Many of these questions will be answered in the various presentations that you’ll be able to attend at these revisits, so check out the schedule of those and be attentive to what interests you. You’ll also probably hear things that raise more questions!
I would suggest focusing on the things that will matter most in making your decision. It’s easy to let your curiosity take over, so if you need info on special dietary needs, make that a priority. The convenience or inconvenience of parking is probably not that important unless you’re a commuter. Families have different interests, and the list above is a good one to use to think through that.
Personally, the issues around academics mattered - how did advising work for first years and thereafter, how were in-demand classes prioritized, when did students declare majors, etc. My kid was interested in that (again, mostly addressed through programming and some of it known during the application process) but far more interested in the other students, how they spent their time, how happy they were, how they made friends, etc. He knew this would be his community for 4 years and wanted to feel excited about it.
You might want to ask questions about financial stuff. Here are things that they might not be straightforward with unless you directly ask. Even when I directly asked, they danced around a bit and it was the one thing that gave me pause about the school my kid picked. Luckily, we are in a situation that some extra expenses will not prevent him from finishing, but they are high enough that for some kids it’s going to be an issue.
Can you complete the degree in 8 semesters? (It is impossible to complete S23’s degree in 8 semesters as there is a required summer course that is 5 weeks. Not only will we pay tuition, but also room and board at the “mountain campus” where the course takes place. No way around it and it comes to about 8k)
How will financial aid be applied to additional semesters if needed? (while we don’t receive FA, S23 has some big scholarships, but they only cover 8 semesters so we pay a lot more for each additional semester than what we consider “tuition”. )
How many kids really finish in 8 semesters? Try to get this info from students. They might tell you that it takes extra semesters because class A,B and C are only offered every other year or only in the Fall or Spring.
On our recent AS tour of a SLAC we got very different messaging from the Administration than we did from the students. Spent the day meeting with students we knew there and got the exact opposite intel from them. Everyone in the college space pushes “fit” over rankings, but it’s hard for families to determine fit when the schools are selling more than telling.
I asked about the social life. How do people meet people? How central to social life are fraternities? Is there a divide between the athletes and non-athlete’s?
We took one of our New College tour guides to lunch at the vegetarian coffee shop and I asked her whether the school was more hookup or long-term dating oriented. (This was before DeSantis and Rufo tried to model New College as the Hillsdale College of Florida, but when it was more New Age-y in style). I was expecting my daughter to die of embarrassment but the girl seemed pleased by the question and ShawD found her answer valuable.
Tour guides at either Williams or Amherst were talking about finance internships. I asked how they got the internships? Through career services? Calling alumni in various firms? Etc.
The University of Rochester tour guide was talking about research opportunities as a distinguishing feature of the school. So I asked several kids how they found the opportunities, how they worked, etc.
At some schools in Canada, we asked what kids did for housing after the first year and how hard it was to find housing, how far away, etc.
And, because both of my kids had LDs, we scheduled meetings with the Disabilities Services Offices to talk specifically about what kinds of accommodations they would offer and to get the general sense of whether they would be helpers or gatekeepers.
Adding to this list, if you’re interested in study abroad- maybe ask to see a list of partner colleges? I’ve found that not all colleges partner with the same tier of schools abroad, so it might be something to consider, if that matters to you…
What is the percentage of classes taught by tenured faculty vs visiting assistant professors?
A small LAC (which, incidentally, has an excellent reputation here on CC) that boasts of its students’ ability to form close relationships with its professors was knocked out when we discovered that numerous students had had, in their first four semesters, something like 15 out of 16 classes taught by visiting assistant professors. Kind of hard to form close personal relationships with professors when they’re gone after one or two years. This over reliance on visiting assistant professors is bad for continuity, bad for morale, and bad for the prospects of real expertise as opposed to recent PhD level of expertise.
Many of the suggested questions can be researched on the college website first. Then the student and parents can come to the visit with prepared questions on details that the website leaves out or is not clear about, rather than spend time listening to the same stuff that is found on the website.
Never having been to an Admitted Students Day, I wonder if it’s even worth going if the applicant was admitted Early Decision, as both our twins were.
So their minds have been made up for a while, and there’s no wooing, at this point, coming their way. They know how the institution works pretty well, and any surprises now will just have to be lived with.
Perhaps it would be fun, like a kind of no-pressure pre-orientation. And they’d meet their potential classmates, though a lot will not end up attending. Maybe it would be fun for them to stand back from the firehose of salesmanship, and just observe.
But I wonder if they’d feel like oddballs. Is it common for ED admits to go? The dates haven’t even been announced yet—maybe when they are, the institution will offer guidance on this question.
Admitted Students’ days are more for wooing the undecided RD admits, as you said, but your kids certainly can go anyway, if they just want more contact with their colleges. Check out the activities and sessions offered to see if they would be of interest.
Visiting + assistant is a very specific combination.
There are nominally visiting profs one might go well out of their way to take a class with (e.g. HRC at Columbia, DiBlasio at UMich, that sort of thing). Make sure to understand that distinction if you’re asking about this!
Not all visiting profs are created equal. (And yes I know that some people would go out of their way to avoid the examples I gave).
We’ve found it helpful in that there are a lot of upperclassmen students there with advice on when to apply to study abroad, how often to meet with advisors, social life insights etc.
My D22 got into her school ED. She chose not to attend the Admitted Students Day. First, she already had something fun planned for that same weekend. Second, she didn’t really see an upside that would justify the costs (flight/rental car/hotel). She said that she knew the school was a good fit and that she would be happy there. To her, there was a possibility that she would go and have a negative experience (even for a dumb reason like a bad tour guide or an irritating kid in her tour group) and then be second guessing her choice all summer. And she didn’t want to risk that.
Personally, if it had been free (meaning we just drove in for the day) and she wasn’t otherwise occupied, I think it could have been fun. It is nice to be celebrated! But it really is meant as a sales pitch for the undecided. (Or as a way to get a kid jazzed up about a school they perhaps weren’t all that interested in. And now that I’m thinking about it that way … maybe it’s better D didn’t go. Her LAC is littered with kids that got rejected from their Ivy of choice. It may have been a little weird for her to spend all day with that bunch trying to get excited about a school she thought was perfect for her!)
Yes, totally different than visiting professors. Also different than a visiting assistant professor who is replacing someone on sabbatical, which is a completely legitimate usage. I’m talking about colleges that hire visiting assistant professors in place of hiring tenured or tenure track professors, to the detriment of students. This can be an issue, as I discovered, even at small, prestigious colleges. One cannot simply rely on academic reputation.
ETA and thank you for pointing out the difference between esteemed Visiting Professors and the essentially glorified adjunct position of many Visiting Assistant Professors. I’ve had the advantage of growing up in a family of academics, but I forget that most students and even most students’ parents have little idea of academic nomenclature.
Seems like a variant of adjunct faculty, but maybe paid differently or better than most adjunct faculty?
The use of adjunct faculty to teach common lower level courses seems to be fairly common, and is different from the examples mentioned by @DroidsLookingFor in post #35 where someone is hired to give an outside perspective in a specialty elective course.