@3scoutsmom, replying to this post has been on my to-do list for past few days but other items were more urgent. I clearly did not realize your feelings. My apologies. I’ll give you my perception here as well as that of my DS though I’m not much of a writer.
The whole weekend was nicely arranged. On Friday, they mentioned that we were not going to be given any dinner and we should arrange our own. So we had to get something to go on the way. As it turned out, they did have fair amount of food that was served. Enough to make a meal. The mingling session for parents on Friday was good. We met a bunch of different folks from Texas as well as from other parts of the country (California, Ohio etc.). The former director of McDermott office was there as well.
Saturday was a busy day and started way too early for kids at 6.15. Weather was lousy for a campus tour but we endured it. Nothing special about campus tour but better than doing it by ourselves. The golf carts helped quite a bit. Lunch was at the cafeteria and was so so (I’ve been told that before as well).
The afternoon campus resource presentation with the UTD PD chief was nice but I know the area and safety is not a big concern there. But I’m sure it helped out of town parents. Later in the afternoon, we had presentations from couple of UTD professors (Dr. Voit and Dr. Kildbeck), both McDermott scholars. This clearly showed that UTD has some smart people teaching there. There were couple of other sessions as well.
Dinner was hurried but we had a good chat with alumni and then we were off to the Symphony. We were allowed to ride with our kids and sit with them. That was a treat.
Sunday was the final Q&A. They answered all the questions though most of them have been addressed before.
So nothing particularly dramatic happened in any of these parent events that I noticed. No one withdrew their name etc. All were very friendly and the Director and the panelist did a good job of selling UTD and the program. I did not hear too much about alumni wedding attendances or anything similar. They must have read CC forums! :-). I also did not feel that anyone was judging me (might be wrong but I’ll never know!).
My DS had good interviews and decent group discussions. Both sets of interviewers were good to him and asked pertinent questions. Nothing controversial or political was asked. Though we did hear that some other students with another group were asked some questions related to their “privilege” etc.
My DS liked the program and if he were offered a spot, he’ll consider it seriously. He has couple of other great offers in hand as well. I liked the program as well. All finalists who are selected are going to have a tough decision as most will have other great choices. Though more than few alumni told us how they had given up Harvard and other Ivies to join McDermott.
We’ve not heard anything yet but they were going to take up to 2 weeks. So I’ll give them until end of this week. Otherwise, we’ll have to assume a no. I’ve not seen anyone who has been offered a spot but they might have been told not to mention any offers.
Echoing some other comments, I feel that this is a great program and specifically for pre-med, pre-law, lib arts students. You do need to conform to their rules but you’ll come out more polished and ready to take on bigger things later.
Please let me know if anyone has specific questions.
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