Taking notes while you visit a college can be very important for both the college interview and for the short essay many applicants are asked to do about why they want to go to this college. For both your college interview and your essay you need to know specifics.
You may want to start by reading CollegeBasics’ articles Questions to Ask on Your College Visit and How to Make the Most of Your College Visit. Next you need to take notes, but on what? You should note down positive quotations from dorm students about their sense of the campus and their living situation, you should take down the name and the course title of any classes you visit and jot down a couple sentences of your impressions of the class and the way it was run. You should note down the names of any buildings that interest you and note why a building interested you. You should take notes down of both the names of your admissions tour guide(s) and their contact information for later questions and a thank you note. Take note of names of the campus newspaper or organizations that have informational signs or pamphlets. Fill your notes with specifics. These specific details brought up during a college interview can wow when talking to the interviewer a few months later or when writing that essay about why you want to go to this college.
For more information about the Why-I-Want-to-Go-to-This-College essay, check out CollegeBasics’ article about it and see our e-book The Basics for Writing College Application Essays: Simple How-to Steps for Writing All College Essays from the Personal Statement to the Short Activity Essay.
For more information about the college interview go to this page on CollegeBasics to see all the articles about the interview.
