p>
<p>Furthermore, why can’t US schools be sensible, like Oxford, and require several certified examples of graded work? Wanna see if they can write? Look at the products they’ve already produced for classes.</p>
<p>Sorry to hear about the tight finances. But don’t focus too much on visits.
We have a friend who had his S apply to 10 colleges at a time when it was more usual to apply to a maxium of 6. He refused to take his son on collee visits although he was very well-off, saying the time to visit was when acceptances were in. As for me, I applied as an international, so I never visited, and I did not have the internet to do a virtual tour. Somehow, things worked out fine. And my friend’s S? he graduated from MIT several years ago.</p>
<p>My twins (S and D) will be seniors next year</p>
<p>Carolyn’s D
Curmudgeon’s D
Yankeegirl’s D
Katwkittens’ S
heidi’s S
lalady’s D
Wild Child’s S
fireflysout’s D
wyogal’s S
doddsdad’s S
Momofthree’s S2
shojomo’s D
calmom’s D
Celebrian23
Kluge;s S
EllenF’s S
SplashMom’s D
3boysnjmomD
Samuck’s D
Taxguy’s D
Chloe’s S and D</p>
<p>Carolyn’s D
Curmudgeon’s D
Yankeegirl’s D
Katwkittens’ S
heidi’s S
lalady’s D
Wild Child’s S
fireflysout’s D
wyogal’s S
doddsdad’s S
Momofthree’s S2
shojomo’s D
calmom’s D
Celebrian23
Kluge;s S
EllenF’s S
SplashMom’s D
ReasonableDad’s S
3boysnjmomD
Samuck’s D
Taxguy’s D
Chloe’s S and D</p>
<p>Carolyn’s D
Curmudgeon’s D
Yankeegirl’s D
Katwkittens’ S
heidi’s S
lalady’s D
Wild Child’s S
fireflysout’s D
wyogal’s S
doddsdad’s S
Momofthree’s S2
shojomo’s D
calmom’s D
Celebrian23
Kluge;s S
EllenF’s S
SplashMom’s D
ReasonableDad’s S
3boysnjmomD
Samuck’s D
Taxguy’s D
Chloe’s S and D
cujoe169 ;)</p>
<p>There, I changed the D to an S and added my D</p>
<p>Echosensei’s D
Carolyn’s D
Curmudgeon’s D
Yankeegirl’s D
Katwkittens’ S
heidi’s S
lalady’s D
Wild Child’s S
fireflysout’s D
wyogal’s S
doddsdad’s S
Momofthree’s S2
shojomo’s D
calmom’s D
Celebrian23
Kluge;s S
EllenF’s S
SplashMom’s D
ReasonableDad’s S
3boysnjmomS
Samuck’s D
Taxguy’s D
Chloe’s S and D
cujoe169</p>
<p>We toured Columbia last year and did Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Amherst and Wellesley this spring break. I, too, was suprised by the effect one tour guide can have. Our tour guide at Princeton sounded like a Valley Girl and used the word “like” so many times her sentences were unintelligible. My D was so disgusted that she asked to leave the tour halfway through.</p>
<p>Echosensei’s D
Carolyn’s D
Curmudgeon’s D
Yankeegirl’s D
Katwkittens’ S
heidi’s S
lalady’s D
Wild Child’s S
fireflysout’s D
wyogal’s S
doddsdad’s S
Momofthree’s S2
shojomo’s D
calmom’s D
Celebrian23
Kluge;s S
EllenF’s S
SplashMom’s D
ReasonableDad’s S
3boysnjmomS
Samuck’s D
Taxguy’s D
Chloe’s S and D
cujoe169
pnyer’s D</p>
<p>Carolyn great thread. Reasonabledad, what did you hear during the UCLA and UCSD campus visits that you did not like?</p>
<p>Echosensei’s D
Carolyn’s D
Curmudgeon’s D
Yankeegirl’s D
Katwkittens’ S
heidi’s S
lalady’s D
WildChild (S)
fireflysout’s D
wyogal’s S
doddsdad’s S
Momofthree’s S2
shojomo’s D
calmom’s D
Celebrian23
Kluge;s S
EllenF’s S
SplashMom’s D
ReasonableDad’s S
3boysnjmomS
Samuck’s D
Taxguy’s D
Chloe’s S and D
cujoe169
pnyer’s D</p>
<p>Made a small correction- WildChild is the kid, not the parent!</p>