By Transy student, Emily Martin
High school seniors, you’re probably in the narrowing-down phase of your college search process. You’ve applied everywhere, done some campus visits, and as financial aid packages come in the mail, you and your family are starting to make the most important decision you’ve probably made so far. No pressure, right?
Picking a college doesn’t have to be scary but it should be taken seriously. So how are you ever going to pick just one?!
My recommendation — do an overnight visit to your top few choice schools. If your overnight experience was anything like mine was, your decision will be made for you! (Read a blog I wrote last year about my own college search process here.)
So yes, my recommendation is biased. The overnight visit definitely made my college decision easier. But now, I am one of Transy’s overnight hosts! Which, by the way, is the most wonderful job I could ever ask for.
Therefore, I can give you the inside-scoop on overnight visits to Transylvania! Check out the visit options here. Pick a day that works for you and call our super-sweet Visit Coordinator to schedule it!
For an average visit, you’ll arrive around 6 p.m. where your host will be waiting for you. You’ll take your stuff up to their dorm room, see where you’ll be staying for the night, and then head down to dinner in the cafeteria. On most visit days, we have multiple students staying overnight so dinner is a fun time to get to meet other students who might be your future classmates!
Plus, and I can not stress this enough, this is your chance to test the food! You’re going to be eating on campus plenty during the next four years, so you’ll want to see what options are available.
After dinner, it really depends on the day what you’ll end up doing. Sometimes there are big events going on around campus, so we might go see a play in Little Theater, or listen to a professor give a lecture on an interesting topic, or attend a student organization’s event.
But then there are days without a major event. So that’s when we get to wing it. If it’s nice outside, we might walk down to Third Street Stuff, a local coffee shop/hipster gathering place. If not, we might sit in on our improv team’s practice sessions, watch a movie, or play Apples to Apples in the campus center lounge.
There’s not always a scheduled plan for us, but I’ve never had an overnight visit that didn’t turn out to be lots of fun.
But more than fun, this is your perfect chance to ask current students any questions you might not want to ask an admissions counselor or faculty member.
Nothing’s off limits — and we get asked about all kinds of stuff: food, class difficulty, which professors to take and which to avoid, the water pressure in the showers, Greek life, parties, Lexington, internship opportunities, favorite/least favorite things about Transy, how to do laundry, where to meet girls/boys, etc. You name it, one of us has probably been asked it.
The next morning, you’ll get to go on a campus tour, sit in on a class of your choice, and meet with your admissions counselor.
An overnight visit provides you all kinds of opportunities that a regular campus visit doesn’t. Yes, Open Houses, Preview Days, and day visits are important and are great for getting introductory information about colleges.
But you want to know what life at a university is really like and that’s not something you can hear about in a speech or read in a pamphlet. So come for an overnight visit to find out what life as a pioneer is like for yourself!