Two questions for the experts on here. Colleges have started to visit my daughters school. 4 or 5 day on some days. Probably 100 or so schools in all. You can see what other kids are going to look at what schools. My daughter noticed it seemed like mostly seniors and questioning is she too early to be doing this. I told to her to me these kids are bit late in the game. Am I right. On a side note one kid signed up to see over 20 schools.
This question is asking if this is common. Northern Illinois university has a high school band day every year. They come early to practice with the college band and play with them at half time. There is 20-25 schools that come. During some dead time they had a recruiting table and they were looking for juniors and seniors. If you give them your name and email they gave kids a school shirt. My daughter loved it. Have you heard of anything similar to that?
@Nicki20
My DS20âs school also starts having college reps visiting, the first one was last Friday by Elon. His school actually had a parent meeting two weeks ago (mainly for junior/senior parents but all were welcome) and at the meeting, the GC specifically asked parents to encourage their kids (juniors and seniors alike) to come and talk to the reps, he asked the kids to try to talk to at least 5 schools. So I agree with you wholeheartedly that it is perfect timing for juniors to do this now. Wish we had 100 colleges visiting tho.
@nicki20 Talking to recruiters has limited value. What are you hoping your dd will gain from meeting with them? Does she have any idea where she wants to apply? Or are you hoping that by going to the tables she will find something of interest?
FWIW, my kids have gained the most from dept visits at schools they were interested in. Even general tours havenât been that informative other than getting a sense for the size of campus and seeing inside of a dorm.
But yes, by this time of sr yr, my kids were hard at work on applications for their top schools. Some have scholarship deadlines as early as Oct 15-Nov1.
My DD is just starting her SAT prep class and will be taking the test on Oct 6. I am trying to determine if she needs to take the essay portion. It seems like more and more schools are saying itâs optional. Iâm wondering if it really is, or if they still prefer to see an essay score. Iâm hoping my daughter may only have to test once so I want to get it right. She says she might as well just do it, but if she doesnât much better on the other parts could it hurt her? She is interested in some top 20 schools and well as some safer ones. Thanks!
Yes, if college recruiters are coming to your junior kidâs HS and they like âdemonstrated interestâ, it would be wise to have your student attend some informational sessions. Another touch point with the college can only be a positive thing.
I ttold my D to see which college recruiters are coming to campus this fall and absolutely attend any meetings hosted by colleges that interest her. Seems like a no-brainer. Agree senior year may be too late for many.
@Musicmom2015 IMO if a college ever says âoptionalâ or ârecommendâ you should do it. Admissions to college is a competition and you can bet many, many kids will be submitting everything no matter what the college says.
@Nicki20 - my first kid never went to any of the recruiter talks at her high school⊠she didnât think it was worth missing class for them and by the time she had an idea of where she was likely to apply weâd already visited in person (she didnât get serious about looking until spring of junior year so too late to go to the fall junior year talks and by fall of senior year she had her list finalized and weâd visited all but 2 of them).
I made my D20 go see Case Western last week when they visited. It was on my radar as a school she should consider. They came during tutorial (study hall) and itâs a school that we could potentially visit during spring break but I wanted her to hear their spiel before definitely planning our route. She liked it enough to say yes, letâs stop there next spring.
Anyway, long story short⊠I think itâs better to go to the schools in person, but you probably donât have time to go to every school so this can be a way to get some more info before committing to a visit or an application. I would try to narrow down how many rep visits to go to so you arenât missing too many classes for them, though.
I would of enjoyed a meeting two weeks before telling us about the college visits. Our district with 5 high schools mostly have many of the same colleges visiting. How parents getting college visit information is different. Some just post it on the website. Our school did that last year but put it on schoology this year which mosts parents donât use.
As to the question of the recruiters. I donât see the point of getting information from schools like U of C and NW and many other Chicago area schools. I do see some logic of getting information from schools like Duke and others who are not in the area
@Musicmom2015
FWIW, My DS signed up the 8/25 SAT with essay, mainly because Duke, one of his top schools, specifically stated at our May/2018 visit that they want to see SAT essay scores from applicants, then we found out that Duke dropped that requirement in July. So DS opted to not do the essay. We were told that most selective colleges donât really care about SAT essays as they are not correlated well with actual ability to write and the grading could be very subjective.
PS, 1) it was very easy to opt out of the essay, many students at his test site opted out (they just needed to tell one of the proctors and then being put into a room different from the one previously assigned). 2) they were asked to do a section V during the essay time, for DS it was an extremely easy set of math problems. 3) CB refunded us $17 a week after the test which was a surprise.
Spent the afternoon finalizing our travel plans and tour appointments for fall break. We will definitely tour two schools and might stop by the campus of another that will be on fall break themselves so no tour is available. It is likely too small and in too small of a town for my DD anyway so we may just leave that extra driving out of our trip and spend that afternoon in Columbia, SC instead. Just a heads up to anyone heading south, hotels were hard to find close to schools with home football games going on.
DS has a terrible ACT essay score. He took it 100% cold. I signed him up for the June ACT with writing because, firstly I didnât know colleges are dropping it left and right; secondly we didnât expect him be once and done. Right now, I am secretly hoping ACT would allow us to split out the writing score since so many colleges do not want it. What are the odds??? :-S
My kids school doesnât recommend juniors attend so as not to miss class. The college visits during school hours are mostly meant for seniors to demonstrate interest and ask questions during the app season. Itâs too early for juniors.
I actually think if seniors are going to see visiting reps at their school they are behind. Look at all the people who have visited actual schools on this thread. These seniors are behind many kids on this thread.
You get more one on one time and can ask more specific app questions in a school visit fall of senior year than visiting earlier. Earlier you might not have a good idea where you are applying, and havenât looked at the app that closely. It is also not possible to visit every school you are interested in, usually.
@Dancingmom518 we homeschool, so high school visits arenât an option. However, I personally wonder just how much âweightâ students get from meeting with local recruiters. (Many schools publicize their visits and have meet-and-greets at hotels, etc.) My kids have never met with local recruiters, and it has not negatively affected them. I know people say that it helps a lot in terms of showing demonstrated interest, but not attending local events has not negatively impacted their acceptances.
If your child knows that a school is at the top of their list, introducing themselves to a recruiter at at a local event isnât going to hurt them. If they have a conflict and canât attend, donât panic that it is a negative.
Fwiw, I would also urge caution if your child receives a personal invite to a meet-and-greet. Those mean your child is competitive for whatever it is for (many times they do these for competitive scholarships), but that is the extent of what it means. Equally, not receiving an invite does not mean they arenât competitive. It can be as simple as whether or not they have given permission to CB or ACT to release their information. For example, USColumbia invites top kids to steak dinners to hear about their Honors College and Top Scholars. There are kids invited to the dinner who do not end up invited to Top Scholar weekend and kids not invited to the dinner who are.
DD20 is not willing to miss class to meet with the reps. She finds it odd that they come at all different times of the day.
@whataboutcollege I am sorry to say there is not a way to split the writing score from rest of ACT. However, schools that do not consider it will not care what it is anyway.
If a college tracks interest, itâs another opportunity to show interest. If they donât, it doesnât matter. I donât think it hurts at all if you canât make it.
Fall Senior year is not too late for these, itâs when the adcoms are reading apps. Our GC says they are really meant for seniors. That way they can get those last questions in and some face time, and they should have the list pared down by then reducing the number of these a student attends.
My eldest only went to the ones he was applying to and only where the school tracked interest. No BC, no Ivyâs, etc.
For colleges that do interviews - sometimes this visit day is when they can get an interview in at the high school.