College Road Trip to Berkeley: The Parent and Student Experience

Komel Caruso, Applerouth’s Senior Director of Sales and Marketing, and her daughter Sanaah, a rising junior, reflect on their first official college visit. Along the way, they gained invaluable insights about what Sanaah wants in a school that will help guide their college admissions journey from here on out. Read on for tips about what to ask and what to look for on campus visits!

Komel:

As my daughter, Sanaah, was winding down Sophomore year, we started thinking about official college visits. Living on the East Coast, there are many driveable options for us, but instead of making our first college visit somewhere close, we planned to visit Berkeley. We already had a trip planned out to San Francisco to visit family, so we thought this provided us a great opportunity to visit a West Coast school.

Although there are many colleges near the Bay Area to visit, there were several reasons we did end up choosing Berkeley. My daughter wanted to visit a school that was near a city, but not in a city, somewhere that, as a liberal, she would feel at home, and a place that was diverse in student body and offered many options for majors, as she is not sure what she would like to major in quite yet.

Sanaah:

I wanted to visit Berkeley to get a different feel for all of the different types of colleges all around the country. I always thought that I would like it on the East Coast, but you never know until you try and experience new things, and the West Coast was always somewhere I enjoyed visiting.

Komel:

When I started to plan the visit, I wanted to make sure we did have a more formal part of the visit with admissions and a more casual part where we could just walk around campus, grab breakfast, and explore, and people watch. Berkeley made that fairly easy by providing online reservations for an admissions presentation, and info for a self guided walking tour. In general, their campus tour information on their website is great - it’s detailed and easy to follow.

I’ll admit, going in, I thought the admissions panel may be a bit stuffy, but I wanted Sanaah to hear what the school was looking for in applicants and the types of students they admitted based on GPA and test scores.

Sanaah:

When my mom told me we were going to an admissions panel and walking tour, I was expecting it to be one of those really boring college visits where you go around the school in giant clumps of people getting dragged along to do things that you don’t even want to do. I was expecting to be bored and learn nothing about the things that I am interested most in - their application process and what the school is like for students. When I got there, I found out I was wrong.

I liked the fact that it was a very small panel; in my group there were probably about 10-15 people and one admissions person speaking. He had a Q&A and a slideshow with visuals to help us. He talked about what it takes to get into Berkeley, and he also talked about clubs and organizations that students could join. It seemed like there was something for everyone. He was pretty fun to listen to, and I actually enjoyed it. After the panel, my mom and I went to explore the campus on our own time, and we got to spend as much time at places that we wanted to and skip places that we didn’t find necessary to go to. We had breakfast on campus where lots of students would probably go in between classes and sat under the beautiful trees.

Komel:

In hindsight, I should have picked a time earlier in the year when more students were on campus. We visited in early May, right before commencement. Although there were students on campus, it was not as lively as it may have been a few weeks earlier. On our next college visit, I’ll also look into having Sanaah sit in on a class she may be interested in and possibly see a theatre performance or visit the drama department, as she is very involved in theatre at school.

I did think Berkeley was a beautiful campus, but for some reason, I could not envision my daughter living on the West Coast. It’s hard to describe, but being from the East Coast, it just felt different and not like her.

Sanaah:

I didn’t have any fundamental problems with my visit or with Berkeley - the school was really pretty and the students there were definitely diverse - I just didn’t feel like the school itself was the right fit for a person like me. It didn’t feel like I could live there. The only negative was that the location of the panel was tough to find.

Komel:

This was a great first visit. Sanaah found out that she did not like the West Coast for college, even though she loves spending time there on vacation. When we were walking, I said, “Isn’t this amazing, you could have this weather all year! I went to Michigan, and it was cold October - March.” Her response surprised me a bit: “No! I need seasons. I want some snow and I want to see leaves change colors.” It was so interesting that a comment in passing about the gorgeous weather made her realize out loud that she didn’t want warm weather all the time.

Sanaah:

The panel that I was in really explained not only the process of the Berkley application system, but the whole UC system. It really showed me, on a greater scale, the expectations of the school and the expectations that I should have with my grades. It also helped me by showing me the campus, the sports (I love watching college sports), the amount of students, and the diversity.

This visit showed me what the campus of California schools look like, and the whole dynamic of a West Coast school. It gave me an insight on a world away from City-based colleges (like NYU and BU) and Ivy League schools, since those are the major schools within a driving distance of where I live. Berkeley was sort of in- between - an amazing school, not in a city, that did not give me a “college campus” vibe like Michigan did when I did a program there last summer.

I learned that I am going to stick to the East Coast, even though I loved the Berkeley campus - it is beautiful with spanish style buildings, and has some fun coffee shops. I personally prefer a more “college” feel to a campus. I did realize that I like big state schools with many students. I have been in small classes my entire life and I want to try something new. The biggest thing I discovered about myself and the way I am going to pick colleges is the location. I realized that I cannot be more than a two-hour flight away from home. I am not ready to go that far away yet. I had a great time visiting Berkley and discovering new and interesting information on the world of college admissions, but for now, I’ll stick closer to home.