I was at Preview Day yesterday. Negative reviews are warranted. Overall, I gave it a low C, maybe high D. First the bad stuff:
1. They put no breaks between sessions (30 minute slots between 11 and 3 or 3:30), and some of the sessions only had 2 timeslots throughout the day (the Greek life one we attended was packed), and depending on what school, etc, you wanted to see, they were scattered across campus. Sessions frequently went right to time or over, so you also had to leave early if you wanted to be on time for the next one. Whomever set this up had/has never done it themselves. There needs to be fewer sessions with at least 10 minutes in-between.
2. Parking was by the Fresh Food company, and the sign-in was at the Hump. Check your campus map. Hi, welcome to State! Do you like walking?
3. We had no idea the student involvement groups (pretty much every single one on campus) would be set up inside the Hump, and only available during the welcome session. We inadvertently had about 5 minutes to take all that in and then get to our seats, then had to pretty much book it to make the first session we planned, which was at Montgomery Hall. Maybe I missed a memo, but I don't think so...
4. Even with my alumni brain setting us up with the best order that saved us the most walking, we took 17,000+ steps. 8 miles. WE WALKED 8 MILES. Why not take a shuttle, you say? Because based on where/when we were, that never seemed to line up. Stops were empty when we came up, or it was the wrong shuttle. My wife and I both tried to figure us out something, because were were dog tired by 1 PM. I saw recruiters on carts taking a family or three in the morning, but not much else in the way of organized transportation. Based on the lack of students waiting at most stops, I have to wonder if the shuttles aren't the mainstay for students they were 30 years ago.
5. There's a 30-minute campus tour session. I thought, "surely this would be an abbreviated bus tour". It's not. A poor student recruiter has to try to cram 150 years of history/highlights into 30 minutes while hosting 5-10 people on a walk from Montgomery to the Chapel of Memories via the Drill Field and Union. Our guy did his best.
6. Oh, hey, you're on the wrong side of the dorm, says a small sign in the door...Preview Day tours of dorm rooms are a couple of hundred yards on the other side of the building. Some signage for individual stops coming down the main paths would've been helpful, or hey, a printed map! We tried to use campus map online, Maps app, etc, but when you're having folks roam an active campus looking for one specific door on a giant building...well, you need to provide them a little help.
Now the good part:
1. Most of our campus visually rocks even with all the construction. My kids were posing for scenic pictures or admiring cool landscaping at random spots, and coming out the main entrance of Lee Hall when the wind kicked up the giant American flag, you could hear angels in Heaven singing. Even my 14 year-old was enjoying the "chonky" trees and natural ambience at several different places. The walk to the Band Hall is more than a little bare now...come back in a decade when those trees have grown. Side note: I think all the red maples I saw have died. Time to take those down.
2. The staff was helpful and friendly at nearly every stop. Some of them went out of their way to make sure we knew where to go. It did feel like a lot of them disappeared after lunch, and we tried to fit in a second dorm in the last few minutes of the final session, but I think all the signage/staff were gone. The presenters we saw were usually well-prepared, lively, and sharing good info. Certainly none of them hurt State's case.
3. The college of education kicked butt in making my daughter feel wanted and welcome. She came away with scads of good info, and grinning ear to ear. That was one of our shortest stops (12-15 min), but alone worth the drive from Birmingham. The band folks where friendly and informative, too, but there was no signage at that stop, which had us initially questioning if we had missed it.
This was our second preview day after UAB's this past fall. UAB's was much better timed/organized (even had us rotating groups in for lunch), but they don't have the campus, and most importantly, they don't have as many first class recruiters/presenters as I saw. Jimmy Abraham would've been mostly pleased with this group of recruiters.
