@carachel2 My college DD will be at Oxford this summer for one month and we are Verizon customers. I called and they were extremely helpful walking me through the various options. She then emailed it all to me, so I could make a decision as the date of departure got close.
Also, could you post the info on the Photography walk in Boston? DD17 will be headed up there this summer for some college tours and is a photographer. She would LOVE that!
OK, @mtrosemom and others have scheduled appointments with kid’s prospective departments during school visits. I am hoping to do the same at a couple visits over the summer. How are you finding the correct contact to ask to set something up? Is it through your admin rep? Calling the department?
Then, what are you asking them that you can’t find on the website? My D is not a CS or Language kid (although I guess it could apply to some extent), so I guess this is directed more at the Science-y kid. Some I’ve thought about, but don’t want her/us to come off as pretentious (maybe I’ll take fake-kid, since I don’t care as much about her):
[ul]
[] How many do you graduate per year from the program
[] How many go to grad school? What schools?
[] What are current research projects that UGs are working on?
[] How are research projects found?
[] Is there a mentorship program (prof-student)?
[] Have UGs contributed to articles and been published lately?
[li] Can we see some labs devoted to research (not classroom labs)?[/li][/ul]
What are other good questions?
I assume the meeting with a Dept are solely for the benefit of the kid, and don’t enter into admissions at all, right? We only want to ask about things we are really interested in. So, no need to make it any longer than necessary, as I’m sure everyone is busy. Is a half-hour usually enough?
@RightCoaster LOL! I think they would wish they’d thought of that too. DD (the shy one) said something like “I’m not anything like as awesome as people think I am, but my brother is” and DS (the gregarious one) said “Don’t drag me into this!” And so I think DD may feel like what she said was even more awkward, poor thing, and she tends to ruminate. DS couldn’t care less.
I don’t think that the person in question has kids in our district, but they have at least one child of similar age in a neighboring one. Once they took a lot of pictures of one of DS’s football games but were definitely rooting for the other team 
.
@2muchquan, The trip are set up by directly contacting the department he is interested in. H has been doing that coordination since he is the keeper of the schedule. The information is usually easily found on the school department website, so contact directly through the school, not our regional rep. Calling usually work more quickly than e-mailing.
I haven’t been able to go on any of the trips, so I am really not sure what S is asking the departments. One of the questions is what percent of your department graduates go to grad school and what percent are employed upon graduation or within 3 month of graduating. S will be a CS major, so will not need years of grad school. S is just more interested in what classes there are for the major, research opportunities, internships, can he double major, 5th year MS, and stuff like that. It partially is practice for him to talk to these people. Sitting in on a class is good so he can see if the quality of the classes are what he is looking for. S will also (likely) be in the honors college, so he does separate visits to honors also. And yes, the meeting are solely for my son, not at the request of the school. This is especially true for schools that are not in his preferred geographic area. I want to make sure he will like the school, even if the area is not ideal.
https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/practice/daily-practice-app?excmpid=SM056-AL-1-tw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8f-jif9itg
I wish CollegeBoard would stop making useless Apps and Videos and
just release darn test scores and real percentiles from data they have. :-&
@mtrosemom Ah, some good additions to the Q list. One thing I’ve noticed at several schools that actually tell you where their graduates are going/working: I see several that count as ‘employed’ that are going to work for “Teach For America” and the like. I don’t have a problem with this at all. I think it’s cool. But, it kind of skews the ‘% employed’ after graduation, IMO. Probably not too PC for schools to not include these in the statistics the way they do 
So, other Qs:
[ul]
[] What percent graduate in 4 years?
[] What percent participate in Internships/Co-ops?
[] How many double major? What is the typical second major? How much time does this add to graduation?
[] Clubs, organizations related to major?
[li] School mascot (this is just to judge how geeky they are.)[/li][/ul]
@2muchquan Many of those are available on the school website or on other websites that track those statistics, so I would recommend questions for which the answers cannot be easily found online. I recommend asking questions specific to the department of interest. I like the internships/co-ops one if it isn’t answered on the website and double major one, but limit it to your D’s particular major of interest.
@itsgettingreal17 Perhaps. These are intended to be department-, or even major-, specific. If it’s answered on the website, kid won’t ask (hopefully). I’ll take other suggestions as well. That’s actually why I was asking…so much can be answered by school/department websites nowadays, I don’t want kid to go in asking questions the answers to which can easily be found elsewhere.
I can picture it. Kid sets up appointment to go talk to department head at potential college. They sit down. Department head says: “So, do you have any questions?”. Kid says “Nope”. Meeting over.
That is why my D did not want to meet with the department head. She felt anything they would tell her was already on the website and she can find the real truth by monitoring social media.
