Campus Visits

[tinymica]

19 hours ago, politics 'n prose said:

So I've never gone on a campus visit myself, but I was a party to recruitment days when I was doing my MFA, and I can tell you that most prospective students went the comfortable-but-presentable route (which also tends to be my personal style). I think there are some tips specific to wardrobe earlier in this thread, but for what it's worth, I plan to go with jeans, a decent sweater, and shoes made for walkin' (which, in my case, are a new-ish pair of Converse). 

I think it's less about looking "professional" (whatever that means--because it's so often coded, right?) and more about dressing in clothes that will make you feel good and not self-conscious. You're visiting the campus to get a sense of the school, the students, and the faculty: that task is overwhelming enough without also worrying about what you're wearing because you've chosen something that isn't you and that you can't feel fully at-ease in. My advice: dress in the clothes you feel most yourself in, within reason (like, your coziest sweatpants would probably be a no-no, but your favorite pair of jeans should be totally fine), and try to devote your energy to really immersing yourself in the experience and doing your due diligence in "interviewing" the program, as it were. You'll do great!

Thanks so much for this answer! I was wondering myself what the dress code is; I went out and bought a new "business casual" dress because I was unsure about jeans, but now I feel like I'll look too stiff. It's nice to know I can get away with dressing comfortably

[jm6394]

On 2/17/2020 at 7:54 PM, LemonadeChronicles said:

Hello everyone! 

Is anyone going to UT Austin's visit?

Also, to anyone who got accepted to CUNY, do they reimburse for the campus visit?

 

 

I didn’t see anything about CUNY funding travel but it can’t hurt to ask! (I’m local)

[literarily_erin]

On 2/17/2020 at 6:54 PM, LemonadeChronicles said:

Hello everyone! 

Is anyone going to UT Austin's visit?

Also, to anyone who got accepted to CUNY, do they reimburse for the campus visit?

 

 

I'm attending the UT Austin visit!

[meghan_sparkle]

At what point is the norm for receiving a schedule/itinerary for a campus visit? Especially ones I RSVP'd to more than a week ago? I'm coordinating a lot atm and am really wary about booking nonrefundable flights without a guarantee e.g. about what nights my accommodation are and where, or in the case where one visit is followed by another back to back, figuring out what time the former will end in order to book the right flight to make the latter. I've emailed a couple programs about it but am not sure whether I'm just following up too early and it's the sort of thing that only concretizes the week before, or whether some are dropping the ball. Realize it's a massive luxury to have this "problem", so sorry to complain. But tbh I'm a veteran solo flyer and nothing has ever stressed me out like the prospect of trying to plan the next month and book everything quickly and efficiently and not fuck it up. I'm terrified I'll arrange something wrong and miss one visit, or arrive early and have to stay a night I'm not reimbursed for, or wait too long to book and end up having to pay for an expensive flight outside of the travel budget...idk. Maybe I'm going crazy.

[karamazov]

Just booked my flights for my visits to Tufts and Penn State! 

[The Hoosier Oxonian]

5 hours ago, meghan_sparkle said:

At what point is the norm for receiving a schedule/itinerary for a campus visit? Especially ones I RSVP'd to more than a week ago? I'm coordinating a lot atm and am really wary about booking nonrefundable flights without a guarantee e.g. about what nights my accommodation are and where, or in the case where one visit is followed by another back to back, figuring out what time the former will end in order to book the right flight to make the latter. I've emailed a couple programs about it but am not sure whether I'm just following up too early and it's the sort of thing that only concretizes the week before, or whether some are dropping the ball. Realize it's a massive luxury to have this "problem", so sorry to complain. But tbh I'm a veteran solo flyer and nothing has ever stressed me out like the prospect of trying to plan the next month and book everything quickly and efficiently and not fuck it up. I'm terrified I'll arrange something wrong and miss one visit, or arrive early and have to stay a night I'm not reimbursed for, or wait too long to book and end up having to pay for an expensive flight outside of the travel budget...idk. Maybe I'm going crazy.

It seems totally reasonable to me to reach out to departments and let them know your situation and ask for help! Especially since you're coming from overseas, which makes everything more complicated and more expensive.

Not on the same scale, but I can definitely commiserate about visit planning stress! Besides the fact that between visits and an international conference I'm missing two and a half weeks of my last semester of undergrad (and I'm a goody two-shoes who usually has perfect attendance, so that really freaks me out!), I had nine-tenths of a heart attack yesterday when I was looking at my calendar at the flights I booked for Yale's visit next week. I'm returning home via two flights, the first of which leaves CT on Tuesday evening and the second of which arrives at my home airport at 12:17 AM on Wednesday. But for some reason my stupid Google calendar pulled my flight info from my inbox incorrectly and showed me that my second flight LEAVES on Wednesday rather than ARRIVING that day, making it look like I had a 24-hour instead of a 50-minute layover before my connection. If that were true, I'd miss both a day of school and probably my Thursday flight to Chicago for Northwestern's visit, so I spent about fifteen minutes hyperventilating and checking and rechecking my flight receipt and the airline website until I was completely certain that the problem was with my calendar importing the information incorrectly and not that I'd stupidly booked a completely wrong flight! So if visits are making you crazy, at least you don't have to be crazy alone!

