@mom22girls - I agree that we are usually better-informed at these things. D and DH went to a thing at WCU preview day last Saturday that was about admissions and financial aid, but they left after 10 minutes “because we already knew all that stuff,” D said.
And @ninakatarina - I feel your pain. We live two counties away from my D’s school. The regional college fair - it has a name, it has a well-trodden path through every county in the state – is coming to the local school here, and then a week later, it goes to a local school near D’s school. I figured, great, we’ll go to the local one and save ourselves two hours of driving. Then I looked at the roster of attending colleges. There must be 25 more going to the one farther away, and they are the “good” ones. So much for close by…
I went to our fall college night a couple weeks ago. I actually told the guidance counselor several things she didn’t know - about how to find the NPC straight from College Navigator, and I forwarded a link to CC’s list of automatic full ride scholarship schools. I know I have mad obsessive research skillz, but this doesn’t fill me with confidence that she’s going to help rocket my kid into a selective school. Last year when we were playing schedule tetris to get my kid into all the necessary classes, I told her if the straight A’s continued and the test scores were decent we were planning to shoot for one of HYPS. She told me our school has never sent anyone to any of those schools.
I don’t know, maybe that can be a diversity hook. It is disheartening, though.
Congratulations to your DS, @eh1234! Regional orchestras are quite competitive in this area – what an accomplishment!
Thanks, @orangefish! I’m very proud of him (and also excited to not hear those audition excerpts anymore!)
@eh1234 :)) that can be painful.
DS17 played for regional orchestra for a few years but he did not practice much at home. So I loved to hear him play once in a while.
I was disappointed that he would never audition for the All State Orchestra even though I printed out the excerpts every year. He would have made it. Oh well.
Congratulations to eh1234Son!
@Momto2girls That is funny that you grew up near Hobart! I wish we had more time to travel around the area, when I was looking online there were so many things I would have liked to have seen!
OK - here is the update on our second two school visits.
St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY
This was extra special to us because DH and I are both alums at SLU. Originally the trip was going to be just for D19, then we added DH because I thought it would be so much fun to take D to SLU for the first time together. We booked the trip. About two days later we realized it would be extra special to have the whole family there so we added D21 and S23!
We left Hobart around 4 and got to SLU about 7pm. After checking into the hotel we went downtown to grab a pizza before taking the kids to the local bar to show them where we hung out! Now as I said, Hobart’s downtown is old fashioned but cute and is a few blocks wide and I was afraid the kids would think that was too small. SLU’s downtown is a speck compared to that - it is one street and maybe three blocks long? It has a few small restaurants, a sub shop, a two screen movie theater and a town square where they do farmers markets. Even the McDonalds that was there 20 years ago has closed! If you drive a little bit down the road the other direction there is a grocery store, drug store, Dominos, Pizza Hut and Burger King. I hear there is even a Wal Mart half way between Canton and Potsdam (the next town over which has Clarkson University) - that would have been so exciting for us back when we were students! Anyway, suffice it to say it is a tiny downtown area. The kids didn’t seem to mind it too much as you could still get most of what you would need, but they did like the town at Hobart better.
After dinner we went to the Hoot Owl bar - the only person there was the bartender and he said we could stay with the kids until people started to come around 10. We had fun showing them around (there are old pictures of students all over) and playing pool and darts. The kids actually had a great time and might have liked hanging out at the bar a little too much. 
After that we headed to bed to get ready for the tour the next day.
Tour went well - they give private tours here when they can so it was just us and the tour guide. The campus is still as pretty as I remembered with many new buildings added of course. We got to see the typical classroom buildings, athletic facilities (old facilities still there with new facilities added on including a much nicer gym and a two story climbing wall), the chapel, the arts building and the cafeteria. The cafeteria is updated since we went there with all sorts of food stations however I didn’t think it was as nice as some others we have seen. I will say the food there is very good though! There are also a few small cafe type spots around campus to grab food as well as the Pub which is in the student center.
We got to see inside two dorms. They have everything from the traditional old school dorms with two bathrooms per hall to suites with private bathrooms to senior townhouse/apartment type residences. We were sown one older dorm which did show its age but the room was pretty spacious and the newest dorm which was beautiful. It is a mix of rooms and every 4-5 rooms are sort of secluded in their own section and they have their own washer and dryer.
Last we got to see the new to us (although I think it is about 5-7 years old now?) student center. This was my favorite, it is three stories high with a big open stairwell in the middle so you can look up and down. All of the club and event posters line the stairwell all the way down. The bottom floor is the “hang out” area with a giant fireplace, small stage area, ping pong, pool tables, mail room and the pub. The pub was my favorite place when I was a student so I later embarrassed my kids and made them come back here for lunch - it was just as good as I remembered. Still had the good greasy food like burgers and fries but also has tons of healthy food plus a small grocery area. Although the kids were a little hesitant about eating there I thought it was a great chance for them to see the types of kids who go to SLU.
