Wasn’t that the third or fourth person you’ve asked so far, and you still haven’t found the admissions building? You hate to ask yet another student for directions. That big old clock booms the hour, and you realize you’re late for the meeting that was scheduled to start your campus visit. Your parents, tagging along behind you, look as frustrated as you are because it took them half an hour to find parking.
This day isn’t starting out well at all, you sigh.
This isn’t Denise Wellman’s idea of a pleasant college visit either. In fact, she’s doing everything in her power as president of the Collegiate Information and Visitor Services Association to make sure a similar scenario doesn’t happen to anyone on a campus visit. If you were to come to a visitor’s center like the one she directs at the University of South Carolina, in Columbia, you would have had directions to parking ahead of time, a campus map indicating the buildings you asked to see, and a lot of your questions already answered.
Better to go through the front door first
“College campuses are sprawling entities,” Wellman sympathizes. “Many of them are in the middle of large cities with tentacles that go everywhere and streets that stop and start.” Colleges are beginning to realize that their visitor’s centers are their front doors and have a lot to do with how their campuses are viewed. Taking their cue from tourism centers, visitor’s center staffs are learning how best to welcome people to their campus, give them the information they need, and connect them to the people and services that will help them have a successful visit.
Wellman finds that parents and students come to a college visit with a lot of general information they’ve already learned through the college’s Web page. Now they want to know the details. “We have to be ready with answers because visitors are coming more prepared than ever before,” she observes.
Why waste time in the parking lot?
Though each visitor’s center is unique to that institution, the one quality all have in common is making sure you have what you need while on campus. The staff realizes that you have a limited amount of time there and using part of it to find parking is not productive. Says Wellman, “We help students and their families identify what they need for the visit and what they want to accomplish on our campus.”
Campus visitor’s centers are ready to help with just about any request. It could be an opportunity to meet with an admissions counselor or a faculty member, setting up a night’s stay at the residence halls, or getting a guest pass to work out in the school’s recreation center. “The experience we have is that families who start with a visitor center don’t feel overwhelmed,” says Wellman. “They are in control because they have information.” She realizes that a campus visit is one of the most crucial aspects of the decision process in choosing a college. “Our goal is to have visitors leave with more information than they thought they wanted,” she explains.
Let’s keep in touch
Families who use the center also have the benefit of being connected to that campus by a person they’ve met and who will continue to help them. The staff welcomes calls from families who might have even more questions after the visit is over. Even though parents and students can easily find out about a college on the Internet or in college guide books, those avenues will never be a replacement for a face-to-face meeting with someone — especially if you’re a parent sending your child hundreds of miles from home, observes Wellman.
“The bottom line is that visitors want information, and we want them to have it so that they can make the right decision about a campus,” says Wellman.