[meghan_sparkle]

9 hours ago, The Hoosier Oxonian said:

It seems totally reasonable to me to reach out to departments and let them know your situation and ask for help! Especially since you're coming from overseas, which makes everything more complicated and more expensive.

Not on the same scale, but I can definitely commiserate about visit planning stress! Besides the fact that between visits and an international conference I'm missing two and a half weeks of my last semester of undergrad (and I'm a goody two-shoes who usually has perfect attendance, so that really freaks me out!), I had nine-tenths of a heart attack yesterday when I was looking at my calendar at the flights I booked for Yale's visit next week. I'm returning home via two flights, the first of which leaves CT on Tuesday evening and the second of which arrives at my home airport at 12:17 AM on Wednesday. But for some reason my stupid Google calendar pulled my flight info from my inbox incorrectly and showed me that my second flight LEAVES on Wednesday rather than ARRIVING that day, making it look like I had a 24-hour instead of a 50-minute layover before my connection. If that were true, I'd miss both a day of school and probably my Thursday flight to Chicago for Northwestern's visit, so I spent about fifteen minutes hyperventilating and checking and rechecking my flight receipt and the airline website until I was completely certain that the problem was with my calendar importing the information incorrectly and not that I'd stupidly booked a completely wrong flight! So if visits are making you crazy, at least you don't have to be crazy alone!

That is on the same scale!! My work are being super flexible with letting me work remotely and have more days off when on visits than I probably should—if I was balancing this with undergrad I would literally go COMMAND --> FORCE QUIT on the whole operation. I know someone in the middle of a 1-year Oxford masters with a massive amount of coursework due in a few weeks and she's just ... flying back and forth for individual visits and it's BLOWING MY MIND like HOW are you surviving the jetlag?? No ma'am!! No ma'am. 

Also: I have also had that happen before re: calendar app importing flight details in a weird way to make it look like you're leaving or arriving on a completely different day. Surprised it hasn't given me heart failure yet.

[The Hoosier Oxonian]

35 minutes ago, meghan_sparkle said:

I know someone in the middle of a 1-year Oxford masters with a massive amount of coursework due in a few weeks and she's just ... flying back and forth for individual visits and it's BLOWING MY MIND like HOW are you surviving the jetlag?? No ma'am!! No ma'am. 

This person you know must be superhuman! I'm facing the prospect of trying to survive going on a visit the day after getting back from a conference in the UK (which happens to be during literally the only week of the year when the time difference between the UK and home is 6 hours instead of 5 because of daylight savings, so great timing!) and am worried enough about jetlag impeding my experience of that one visit - can't imagine doing it multiple times!

[spikeseagulls]

Booked my flight for Irvine! Their visit days are the same week as NeMLA, so I'll have to leave directly after the visit (maybe during), take a Lyft to LAX, and hop an overnight flight to Boston in order to be there on time to present. ?

[gooniesneversaydie]

13 hours ago, karamazov said:

Just booked my flights for my visits to Tufts and Penn State! 

I'll see you at Tufts! I might do a recon visit beforehand to scope the joint as I don't live very far. 

[timespentreading]

What are people's thoughts on visiting places that have waitlisted you? I'm on four waitlists with no acceptances, and I just heard back from the final program I was waiting for. So, I now have to decide if it's worth the money to pay my way to visit any of these places so that I could make an informed decision if an offer comes my way later in March/April.

[The Hoosier Oxonian]

Holy crap - just got my visit schedule for Yale and it has on it that I have a meeting with Michael Warner and I'm so starstruck I might die (I've got to get these histrionics under control before then!) But seriously, how do you walk into the office of someone whose name has been a legend to you for years and not just melt into the floor?

[sidneys]

is anyone going to be at the cornell visit day? pm me, I'd love to connect before meeting in person! :-) 

[Rani13]

So two of my top three schools have visit days on the exact same days. What in the world am I supposed to do? I have a sense of which one I favour between the two, but I really want to visit the other one because I don’t know it well and I’d like to make an informed decision.

A possibly mitigating factor is that I live in the same city as the school I prefer, so I suppose I could theoretically skip out on the official visit and instead schedule meetings with professors and the DGS for when I’m back from the other school. But I would still be missing out on so much. Plus I would not get to meet the cohort, which I think is important. Also, I don’t really want to tell the DGS I’m prioritising  the other school (especially because I’m much more likely to choose this one). Schools! Get it together!

