Admitted Students Weekend

[amanda1655]

I received my acceptance for Wisconsin History in the mail yesterday, and they are having an admitted students weekend on April 5th. My fiance pointed out that I may want to wait to respond to them until I have heard from a few more schools and can feel out possible scheduling conflicts. When should I RSVP for the admitted students weekend, especially as it is over two months away? Also, should I e-mail my prospective advisor in the meantime to express my excitement and interest in the program, perhaps with a few questions? I want them to know that I am really interested in the program, especially since they haven't made funding decisions yet.

[crustaceangirl]

Congratulations!!

If they're one of your top choices, I would go ahead and RSVP. April 5 is a bit late to have a visiting weekend, since most schools require you to decide where you're going by April 15, so I don't know how likely a schedule conflict is. If you're really worried about it, you could write to them and say you'd love to come but you're trying to work out whether or not you'll be able to visit at that time, and you'll get back to them as soon as you know (it's the truth, but you don't come right out and say you're waiting to see if a better school accepts you).

If they're paying for your travel expenses, let them know whether you're coming as soon as possible -- the cost of plane tickets will go up over time, and they will probably try to reserve a whole block of hotel rooms at once.

Check the websites of other schools where you applied. About half of mine were up-front about when their interview/recruitment visits would be, so I penciled them into my calendar and worked around them when making plans. (It was sad when one of them rejected me and I had to delete the stuff on my calendar... but not too sad, as another interview later went into its place.)

[UndraftedFreeAgent]

I agree that you should go ahead and RSVP to the accepted students weekend, though it occurs to me that their late visitation weekend is no accident. They put it late so that you might see grass and flowers rather than snow and desolation. I'm willing to bet that if a study were to be conducted about the impacts of bad weather on a student's likelihood to choose a particular university, it would show that having several feet of snow on the ground would hurt their recruiting efforts. That said, I know a few people in other programs up there who are quite happy with the school (and with the hockey).