For many high schoolers, getting started on a college search can be difficult, especially if you don’t know much about your preferences: private or public, urban or rural, large or small. Thankfully, the college counselors have a way to ease students into the process by offering sophomores the chance to visit both OSU and Denison University on May 31.
A group of sophomores will board a bus destined for Denison University at 8:30 in the morning. After splitting into three different groups accompanied by Ms. Heywood, Mrs. FitzPatrick, or Mrs. Young, the students tour the campus led by a Denison student. A short information session along with an application review simulation will also take place. After eating in one of Denison’s dining halls, students will tour OSU in the afternoon and also get an information session. Sophomores will return to Academy by 4:30.
For some students who might not have much experience with the college search process, campus tours may be new to them, so our college counselors are offering this opportunity so students can see schools up close and personal.
“It’s like when you go to buy a house or buy a car,” said Mrs. FitzPatrick. “You can look on CarMax, or you can look at Realtor.com, and think you have found the perfect car or perfect house. But when you get there, you’re thinking, ‘Really? Are these the same pictures?’ Colleges are the same way.”
A school may look perfect on paper or on a website, but a real-life perspective can change that opinion in an instant. You might not like the surrounding town, or maybe there isn’t enough open space on the campus. There have even been instances where after visiting a school and talking with some of the students, people decide that the school isn’t right for them. Visiting a school for yourself is the best way to form your own opinion, without the influence of advertisements or rumors.
These tours aren’t just for students looking at OSU or Denison either. “Even if you say “I want to get out of Ohio, and I don’t have any interest in Ohio State or Denison,” it’s still a good day to visit,” said Mrs. FitzPatrick. “You can still see what it feels like to take a tour at a large, public university and still see what it feels like to be on a small campus, to just walk around and let yourself have that experience.”
By holding both tours on the same day, you can make a more direct comparison between larger and smaller schools. You’ll also figure out what you can get out of a campus tour: what information you’ll be told, what questions you should ask, and what terminology you should get familiar with. After all, the phrase “retention rate” isn’t one I associate with the sophomore vocabulary.
While Mrs. FitzPatrick and Ms. Heywood will do a little debriefing in between the tours, these visits will allow students to find out what they need to learn for themselves.
As the tours are next week, nearly all the spots for the trips have been filled by around forty sophomores. It’s heartening to see a growing interest in exploring colleges and that plenty of students have jumped at the chance to take advantage of a learning experience as great as this one.
