<p>Are the graduate school preview weekend worth going to? Do they give you any leverage in getting into the schools? I’m talking about the ones’ that reach out for minorities to get them to apply to their schools…</p>
<p>I do not have experience specifically with those weekends, but I would think if it were feasible for you to do so it would be worthwhile if for nothing else then to give you a chance to check out the school and see what you think.</p>
<p>I doubt they keep lists of attendees to check against applicants or anything like that leverage wise, but it would add something you could write about in your SOP. “When I attended ________ weekend I was able to meet with ________ and ________ and was impressed with their research and the facilities…” It shows that you are eagerly interested in the school, had a chance to check it out and are still interested if that makes sense. </p>
<p>I would not go into debt to travel extensively for these weekends or anything, personally, but yeah, I think it can help a little.</p>
<p>If you’re talking about structural engineering grad schools, then no it doesn’t help.</p>
<p>My department at my school had a “preliminary” acceptance weekend, where applicants were flown out for a tour and to meet the professors, and after that weekend final decisions were made as to who would get offered an actual acceptance. I will say that those weekends mattered a lot for our program, as they only wanted to accept students that showed an actual interest in attending and matched research interests with a professor or two. I took out a bunch of students when they visited, and the director of admissions asked me for any info about various students I had impressions about.</p>