@carolinamom2boys We were not trying to invade your privacy! I’m sorry you felt this way. Its just that you seem so knowledgeable about some of these things and when you gave a vague type of warning I know that I just wanted to know more. I’m sorry we made you feel uncomfortable. And your privacy is still safe - we don’t know which school your son had this experience at or what happened.
@carolinamom2boys thank you for your post. It was enlightening and helpful. I don’t think anyone was pressuring you for the gory details, just a little more information to put it into context. The fact that you drove at midnight to pick him up speaks volumes!
I can’t speak for @carolinamom2boys , but my son (now a junior in college) had some VERY interesting overnights that helped him cross off schools based on the experiences he had. At one school an ambulance came to take a visiting boy away b/c the current students got him very drunk, at another the school was very small & there were kids from the local HS there as college students & they all talked about each other like it was still HS, and at a 3rd the kids whose room he was staying in did nothing but complain about the school. So yes, try & do an overnight wherever possible.
I can assure you that the school is not in anyone’s list of possibilities .
@Ballerina016 @Cheeringsection @Undercovermom1 @Skates76 @PAO2008 That’s my hope, tbh.
I don’t know for sure, though. We’re trying to remain chill and let S make his decision. However, deep inside H and I believe MIT is the best place.
Except for one school, with the lowest acceptance rate in the ENTIRE nation (@Ballerina016 knows which one I’m talking about), all the schools with decisions coming up don’t compare to MIT in STEMs, especially engineering.
Let’s say lightning strikes and he gets good news from that one school, he already mentioned that distance will be a factor when making his decision. We live in FL, so that gives you an idea.
My guess is that unless things go TERRIBLE wrong during CPW, MIT will very likely be his home for the next 4 years or unless 2 of the schools that announce decisions on the 31st come through, followed by him falling in love with one of them during accepted students weekend.
I don’t know. I’m just trying to read him B-)
@kittymom1102 I could have written your post word for word!
The pros and cons of an admitted students weekend vs. a general overnight stay … I have been mulling this around for a while. It seems like admitted students events most certainly offer an opportunity to see the school in the best light (as far as th school is concerned) and meeting other prospective students is a plus, whereas a general overnight might offer a truer representation? I suppose there are benefits to each.
Coming out of the shadows to agree with carolinamom that whether to attend an overnight is a personal decision.
Many years ago, ds1 did an overnight as part of a planned diversity event at a LAC he seriously was considering (this was in the fall of senior year). The things he was concerned about going in – the small size, in the middle of nowhere – were confirmed that weekend, which just happened to be Halloween weekend. You can imagine what the means on a college campus. His host was a good guy, but ds felt like there were only two options that night: party hearty with most of the kids or go trick-or-treating for UNICEF. He ended up sitting by himself in a student lounge watching the World Series. After awhile, three athletes and a gf came and joined him. He was left wondering whether every weekend he’d kind of be the odd man out and have to find his own fun or to become part of the party-hearty crowd.
On the other hand, the overnight he did last week of April senior year at the LAC he eventually attended was wonderful. His host was soooo enthusiastic that it made ds laugh, but his heart was in the right place. When the host couldn’t be with him because of an orchestra practice, he left him in good hands in the floor lounge, where kids played all kinds of games with him, cooked brownies (this was a sub-free floor so not those kinds of brownies 
) and generally made him feel like he totally found his people. When we reconnected the next day, he asked to go to the bookstore; I knew he’d found his home for the next four years.
The academics between the two LACS were on par. He enjoyed his time in the classes. The second LAC wasn’t that much larger than the first, about 500 students, but when you find your people the world seems boundless. 
It also was closer to a major city so that helped (though upon graduation he commented that he hardly ever took advantage of the city, preferring his college bubble).
Choosing to do an overnight can be a real eye-opener, and I recommend them. I prefer doing them apart from the admitted students weekends. I think part of the reason that some of the events get out of hand is because it’s all these senioritis kids let loose on a college campus and they behave in ways they wouldn’t normally. Also, you have no way of knowing that any of those kids will choose that school, whereas when you go apart from the dog-and-pony show you are with real kids who have chosen to attend that school and can speak with authority on it.
Good luck, everyone! Won’t be long now!
ETA: Cross-posted with @Undercovermom1 That’s it in a nutshell.
@Ballerina016 Hear you
Our issue was not with potential students but ones who already attend the school. We had both scheduled and unscheduled events which opened our eyes .
One thing I do recommend is if your student is going overnight, you push for them to have contact with their host prior to their visit. I think that it would’ve been extremely helpful in our situation.
I think sometimes the hosts are engaged in a little one-upsmanship that probably contributes to the bad behavior. I wouldn’t want my kid at a school where students thought that was cool.
I agree about the importance of an overnight.
Congrats @Skates76 !
Heading the right direction @Cheeringsection - good for him!
Nice purchase @kittymom1102 - another good for him!
More decisions @PAO2008 - yikes!
@carolinamom2boys sorry, I kind of pried first 
take care of you & your DS- you’ll know the best choice!
@carolinamom2boys so glad that you and your young adult were in communication so that the call was made to end the visit. Its probably a good reminder to all of us parents that they still need to talk over a safety plan for potential situations that could arise.
Daughter admitted to BS/MS in Biomedical Engineering and Pennoni Honors at Drexel. That’s four to choose from. All that remain are two high reaches and I’m not expecting her to get into either. I hope she’s ready to start narrowing her choices.
I have actually had some good bit of difficulty getting my D to take an overnight at any of her schools. She has read some of the general threads here on CC about famously bad or goofy things that happen on overnights at what are otherwise great schools and doesn’t see the value in doing one. Mind you she is the sort who isn’t compromising on what she will and won’t do, nor timid about letting someone know her opinion about what she thinks of some of the activities that might occur after hours and that would not interest her.
She has had private time to talk with students and alumni (many being friends of the family) to ask about partying issues, with that not being her scene at all, but with most of the schools she is looking at being fairly large she feels that the overnight experience with a single host or two might not be representative of the school as a whole or of the kind of people she would choose to hang with. She knows that there is gong to be a significant portion of almost any large campus where partying will be very popular and sometimes overboard, but her view is that just because some kids are being idiots, in her words, doesn’t mean she will be.
We have stayed over near some schools and done some unofficial reconnoitering around campus at night before or after visits, but every time I offer a true overnight, she declines.
@AnxietyAttack77 Congrats!
@AnxietyAttack77 <:-P <:-P <:-P <:-P <:-P <:-P
Congratulations @anxietyattach77