Meeting with prof while on campus tour

CountingDown
Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:30:06 +0000

S1 also had a great experience talking to a prof at Harvey Mudd. He was wandering the halls and she came out of her office asking if he had Qs. He was a deer in the headlights at that point, but the experience made him realize what a valuable skill interviewing would be for him to develop, and what an important tool it could be in deciding where to attend.

Based on that experience, S contacted profs at every school he visited. Some sent homework assignments/readings that would be discussed the day S would be visiting. Virtually everyone he emailed reseponded positively. Sometimes S just asked to sit in on the prof’s class. Sometimes he asked if he could drop by/stay after class to chat. Sometimes he serendipitously ran into someone in the hall. It was a HUGE part of his decision making process.

Did it have any effect on his admissions results? I have no idea. S certainly didn’t ask any one at the schools to speak up on his behalf. UChicago was the only school on his list who even asked if he had spoken with any profs. S did a presentation at one school as part of a competition where he was observed by a couple of profs. That probably didn’t hurt. ;)

Caveat: S1 knows what he wants to do and is very focused. He sat in on specific upper-level courses in his intended field of study and asked lots of questios. S2 is more open-ended at this point, so I’m not sure that he’ll talk to profs while he’s still at the fact-finding stage.