Counselor Edition: Shveta Visits Colleges With Her Son
Counselor Shveta Bagade shares Admitted Student Day Experiences
Shveta Bagade is a College Counselor based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Recently she went on College visits with her son for admitted students.
Inspired by those visits, she shared her thoughts about visiting colleges on a recent Podcast Episode.
Here is an edited version of that conversation.
Q: Let’s start with some basics. Why should students visit colleges?
Shveta: Oh, my goodness. Well, there are lots of reasons.
One, you get to really feel the kind of the vibe of the school.
A lot of schools have what they call admitted student days. I definitely recommend attending those.
There are events around supporting students who have been admitted to school to the college.
Show all the highlights, everything from the specific colleges that they've been admitted to, whether it's like the humanities, social sciences, engineering, whatever it is, to here's our recreation center, and here's a sample of our dorm.
And you get to try out food on campus.
And sometimes it's good for those people who live in milder climates, like California, to experience the weather.
Students who have received financial aid packages and feel like they need a little bit more because of their financial situation
Getting to go on campus and actually talking face to face with a financial aid person, is definitely valuable.
So, take advantage of the opportunity, make the appointment.
And see if they can squeeze out a few more dollars for you, to help make that school a more feasible place to attend!
Q: What should students look for on their College visits?
Shveta: So, you know, this is a little bit tricky, because there are some generic things every student should be finding out about.
Like housing. You know how that works in terms of the types of housing that are available. If they have different living communities, Living Learning Communities. Is it optional? Is it required?
Is housing guaranteed for freshman year?
And what does it look like after freshman year, If it's only guaranteed for freshman year.
These are all great questions to ask.
I just came back with my son from Oregon State. He is a high school senior this year.
Oregon State allows you to put your name in the queue for housing without actually accepting your offer. And no deposit required!
This is, for me, very unusual. and I said to my son, if this is even a remotely good choice for you, put your name in the queue, which was great, because a lot of schools require a housing deposit.
So Oregon State is definitely one of those schools that's saying, “Hey, we get it. But housing is important, and we want you to get the best choices available to you, rather than wait till May 1, which is the Decision Day.”
Of course, everybody's college experience should be individual. So what are the things you're looking for from that experience?
Is it being part of clubs?
Is it study abroad? Can you do study abroad, research, internships with the major you've selected.
Of course, extracurricular activities.
And, what do you do for fun on the weekends at this place?
You know, there are just so many different things, and every student is different. So you should be all looking for different things for yourself.
Q: So, how should students actually go about doing this? Who do they approach? Or do they have to kind of just go and explore by themselves?
Shveta: Well, that's what's nice about these Admitted Student Days.
They are really good about putting all those people out in the front of you.
They might have, like a resource fair, or club fair things along those lines.
Or they might say, you can speak to somebody in financial aid.
It's open to admitted students from 10am to 12pm you want to talk about study abroad, you can go to the study abroad location.
Every college runs their Admitted Student day differently, but they make them accessible, and so it's on the student to take the initiative when the university is providing all the opportunities there for you to access.
So look at the schedule that they're providing and plan accordingly.
Build in a few extra hours to be able to spend a little more time. Go on the tour of the campus. Do your own tour. Once you take in a tour of the campus, go walk around yourself, drive around yourself, whatever you can do. Get the feel of the school. Can you picture yourself on this campus? These are all like, just important things to do.
I always feel like a little concerned for students who especially like, I live in San Jose. We have milder weather and students who have gotten admitted to Cornell.
And I always ask the question, so when are you going to go visit Cornell?
And they say they're not.
And I'm like, Cornell in February is a very different place than San Jose in February. So it's really important for students to kind of get an appreciation of what it's like.
Our next trip is to Purdue, and I'm telling my son, it's going to be cold, plan accordingly, and we're going to probably be walking through snow, so we definitely need, you know, good shoes or boots or whatever, that are comfortable. So it's really kind of planning around those things.
I know this costs money, but you're already making such a huge investment in this education, it's worth to at least take a trip to your top two choices for sure. And I know some students are still waiting for offers that come out in March and early April. So if you need to wait till then, these schools have admitted student days, basically starting from now till almost mid-April.
Q:What are things that you might be surprised by?
Shveta: I think I'm always surprised by the students who don't ask questions.
I literally just witnessed this at Oregon State. They did a really nice round table discussion. You sat at a table based on your major, and you got to speak to somebody about questions for that college.
So my son is applying mechanical engineering. So we sat at the mechanical engineering table, and this gentleman, who's worked at Oregon State for like 20 years, could answer all kinds of questions. He gave a little synopsis and then opened it up for questions.
And there are eight students at this table, most of them with their parents, and nobody was asking questions. And I just kind of looked at my son and said, Go ahead, because he kind of looked at me like, should I and I'm like, Yes, you should go for it. And the questions he asked, to his credit, were really good. I'd love to take credit for that, I can't, because they were specific to him.
Yeah, things he's looking for in terms of experience, of like, he's wanting to join, like, one of those race car competition groups. What does that look like at Oregon State? Do you have to apply? Are there minimum conditions? Or can you just join? And how many are there at Oregon State?
And of course, they had representatives from those clubs there, that you could speak to directly.
You know, how do you support students who want to get internships? These are all important questions to ask. Take advantage of it. Don't be shy. You have to go out of your comfort zone. You're doing that by going to college. This is practice of going out of your comfort zone.
And you'd be surprised how much you'll get from these universities. Their goal is to entice you to attend that school. So they're going to give you information to help you, hopefully convince you to attend the school.
So I was really surprised by that, by how many students weren't asking questions, because this is your chance ask the questions!
Q: Finally a personal question. What did your son think of the visit? How do you think he responded?
Shveta: He's my youngest, my third one. I let my children, pick three to four colleges to visit, within reason, of course.
And I just always assumed they're picking places because these are their top choices.
And so I asked him, “Hey, how did Oregon State land as your top choice?”
And he goes, “It's not my top choice, but I've never been to Oregon, and I felt it was important for me to go see it, to see if it would be my top choice.”
And I thought that was really interesting perspective, because he's got other schools on his list that he's been he has admission offers, but he's been through those areas, so he doesn't feel necessarily compelled to see them.
I know Arizona State University is a good example. I've been to Phoenix, know what kind of a vibe Tempe has.
We're visiting Purdue, because that is a top choice for him. But he's been to the Midwest. He's been there when it's cold. And windy and miserable. So it's not about the weather. It's more about seeing what Purdue is like.
By visiting Oregon State, it actually kind of floated to the top of my son’s list. It's big negative is all that ☔️rain!
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Thanks.
Finally, my heartfelt Thanks to all my Podcast guests who have been generous with their time and counsel on my Podcast.
Wish You a Fruitful March!
Venkat