Any advice is appreciated.

[caffeinated applicant]

34 minutes ago, Rani13 said:

So two of my top three schools have visit days on the exact same days. What in the world am I supposed to do? I have a sense of which one I favour between the two, but I really want to visit the other one because I don’t know it well and I’d like to make an informed decision.

A possibly mitigating factor is that I live in the same city as the school I prefer, so I suppose I could theoretically skip out on the official visit and instead schedule meetings with professors and the DGS for when I’m back from the other school. But I would still be missing out on so much. Plus I would not get to meet the cohort, which I think is important. Also, I don’t really want to tell the DGS I’m prioritising  the other school (especially because I’m much more likely to choose this one). Schools! Get it together!

Any advice is appreciated.

My gut reaction is to go to the far one and schedule informal meetings with the close one. Meeting the cohort at Close School might be a wash--it's a very short time to get to know people, you'll be interacting with people outside your cohort as well, and would you ultimately make the decision based on cohort anyway?

This is assuming that the two are relatively close together in terms of favorability--enough that you could see yourself being swayed from the preferred school to the other by things like other grad students' notes about departmental support or professors' personalities in person or their note that "oh yes well I do currently have 12 students under advisement so I only see each dissertation student once a semester..." If you're just about set on the close school and really couldn't see yourself turning it down for the far school (for example if close school is ranked top 20 and far school is ranked 60th), perhaps just go to close school's weekend.

Either way, when you schedule the not-official-weekend talks, keep in mind you don't have to tell them why you can't make it! "I'm very unfortunately not available to visit the weekend of X" is perfectly fine. They will probably assume it is another program visit, but it could also be your sister's wedding, or your mother's surgery, or your own surgery, or any number of other things keeping you from visiting the "correct" weekend, and they don't need to know. As long as your tone comes off as genuinely apologetic and not callous, you're fine. 

[Rani13]

3 minutes ago, caffeinated applicant said:

My gut reaction is to go to the far one and schedule informal meetings with the close one. Meeting the cohort at Close School might be a wash--it's a very short time to get to know people, you'll be interacting with people outside your cohort as well, and would you ultimately make the decision based on cohort anyway?

This is assuming that the two are relatively close together in terms of favorability--enough that you could see yourself being swayed from the preferred school to the other by things like other grad students' notes about departmental support or professors' personalities in person or their note that "oh yes well I do currently have 12 students under advisement so I only see each dissertation student once a semester..." If you're just about set on the close school and really couldn't see yourself turning it down for the far school (for example if close school is ranked top 20 and far school is ranked 60th), perhaps just go to close school's weekend.

Either way, when you schedule the not-official-weekend talks, keep in mind you don't have to tell them why you can't make it! "I'm very unfortunately not available to visit the weekend of X" is perfectly fine. They will probably assume it is another program visit, but it could also be your sister's wedding, or your mother's surgery, or your own surgery, or any number of other things keeping you from visiting the "correct" weekend, and they don't need to know. As long as your tone comes off as genuinely apologetic and not callous, you're fine. 

Really helpful, and probably exactly what I’m going to do. Thank you! And yes, the two schools are very close in ranking and I’m very keen to at least talk to my potential advisor at the far school.

[grace2137]

On 2/25/2020 at 11:49 AM, timespentreading said:

What are people's thoughts on visiting places that have waitlisted you? I'm on four waitlists with no acceptances, and I just heard back from the final program I was waiting for. So, I now have to decide if it's worth the money to pay my way to visit any of these places so that I could make an informed decision if an offer comes my way later in March/April.

also curious to know what others think about this re: waitlist programs! My first instinct was that it may be an uncomfortable/weird request, but then at the same time the thought of making a decision sight unseen if I did happen to get in sounds overwhelming.

[The Hoosier Oxonian]

On 2/25/2020 at 11:49 AM, timespentreading said:

What are people's thoughts on visiting places that have waitlisted you? I'm on four waitlists with no acceptances, and I just heard back from the final program I was waiting for. So, I now have to decide if it's worth the money to pay my way to visit any of these places so that I could make an informed decision if an offer comes my way later in March/April.

I think I'm going to write back to the DGS at the school where I'm waitlisted and ask how (if at all) visits are normally handled for waitlisted students. I don't see how it can hurt in any situation as long as you aren't pushy/demanding!

[LitScript]

On 2/17/2020 at 4:54 PM, LemonadeChronicles said:

Hello everyone! 

Is anyone going to UT Austin's visit?

Also, to anyone who got accepted to CUNY, do they reimburse for the campus visit?

 

 

Hi there! First time posting, but I'll be UT Austin next weekend visiting. Still wondering about what hotel we will be at and when we will know with whom we are bunking for the two nights. Looking forward to it!

