Visitation Weekend Conflict

[Isos]

I have been admitted to UT Austin and Cornell, and I was quite flummoxed to notice that they both invited me to visitation weekends on the same date. They both want to book travel accommodations ASAP.

 

I admit that this isn't a bad problem to have, but I really want to see both schools to make informed decisions, etc.

 

Does anyone have experience with this scenario or either of the school's visitation weekends? Do either of them host multiple sessions? Thanks for any input!

[TakeruK]

You can almost always reschedule your visitation weekend. Three years ago, one school even told me that they will only reimburse for the official open house weekend but I was visiting a string of schools close together so I made arrangements to meet with profs and visit the campus on my own anyways. After I made the plans, they said they would reimburse me after all.

 

So, in your case, I would pick one school to visit on the official date and let the other school know that you have a conflict (don't have to say what) and would really like to visit on another day. I guess you have a few options and they come with some risk:

 

1. Tell both schools that both of them invited you to the same weekend and ask if one of them would be able to reschedule. The positive is that you don't make one school feel like they are lower priority, but the negatives are that giving both of them a choice might result in no action being taken for awhile. If you had a preference, you won't be able to make sure you visit your favoured school on the official date either!

 

2. Tell your favoured school that you'll attend their weekend and ask the second school to visit on another day/weekend (maybe the Monday/Tuesday right after?). The positive is that I think it's important to meet your potential cohorts because that usually plays a role in helping you decide where to go. Also, going on the official weekend usually means you have more opportunities to learn things about the program. The negative is that the second school might feel that they're not as highly ranked by you. The second school might also not be able to reschedule you (whereas if you had asked both schools, you might have been able to reschedule the first and visit both places). However, I wouldn't worry too much about letting the second school know that you prefer to visit the first school that weekend if that's the truth.

 

3. Same as option 2, but lie to the second school about the reason (so that they don't know you are choosing to visit the other school over them). Pros and cons are the same as #2 I think, but with the extra negative of the risks inherent to lying. Schools generally know when their main competitors are sending out decisions and doing visits so they might figure it out. Not worth it, in my opinion, but just including for completeness.

 

Last year, I was visiting two schools in the same area and the visits were scheduled for Thurs-Fri on adjacent weeks. I asked if I could visit the first school on the following Mon-Tues instead (so that I visited 2 schools in the same week, with only one "rest day" in between). It worked out because it turns out a few others had asked for the same thing so I was still able to meet a few potential students/colleagues on the alternative visit date.

 

So, if you have no preference on alternate dates, let the school pick them for you because it would be easier for them if you visited with other people needing an alternate date and it would be good for you to meet potential colleagues! Win-win!

[Isos]

Thanks, TakeruK. Those do seem like the best, logical choices (minus lying of course   ). I mean, they're not going to rescind funding offers over it, I would assume.

[ChemPhysMatSci]

It's happened to me twice:

 

 

1. Admitted to A and signed up for A's event. Admitted to B. Invited to B's event, but cannot attend. Told B that I had a prior engagement with another institution and that I would like to come another time if possible. Haven't heard back.

 

2. Invited to C. Accepted invitation to visit C. Invited to visit D. Told D that I had a prior engagement and that if they have another event I would like to come, or that I could try to make it if they dates didn't align exactly. D told me that the event wasn't crucial to admissions and that they would let me know if another event came up.

 

 

It's a sad life :/