Overall the kids liked SLU but I could tell they didn’t seem to like it as much as Hobart, I think because of the remoteness and the size of the town. Also I have to say Hobart did a better job of selling themselves. SLU didn’t have an information session and D19 felt that was where we really learned the most about Hobart. Our tour guide was great but it is just not the same as hearing about everything from an admissions rep who has his speech down pat.
Last one - let’s see if I can be a little bit shorter with my descriptions! :))
University of Vermont
After spending a little bit too much money in the bookstore at SLU we headed straight to UVM. D19 thinks she wants a smaller school but I had visited here many times in college and thought she might like it. We had rented a house about 1/2 hour south of Burlington and were excited to get there as our best friend from college was also there with his S19 who was doing lacrosse camps at both UVM and Hobart. It was a coincidence that we were going the same weekend and we only see them every few years so we were super happy about it! Had a great night hanging out, having dinner and playing cards with all of the kids.
Saturday morning we had our tour at 10am. I went to wake up the girls and D21 asked if she could skip this one since we had stayed up so late the night before! D19 and I headed out and had a bit of a hard time finding the admissions house - google maps took us to the wrong spot and by the time I realized we ended up having to walk about 1/2 mile to get there. That meant we were about 5 minutes late for the info session which had about 50 people already there. We grabbed seats and listened to a very long info session that didn’t seem to tell us too much more than we could get from a brochure. Add that to the fact that the man spoke faster than an auctioneer and I had had a few too many beers the night before and I couldn’t wait to get out of there! #-o Pretty soon they had 5 tour guides come in and split us up just by rows, not by interest or anything. We headed out with about 10 other people in our group.
UVM is a much bigger school compared to what we had been looking at - UVM has 11,000 kids while the other schools were all under 2,500. For a bigger school I thought the campus still felt pretty compact and seemed very walkable. We were the last group to go and they all go in the same direction so the tour was a bit slow while we waited for the other groups ahead if us to finish (and it was hot - we went all the way from FL to VT hoping for fall weather and it was 85 degrees outside!) We went in a few classroom buildings and the guide pointed out many others. There has been a lot of new construction lately -I was impressed with how modern the campus was while still retaining its charm. We learned that 98% of classes are taught by full professors and the average class size is 30. The largest classes are over 200 but there are only a few of those. I was pretty impressed with that for a bigger school.
There is a brand new freshman dorm that right now houses the wellness learning community (you can pick as a freshman if you want to live in a learning community with themes like wellness, community service, etc) We only got to see a sample dorm room and considering it was brand new I didn’t think it was that great - a little small and the beds were on metal frames where you could life the beds up or down to loft them, not as nice looking as the wooden beds but no big deal. The dorm itself was great - kitchens on every floor, a gym right in the dorm, dorm connected by an enclosed walkway to the newest classroom building. Most of the other dorms are not he other side of campus and we did not get to go over there eon the tour. The guide did say it was walkable in about 10-15 minutes though.
We went into the theater but only go to see the lobby then we headed to the student center which is also new. It is very nice with meeting rooms, the bookstore, two cafes. The town actually is able to use this as a meeting spot and while we were there they had a charity walk going on so there was music and food and excitement all around.
After the tour we headed back to the house to grab the rest of the family then met up with our friends in downtown Burlington for lunch. Now we really liked the school but this is what sells it for sure! Burlington is the cutest town and is always winning best college town on various lists. The town sits right on Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks are just behind the lake. There is an area called Church Street that is closed off to cars and is lined with restaurants, local shops as well as a few chains. D19 didn’t mind the chain stores because they were ones that she likes such as Pac Sun and Urban Outfitters. After wondering where she would shop at the other schools this was a nice thing to see! It is just a fun area that always has something going on - there were several musicians lining the street the day we were there. Also, if you are a music fan there are a bunch of local spots for live music - the most well knows is Nectars which is where Phish got their start. The kids all liked people watching and realized this area has kids who are much more individual/funky and not as preppy/jocky as the smaller schools.
OK- this was not as short as I wanted but I always type too much! Overall after all of these schools D19 still doesn’t have any better ideas on what she wants in a school. #-o She says she liked them all and she will just have to really start to think if she wants to be that far away and in a place that cold. On the other hand D23 made a decision- she said she has decided she will not go to any of those schools because even though she loved them she will never want to be in a place that cold! Everyone she asked about the weather said, “Oh, don’t worry about it - you just rush from your dorm to class and back and you don’t hang outside in the cold.” She said no way -she loves to hang out outside so these northern spots are not for her. Oh well - at least the trip helped her!