[MichelleObama]

On 2/25/2020 at 6:16 PM, The Hoosier Oxonian said:

Holy crap - just got my visit schedule for Yale and it has on it that I have a meeting with Michael Warner and I'm so starstruck I might die (I've got to get these histrionics under control before then!) But seriously, how do you walk into the office of someone whose name has been a legend to you for years and not just melt into the floor?

I'm still waiting on my visit schedule for Yale!! Absolutely terrified in the best way. 

On 2/25/2020 at 6:34 PM, sidneys said:

is anyone going to be at the cornell visit day? pm me, I'd love to connect before meeting in person! ?

I'm also an early modern admit at Cornell, but will be unable to make the visit. I look forward to hearing about your experience! I've always wanted to see that campus, too ?

[caffeinated applicant]

13 hours ago, grace2137 said:

also curious to know what others think about this re: waitlist programs! My first instinct was that it may be an uncomfortable/weird request, but then at the same time the thought of making a decision sight unseen if I did happen to get in sounds overwhelming.

I've also been thinking about this--like, I would never accept a job offer in another state without first speaking with the person who would be my manager or poking around the town to see if I could live there. And this is a five-year commitment! I'm planning in mid-March to email asking for info about my place on the list, and if I'm still in the running, I'll see if I can get the contact info for some professors and late-stage grad students just to do some basic due diligence. One of my schools is in a place I'm quite familiar with and the other is in a state I've never visited, so since I'm lucky to be in a job where I can take a day or two off and have the means to travel a bit, I'll see about swinging by the totally unknown area. 

Edited February 27, 2020 by caffeinated applicant

[jm6394]

14 hours ago, grace2137 said:

also curious to know what others think about this re: waitlist programs! My first instinct was that it may be an uncomfortable/weird request, but then at the same time the thought of making a decision sight unseen if I did happen to get in sounds overwhelming.

I definitely met some people in the past who were accepted late off waitlists and arranged to come meet faculty and sit in on a class or two, even if they didn’t or couldn’t make it to the official visit!

[karamazov]

UNC Chapel Hill actually directly addressed the question of the campus visit in the waitlist email. The DGS invited me to their open house because they "often end up admitting people into the program from the waitlist" so they'd "love" for me to attend. I guess this means that different programs really do handle their waitlisted students in drastically different ways... which I find really interesting. Maybe some programs know at the outset that they're more or less likely to admit off the waitlist? Maybe it's a question of funds? Regardless, even if I hadn't been invited to the open house, I would definitely have reached out to arrange a time to visit. Like @caffeinated applicant says, committing to spend half a decade at a school and in a city that you possibly haven't even set foot in before seems really risky. If I end up with an offer off the waitlist, I'd definitely want to know what I was getting into before committing. 

[tinymica]

Hi okay I'm scheduled to visit UW next weekend and I'm getting really nervous, as I've never done this before. The DGS did give me an idea of what to expect (campus tour, discussion groups with faculty and other prospective students, a chance to talk to current students), but I won't get an official schedule until basically the day before. I feel like I need to prepare as though it's an interview, but since I've already been accepted there, it'll be like I'm interviewing them, right? It may be my imposter syndrome talking but I really feel like a 12-year-old entering "adult-only" space.

To those of you who have completed visits already, do you have any tips? Were you caught off-guard by anything? Anything you wish you knew? When you met with POIs in person, what did you discuss with them? (I'm pretty nervous about that last part because I was never able to make contact with the one person I really want to work with. He ignored my inquiry emails way back when. But he must have read my stuff, otherwise I don't know why they'd offer me anything.)

Edit: Wait I have another concern... what if I visit and it's absolutely awful but I have nowhere else to go? Cue stress-crying.

Edited February 27, 2020 by tinymica

[caffeinated applicant]

@tinymica: Remain calm--it's going to be okay. They are not going to pull your acceptance. All you have to do is be professional--as in, show up showered and don't tell bawdy jokes. They already think that you are extremely bright and prepared. You have nothing to prove to them. These visits exist for one reason: they want to make you want to come here. Seriously. Shake off the imposter syndrome. Swan into every room. This is your victory lap. You have earned it. Don't worry about trying to look smart. Be prepared to talk about the work that you've done in undergrad and the work that you're interested in doing in the future. Dress fairly nice. Bring questions for the current grad students about quality of life and department support. Wipe clear your memories of prior (non-)interactions with that one faculty member. You've got this.

(NB: My perspective here is as someone who has listened to many a grad student describe these events, which they attended as current students and prospective students, in various fields.)

Edited to add: Just want to underscore that this goes for everyone nervous about going into visits. You earned this. 

Edited February 28, 2020 by caffeinated applicant