Making college visit count

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh please! The big schools, ivies and SLACs don't track at all. You can go to any school and take a tour without giving your name. If you want to give a name and are afraid of discrimination, give a fake name. End of problem. Of all the schools we toured only my LAC had a sign-up list and I really doubt they ever looked at it again other than to make sure no more than 30 were in a tour group at a time.

That's odd, because I've toured somewhere between 30 and 40 universities over the years with my kids, and every single one of them had some sort of pre-registration process for campus visits. Maybe it is because we mostly did "junior days" or "senior days" or admitted student programs, but I don't recall "just showing up" for any campus visit.

[b]


Was this recently and were they elite institutions? The college admissions world has changed a lot just in the last few years. Rank is inversely correlated with demonstrated interest. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ishan-puri/college-visits-do-they-re_b_11339892.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Was this recently and were they elite institutions? The college admissions world has changed a lot just in the last few years. Rank is inversely correlated with demonstrated interest. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ishan-puri/college-visits-do-they-re_b_11339892.html

All in the last three years. Elite? Whatever that means - yes, I guess some would be "elite" by DCUM standards.

The article you linked starts off with a really strange premise:

There is an entire industry around college visits, and usually the primary goal is to demonstrate interest to a university.

Of all the college visits we went on, our number one goal was to get a sense of whether that school, or that type of school, would be a good fit. We never visited a school for the specific purpose of demonstrating interest. We never got too caught up in the hype though and are probably an outlier here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was this recently and were they elite institutions? The college admissions world has changed a lot just in the last few years. Rank is inversely correlated with demonstrated interest. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ishan-puri/college-visits-do-they-re_b_11339892.html

All in the last three years. Elite? Whatever that means - yes, I guess some would be "elite" by DCUM standards.

The article you linked starts off with a really strange premise:

There is an entire industry around college visits, and [b]usually the primary goal is to demonstrate interest to a university.[/b]

Of all the college visits we went on, our number one goal was to get a sense of whether that school, or that type of school, would be a good fit. We never visited a school for the specific purpose of demonstrating interest. We never got too caught up in the hype though and are probably an outlier here.

But then the article goes on to say that the elite schools don't care about demonstrated interest and went so far as to say ":rank (of university) is inversely correlated with demonstrated interest". And that was our experience. Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Wash. & Lee, UVA, Dickinson = didn't care, no sign-up sheet. Gettysburg did take down names but it was to arrange people in groups for tours. My LAC did the same - the names were only for putting 30 in a group for each tour.

[Anonymous]

Emory, Princeton and U of Georgia don't care about demonstrated interest. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2018-05-21/what-demonstrated-interest-means-in-college-admissions

[Anonymous]

NEw Poster here....
from our experience some schools do want you to sign up for info sessions and tours. They want to be prepared for the number of people that will be visiting..... location of info session in regards to fire codes, ample tour guides, etc. It may or may not be related to “demonstrated interest” for the purposes of admissions boost. But schools (Duke, I remember specifically) did take down names as you entered.. My thought is that it was so they could send a follow up email survey to those that actually visited and not spam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Banneker Key at UMCP is absolutely a full ride (though there are also partial versions). I know, because my son went to UMCP for free, and they even threw in a stipend. He earned two degrees in 4 years and ended up ahead financially.

To the OP: your DD has an awesome hook! Women are desperately sought after in the computer science world. My son, now a programmer, works for a company that is continually doing outreach to try to bring women on board.

And UMD CP is an excellent choice for Computer Engineering and CS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But then the article goes on to say that the elite schools don't care about demonstrated interest and went so far as to say ":rank (of university) is inversely correlated with demonstrated interest". And that was our experience. Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Wash. & Lee, UVA, Dickinson = didn't care, no sign-up sheet. Gettysburg did take down names but it was to arrange people in groups for tours. My LAC did the same - the names were only for putting 30 in a group for each tour.

Okay, easy enough to say that they don't care, but every one of the schools you mentioned has online pre-registration for tours and information sessions, and many of them say that during busy times, many of them will restrict tours only to those who are registered and that walk-ins cannot be accommodated. I find it hard to believe that any of you would just show up on a campus without some advance notice and expect to be accommodated. We've done that for some unplanned "drive throughs" but never for a formal visit. We've always gotten a lot out of the information sessions and special events, student panels, class visits, etc. If you really want to "Make the college visit count," at least let them know you are coming!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But then the article goes on to say that the elite schools don't care about demonstrated interest and went so far as to say ":rank (of university) is inversely correlated with demonstrated interest". And that was our experience. Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Wash. & Lee, UVA, Dickinson = didn't care, no sign-up sheet. Gettysburg did take down names but it was to arrange people in groups for tours. My LAC did the same - the names were only for putting 30 in a group for each tour.

Okay, easy enough to say that they don't care, but every one of the schools you mentioned has online pre-registration for tours and information sessions, and many of them say that during busy times, many of them will restrict tours only to those who are registered and that walk-ins cannot be accommodated. I find it hard to believe that any of you would just show up on a campus without some advance notice and expect to be accommodated. We've done that for some unplanned "drive throughs" but never for a formal visit. We've always gotten a lot out of the information sessions and special events, student panels, class visits, etc. If you really want to "Make the college visit count," at least let them know you are coming!

"rank is inversely correlated with demonstrated interest". The elites don't care. They take in names for planning purposes so only 30 kids and/or parents are on the tour with the tour guide walking backwards. That is done only for crowd control. No one ever goes back to those lists and enters them into a system. Why would they when they are going to get 37,000+ applications?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College advisor told us some colleges track whether you open their emails and if you click the links too.That said, we saved most college visits for after acceptances. Cheaper to apply then travel a distance to ones that don't offer a spot in the end.

How do they track whether you open an email? Short of asking you to send a "read receipt", they can't know whether you open email, can they?

I don't know the technology, but it can be done. I once went to a car dealership and the salesman asked me about the email he'd sent me the day before. I said I hadn't received one and he countered that I had opened it at 4:37 (example). He was right. I think opening the graphics in the email directed to their website where they could track. (I didn't buy the car from him.)