by Evelyn J. Mocbeichel
It’s that time of year when high school juniors are seriously considering what college they want to attend. When our oldest was a junior in high school, she had a list of schools she wanted to visit. Some were day trips and others involved going away overnight. We used to take advantage of any three-day holiday weekends because the campuses were open and class activity in session. Organized, scheduled orientations are most beneficial. Our trips were family outings because it is worth letting the younger students see what is involved and better understand what an older sibling is going through. If a second child is in high school, taking him or her along can alleviate the need to return to a campus, for their selection. With summer soon approaching, it might be beneficial to check out which colleges offer tours during the summer that include orientation for prospective students or those who might consider submitting an application.
By driving to the various schools we learned how long it took to get there for when the student would come home for holidays. Most colleges do not permit freshman students to have a car on campus the first year, because of parking limitations. Therefore, the student needs to find public transportation or car pool arrangements. So one consideration was how convenient was it for traveling back and forth to school. With a composition notebook in hand, I made notes during each tour and we discussed them on the ride home. Scheduled Open House Orientations are the best to enroll in for complete information about the school. We noticed dormitory room sizes and the distance the student had to walk to class. If she had night classes or wanted to attend a school event, was the dorm room in an isolated area, or close to the main campus? When visiting multiple schools during the course of our search, I found it easier to recall certain aspects by making a few inexpensive purchases at the campus bookstore. Many of the universities were proud of their Georgian colonial architecture of certain buildings on campus and colorful postcards often depicted this. We found postcards that showed the library building, student senate hall, campus green or their science building and sports arena. On the back of each card I noted the date of our visit and the time it took to drive to their location.
What did we think of the orientation presentation given by the school? Was it professional, organized, and well planned? We looked at the content of the speeches and the quality of the information. The persons giving the speeches represented the school and we scored some schools highly and others very poorly based on the people they selected to represent to potential enrollees. Look at the cafeteria. Is it clean, large enough for the student population and does it offer a well-rounded choice of meals for the student? If you survey any college students they will swear that on parent or orientation visiting days the food is “always better than what they normally eat”. This may be the case, but then again, there is nothing like home cooking and a student has to realize this. I have to smile remembering our youngest child’s impression of one school we visited with her much older sister. The school had a breakfast buffet for visiting guests on tour and our grade school daughter enjoyed it immensely. Her input to her sister was to “Come to this school, they make really good French toast!”
Actually, the car ride home is the best time to discuss all that we heard and saw on each tour. What did you think of the library and the amount of computers available to the students should your own laptop not working? When we broke off into segments, did you like what you heard discussed about the subject you were going to major in? Did the students walking around on campus seem friendly, involved, and happy? Sometimes we went to a campus and the students were so outgoing and open to chat when they saw a group of us following a tour guide. On a few tours the students seemed almost grumpy, sour faced and moody, as if they didn’t want to be there. After hearing the unprofessional presentation the administration had put together, I could see why they were unhappy. It is also interesting for a parent to hear the opinion their student has of the same observations. Remember, this is where your child might be attending and much of what the student is looking for might differ from what we did at their age.
