ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, November 4, 1996 TAG: 9611060011
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG STAFF WRITER
PEOPLE with strong scholastic allegiances cannot understand why Martin Kessler is having a tough time making this choice.
But there, waiting for his signature, sit his college applications: one for Virginia Tech, one for the University of Virginia. Rivals in sports and academics. Rivals for Kessler's affections.
"Everyone has an opinion," says Kessler, a senior at William Byrd High School. "Right now, I'm trying to keep an open mind. I want to go where I feel I belong the most."
To find out whether that's Blacksburg or Charlottesville, Kessler is doing his homework - through research and a trip through the college food lines, through campus tours and a night in the dorm.
For high school seniors, college visits are as much a part of fall as fuzzy sweaters and football. They pile into their family cars to spend long weekends getting a feel for life on the other side. They attend information sessions and get advice like this, from Virginia Tech's Elizabeth Weise Gellatly, assistant director of undergraduate admissions: "Please do not blow off your senior year."
And this from Rita Detwiler, admissions director at Roanoke College: "You have to have very good time-management skills. Those skills are critical, especially the first year."
"It makes college life more realistic," Kessler says.
Jessie Beach, also a senior at William Byrd, has been to three schools so far this year. Her current first choice - the University of North Carolina at Wilmington - is still a road trip waiting to happen. (A scholarship wouldn't hurt, either.)
A college visit already has helped her rule out Old Dominion University. "I just couldn't see myself there," she says.
"Visiting campus is one of the most important things prospective students can do when they're looking at college," says Detwiler of Roanoke College. "The admissions literature is just a sampling."
Some 2,000 prospective students visit the Salem campus each year, most often in the spring or fall.
Tech sees 14,000 students and families through its undergraduate admissions office.
"This is an investment they're making in their life," Detwiler says.
The trips are relatively brief - sometimes a day, sometimes a weekend. Long enough to give students a taste of college and a chance to visit with the professors. Long enough to give the parents a session on financial aid and quell some of their fears about their children's futures.
"This is a question about feelings rather than statistics," parent Doreen Weintraub says during an introductory session at Virginia Tech. Her son, Jeremy, slinks down in his seat two chairs away. "The campus is beautiful, but it feels very big. If a student comes from a small high school, will he feel that bigness?"
Later, as Doreen Weintraub tours campus and watches student guide Joe Majewski call out to friends across the Drill Field, she feels better. But she's still taking her son to smaller schools on this trip from Killingworth, Conn., she says - James Madison, Mary Washington and Radford University are next.
Tech is the fourth college that Chris Forsberg, a senior from Oak Ridge, Tenn., has visited this year with his father, Charles.
"Academics are the top issue," says Charles Forsberg, turning to pat his son's head. "That is, in principal, why you're going to college."
"Yeah, yeah," Chris Forsberg mutters. Actually, he is looking closely at the science programs, along with the campus layout and the overall atmosphere.
Back in Tech's Burruss Hall, Gellatly, the assistant admissions director, is doing a quick major and city check of the 40 or so people attending her session in the 3,000-seat auditorium.
"You will never have a class this big," she says, as she draws out student after student: an undecided from Herndon, a computer science major from Roanoke, two more undecided prospects from Tennessee.
In the back row, two girls from Huntersville, N.C., say they hope to major in sports medicine.
Gellatly moves on to a discussion on campus life and, when she gets to the male-to-female ratio (52 to 48 for last year's freshman class), the girls exchange grins.
Joseph Glasofer, a senior at Cave Spring High School, stayed overnight with a friend before taking his tour of campus.
Today, he's taking a day off from school to talk to a few professors and eat in the dining halls.
"It's an excused absence," he says, "because it's college."
Tour guide Majewski says he always feels a little weird about leading the groups across the drill field. "Your impressions of this campus are going to come from this tour."
In fact, students who took tours with lousy guides said they ended up disliking the campuses they saw - and had to be persuaded to take a second look by professors or friends.
"The person who gave me my tour at Marshall was a first-year graduate student and he'd gone to Ohio for his undergrad," says Steven Lawrence of Riner. "I wasn't sure how much he really knew."
Jessie Beach says the tour guide at the University of South Carolina gave her a lousy first impression. "He was trying to be funny, and his jokes were really bad. I just didn't like him."
But the professors spent a lot of time with her, she says. The school's still on her short list.
Majewski, fortunately, is a good tour guide and his jokes seem to come off OK.
He invites the group into one of the dorm rooms. "See, they're not that small," he says. "Look, we just fit 25 people in here."
Other items that may seem minor can create lasting impressions, too, on these trips. The weather - if it's too hot or too cold - can be a turnoff.
When Lawrence visited Marshall University, for instance, "stuff was blowing and there were mud puddles everywhere. It didn't make it too attractive."
Students' moods also can influence their decision, says Lisa Warren, who works in Tech's admissions office. "Like whether or not they had a fight with their parents on the way down."
But usually the most influential component of a college choice, says Roanoke College's Detwiler, is the cost.
She often tells families not to rule out colleges because of the price, though. Many schools, her own in particular, can make a difference with financial aid packages, she says.
Financial aid and security are key items for Molly and Lee Sanders, who sit on a wall overlooking the drill field at the heart of Tech's campus. They plan to attend a financial aid session before returning home to Herndon. Their daughter, Brooke, will not be attending that session - she's already off socializing with friends. This is the fourth campus they've visited this year, the second they've visited this weekend.
"She gets on sort of a high every place we go," Molly Sanders says. "I think her eyes got a little bigger here. Her friends just came and grabbed her. They said `Come with us, we'll give you the real tour.'''0
LENGTH: Long : 134 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON/Staff. 1. Molly and Lee Sanders ofby CNBHerndon take a time-out to digest some of the information they're
picking up at Tech. Their daughter, Brooke, was off visiting with
some friends who already are attending the school. 2. Jessie Beach
and Martin Kessler, from William Byrd High in Vinton, isit Tech's
career center. 3. Joseph Glasofer of Roanoke takes the Tech campus
tour. color. 4. Joe Majewski (left) leads a group of prospective
undergraduates and their parents on a tour of Virginia Tech's
campus.