Sprat had said on numerous occasions that he did not want to go to a big school. I thought it was important for him to visit a large campus and a small campus so that he would be sure that is what he wanted. I picked a small campus that was close to us for our first visit. Sprat fell in love with it, the most appealing thing was the 10 minute walk from dorm to class. The draw back of smaller schools is that they may not have the major that your student is looking for. This first campus tour set the level that all other tours would have to meet or exceed to be on his list of prospects. This first tour was awesome because we actually met the Vice President of the University, he came in a sat with Sprat and I while we waited for our tour. He was genuinely interested in what Sprat was going to major in and where he might go to school. The one thing that stood out from this visit with the Vice President, he told us to pay attention to how the different schools treat you as a prospective student. Do they care about the student's success or do they just care about the money. That has gone with me and with Sprat to each visit. We have paid attention to how they treated us as prospective students. Our next visit was to a larger campus, here we were treated like a number and shuttled through just like one of the herd. Sprat was not impressed with this University and there was no attempt to impress us with what they had to offer. I knew going in that Sprat was not interested here but they did not know that. Our third tour was another smaller campus, not as small as the first campus but smaller than the large Universities. We were treated like dignitaries visiting another country here. We received the red carpet treatment, we were driven around in a golf cart to visit the instructional buildings, dorm rooms, and the campus. We had our interview first with an admissions counselor who wanted to make sure Sprat knew about every opportunity they had for him. They also talked about scholarships he might be eligible for and also told us about other places to look for scholarships. In my eyes this University cares about their students and wants them to succeed, because if the student succeeds then the University succeeds. They also gave us the contact information for the admissions counselor and told us to contact them if we had any questions or concerns. That is the first time any of our tours gave us this type of information.
The last tour I did not get to go on. It was Sprat and the Hubbs alone. That is kind of scary. I sent my questions and all the things I wanted to know and just hoped that the hubbs would ask those questions. This was another smaller University, it is a little closer than the others. Even though this was a smaller University they behaved just like the "big boys." The hubbs said all they talked about was how much money was required and when you had to pay it. They do not offer the scholarship opportunities the previous University did. Sprat was not impressed with any part of this University and neither was my hubby. He said they were treated like a herd of cattle and there was not red carpet feel at this one. The other thing that troubled me was that only 20% of the students were in state students and I am sorry I have a problem with Universities that only take a very small portion of students from their own home state.
I do not need to be treated like a queen but I do want to be treated special since we are considering paying a great deal of money for a top notch education. We do not have any other tours on the calendar right now because Sprat is pretty serious about school number three. We will wait and see how the summer goes with his online class at our community college. I think he will apply to school number one and school number three.
We will have to wait and see though, you know how teenagers are and how they change their minds.
Stay tuned for the college search and application process.
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