Why I WON'T Be Going to COW/Bad Experience

Tomfc1
Sat, 29 Apr 2017 17:18:12 +0000

I’m sorry you had a disappointing visit, but every experience has a great deal to do with what you make of it and especially with how well you prepare for the visit. Maybe it did totally suck as you suggested and that’s a shame. It sounds more though like you needed to advocate a bit more for yourself both before and during your visit. It’s not my intention to make light of your experience, but if you are coming from some place as far away as California, I’d think you’d have made 100% sure that you had every base covered including schedules, contact information, maps, etc. before you got on the plane to Ohio. And once you got to campus if you still didn’t have what you needed, or your host wasn’t helpful, all you needed to do is speak up and ask the admissions office to accommodate you. Instead you ended up missing events and meals and then blaming it on other things like not having a map or that “it wasn’t obvious to administrators or students” that you were alone so they didn’t care to help you. In those situations you have to raise your hand and advocate for yourself, not expect people to automatically know how you feel and come running to you. If you spoke up, I’m absolutely certain you would have gotten the help you wanted. Every college owes that to students who travel from far away and spend a lot of money doing it. It’s not in the interest of Wooster or any school to have a potential student go away with a terrible experience. On the flip side, the student has to make the most of that opportunity as well. It’s probably hard when you are traveling alone, and maybe you tried your best, I don’t know. I do know that hundreds of other kids from all over the world came to the same admitted student events at Wooster over the past few weeks. They got there on time and enjoyed all the activities – including my daughter who came from 9 hours away by car. Again, I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy your visit too because Wooster really is a wonderful school with terrific people. If you were dissatisfied with your visit, I’d recommend that you contact Wooster directly instead of just venting online. They would want to know about it so other students won’t have a similar experience to yours. Regardless, it sounds like you found a better fit for you that’s a lot closer to home. And that’s a good thing. Best of luck to you.