Navigating Visit Days with Family

[rosebud14]

Hi everyone! I rarely post here but as I'm looking I'm at visiting my top choice university for their open house event, I'm wondering if anyone has experience with bringing family/spouses along. It is a very far trip and it would save a lot of money to only go once with family accompanying. Is this frowned upon? Any advice appreciated.

[TakeruK]

What do you mean by family/spouses? I think visiting with your spouse and/or your dependents that will make the move with you should you accept the PhD offer is generally acceptable, but visiting with other family that won't move with you is often awkward. Note: I am not trying to say this is the "right" thing for academics to think or how it "should" be, but I am trying to convey how most departments may receive a request to include your family in your visit. Also a disclaimer: there may be differences in field!

So if you are including people that will move with you (generally spouse and children) then you should let the school know ahead of time that you would like to have your family visit with you because they are moving too and would need to be part of the decision. My spouse (we don't have children) visited some graduate schools with me for schools where it was easy for my spouse to make the trip. I think you should tell them up front because 1) they probably need/want to know this to arrange accommodations for you, 2) they might actually be able to arrange additional activities for your spouse and family while you are in one-on-one meetings with faculty and students and 3) they can ensure your family is included in the social events that often happens in the evenings at open houses. And if there are meals, they can ensure they get the right dietary needs etc. 

If you are bringing your spouse and family, and the school is paying for your trip, be sure to clearly separate out what the school is and isn't covering. You don't have to take this suggestion, but my experience is that it goes better when you clearly state up front that you do not expect the school to cover any expenses for your family. So, for example, you might need to pay half of the hotel room cost if they normally have visiting students share a hotel room but you have an entire room for your family. And of course if you are booking a flight, figure out how the flight will be booked and paid for. Some schools prefer to book flights for the visiting student using their own system, so you will have to provide your family info and then somehow work out how to pay them for the other flights. Or, they might ask you to buy your own flights and then reimburse your own ticket. It will go smoother if you work this out ahead of time.

Finally, having spouse and family around is super awkward if they just follow you around the entire visit. In follow up emails with the person coordinating the visit, you should figure out which portions of the visits might be good for your spouse/family to join (usually meals, social events and things like campus tours, housing tours etc.). Things like one-on-one meetings or orientation type sessions aren't great for family to be a part of so you might want to plan other things they can do while you are busy with the main Open House programming. 

The above was all for the case where you mean a spouse and dependent children that you support who will be moving with you. If you mean other family members that don't generally move with the graduate student (e.g. parents, siblings, etc.) then I have slightly different advice below. I know that it's certainly possible for a graduate student to have parents or other family members that might move with them too, but it could be a lot more awkward if you include parents and siblings in a Open House. It's up to you though on what you want to do!

My advice for this set of family members is to not include them as part of the visit at all. I think you should arrange for their flights and accommodations completely separate from the school. I would also not have them accompany you to any of the evening social events. Note that these visits typically have very long days---our department has a fully booked schedule for our visiting students from 8am to 10pm. So, your family members that accompany you would basically be doing their own independent trip and they might meet up with you at the end of a long day. For this reason, I'd highly recommend against including these types of family members on this trip. They can always visit you after you move in and it will be a better trip for everyone! Again though, this is just my opinion/advice.