LOL. We have a good friend who lives in Vermont and the way he describes the state’s weather is this: nine months of great skiing and three months of poor skiing.
Regarding college reps visiting schools or being at college fairs: often (usually) that is the same rep who covers your region for the particular college, and would be the one presenting your child’s application. My D has already had several one-to-one info sessions at her HS, and one college she is thinking of ED.
Showing interest and getting to know the reps is helpful only for LACs, though.
Yes @PetulaClark my d19 said a rep told her that as well. I’d love for my d to meet them, too bad there doesn’t seem to be much flexibility on when they come in the day.
So the tour of WPI went well today. Son19 really enjoyed it. He has been there a few times for robotics and a sports clinic but never had the time to really explore it. He really enjoyed the in depth overview seminar on the WPI Robotics degree. It sounds pretty neat and son19 seemed to think it might be something he would consider as a major. He liked the buildings, facilities etc. It’s a fairly easy commute from our house at less than 30 minutes, so that is a positive.
I thought WPI was pretty decent too. The campus is easily managed by foot, there is some new construction going on, it isn’t crazy difficult to gain acceptance, and it has what my son wants to study. I will say I wasn’t blow away with the visit though. I didn’t like that a lot of freshman get jammed into triples or quad rooms, and the dorms that we saw were just OK. The buildings and facilities seemed OK too, but I wasn’t wowed by anything. It was all just decent, and I guess that’s not bad. I didn’t have a lot of negative feelings when I was there.
My son might have a chance to play soccer or run track there, so he likes that. He liked the fact that although they offered varsity sports it wasn’t a mega jock zone. Certainly more nerd/study focused which is better anyways.
Lastly, my son said he liked WPI more than he liked RPI, which was somewhat surprising. He said he liked the buildings better, how everything was more compact, and how he’d have access to Boston and home. So I guess it’s moved up on his list as it ticked a lot of boxes for him. He is a decent candidate for this range of schools, so we are glad he enjoyed his day there.
@RightCoaster did WPI have an open house this weekend? A friend of my d19 went this weekend to see it too.
@mom2twogirls yes, Open House today. We had some free time this afternoon, so we just drove over. It was a good use of time. It was well organized, they served lunch, the robotics speaker was excellent, and he really sold my son that WPI would be a place in which he could thrive. Before today he was always saying it was too close to home and he wasn’t all that enthusiastic about it. But now today, a different story.
So far he’s seen WPI, RPI, MIT, and Tufts. He is a decent student and a decent athlete, but unless he’s offered an athletic spot at some of the super reach schools he won’t get in. I think he’ll end up staying in the Northeast for his schooling, although he has said that he’d be interested in a few schools in CA.
Over the next few months we hope to bring him over to Northeastern,Umass and Brown ( close by), and we want to visit U Of Rochester. I highly doubt he’ll end up at any " top 20" type of school, but he has a slight chance if he aces his standardized tests and gets recruited. He likes the environments of MIT, Harvey Mudd, RPI, WPi but I think he’s more academically suited for WPI/RPI/Northeastern.
Ah, a robotics speaker. My d’s friend is in robotics as well. That explains why this was the weekend she went.
We’re going to the NACAC performing arts college fair today. Have any of you been to one of these things?
I registered for me and my son, but late last night he told me that two of his friends (both seniors) wanted to come too. I can’t figure out how to register them when I don’t know their emails. Are they really strict about being registered or can you sign in at the door?
@ninakatarina Maybe your son could just text his friends the link for the fair and let them register themselves?
I wanted to take S19 to that college fair today, but he never got around to starting his homework yesterday, so oh well! At least he caught up on sleep and did a practice SAT.
I suspect the registration will happen on the car ride south. It will be fun, I hope.
@ninakatarina – they are not strict about registrations. They are trying to get a sense of headcount and they want to scan people at booths (tables) to mail more stuff.
We need a secret CC handshake – D19 and I will be there, too!
ETA: We have our list narrowed down to 20 schools and have already visited 6 of them, so whittled down to 14 booths for today. She’ll be visiting 8 of them as top choices.
@orangefish Wow, that’s great that all 14 schools remaining on your list will be there! Hope that you and @ninakatarina have a good afternoon!
I got a flat “no” and an eyeroll when I asked S19 if he wanted to go, so I guess we wouldn’t make it even if he did have time. Maybe by this time NEXT year he’ll have some interest in the process.
Thanks @eh1234 – there are some schools she plans to apply to who will not be at the fair, but she is definitely in winnowing down mode. (YAY!)
She also realizes this is the last performing arts college fair she can easily visit, as by this time next year it’s pretty much too late to visit as a senior, if there is any interest in BFA interview/portfolio programs.