@CaucAsianDad Oh, don’t worry, fake-kid has the social media angle covered!
Meeting with the department has actually helped S decide if a school is a yes or no, so for him it is helping form his list and actually making him more invested in the process. The next 2 schools he is going to visit are basically only in play if he becomes a NMSF/NMF, so if he doesn’t like Dallas TX or Norman OK, or doesn’t think the department will stack up to what he has see previously and likes, they can come off the list now. And a question can go something like, “I know you have some of this information on your website, but can you go into more detail…”
re: international phone usage. We had our kids turn off cellular data the minute they got on the plane. We then had them find free wifi after that. imessage works over wifi so they texted with that but I have used WhatsApp with my brother for the same reason and he used android. FB message also worked as a backup.
Zero issues and plenty of communication but…that assumes the availability of free wifi.
My head is spinning. Now I (I mean, um S) need to figure out which schools are common app, coalition app, their own app and what is best to use for each?
GAH
As for landlines, we have a stupid VOIP through Comcast that we “have” to keep or our rates go up. It is the junk mail line that no one uses and we do not even have a working phone in the house to use it with (they all died, we haven’t replaced lol). But it’s a good number to give out.
Of communication note, make sure your kids use an email that colleges can get ahold of them with. If it’s a fake email, they need to be on top of it or use a real one come application time. If kids have not already, they should take care with the “name” on their account as colleges will pay attention to the email address and make sure it’s a user name they feel represents them well and professionally.
I thought all the colleges that are part of coalition app also accept common app for 2016-2017.
@srk2017 I don’t believe that is true. A few of the schools on D’s list had their own separate app, and are listed as coalition app for 2016/2016, so we’ll need to get clarification from them. Right now, everything is just prep, as this should all get sorted out as to what apps school wants and posted to their website when apps are opened…July 1 for some schools and by August for the rest.
^^ yep, that’s what it looks like for ours as well. Some were own app, some were common or own, some common only and now add some coalition (or own or common?). I am going to TRY to not really look too hard at this until 8/1 because heaven knows it’s a moving target at the moment. I think we just need to cull the list first and then dig at the application logistics.
Just what the class of 2017 needed, more confusion with the coalition app! Good times…good times. ~X(
In more fun news Casa Thermom, D now seems to have come down with a cold so she’s sniffling and miserable on the week that contains a couple of finals and her last week to prep for the ACT on Saturday. I asked her if she just wanted to bail on the ACT and wait until fall, but she said unless she was feeling really crummy she might as well go through with it. I will not be sorry when this month is over!
so many posts to catch up on…I just got back from a shopping spree with my D16 and we saw a movie “me without you” - bring tissues
we have a landline with our cable. Also connects to our alarm. Most calls are from solicitors or my mom.
@mdcmom ranting is what we are here for! congrats on your amazing son.
@CaucAsianDad since we live in Florida, my D17 will apply to UF as her safety. My D16 also applied there, it was the only school in Florida that she applied to and even though it was last on her list, it is where she will be attending this fall on a full scholarship (NMS - thank you!) This past year has been a big eye opener and my D17 will go about things very differently than her sis. I didn’t know the coalition app was open now for 2017 - thank you for the heads up.
@thermom aw, that sounds terrible. :(( Hope D can slow down a little bit and fight it off in a couple days. I-) :)>-
I’m sure kids want to be done with the test or at least have a good baseline score. It will feel terrible to drag it with uncertainties into the fall. All this year’s schoolwork is going to help the testing in June. Good luck to everyone on Saturday !
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:D< :-bd
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We just got settled after our Uof S.C.visit. Add them to the coalition app list. They did not mention the CA at all, only theirs and the coalition app.
It poured rain our entire visit. Dd still really liked it even in the rain. That says a lot! The prof she talked to in the French dept was incredibly nice. She is actually their oral proficiency tester and she and Dd spent over half the time talking about things in French. She was extremely complimentary about dd’s French, so that had her beaming from ear to ear.
Their honors college presentation left a lot to be desired. The presenter didn’t even address admissions into the honors college until I specifically asked. Seriously? Presentation 101, anyone? Dd did like the honors classes they described.
We also met with the study abroad office. They have some really good options. For those with kids interested the Borean critical language study abroad scholarships, they have had multiple awardees and have someone who is tagged for helping with that application process.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek It poured rain on us initially at UofSC when we visited, and D still liked it. We may want to see how many days a year it rains there! Did you get a chance to look at the honors dorm?
I thought our honors presentation was OK. The dean of the honors college stopped in, and he was seemed pretty approachable and ‘chillax’, as fake-kid says.
Interesting about the Coalition App news. I thought they were using only their own app…interesting.