You've sent the application. Memorized the brochures. Talked to your friends. Quizzed your parents. Squealed over your acceptance. Now it's time to take the tour.
By ANITA KUMAR
Published March 14, 2004
[Times photos: Lara Cerri]
10:10 a.m. Seminole High School senior Katelyn Dunn, 18, and her father, Mike, tour Florida State last month. Dad jokes she'll need a "clean freak" roommate.
TALLAHASSEE - Katelyn Dunn looks inside the dorm room, piled high with clothes and books. Her eyes stop at a pair of raised beds, then move slowly over the plastic tubs, milk crates and minirefrigerator crammed underneath.
"I know it looks pretty small," says Caitlin Hevner, the Florida State University freshman leading a group of high school seniors and their parents through her room. "But it's surprising what you can do with it."
Katelyn, 18, a senior at Seminole High School, says nothing. She is trying to visualize being here next year - not just at the school, but in the dorm, one of two homes for FSU honors students.
"Got a good feel for it, Dad?" Katelyn asks after she comes outside and finds Mike Dunn smoking a cigarette by their illegally parked Saturn sedan. He had peeked at the dorm room before checking on the car, but offers no opinion.
Katelyn and her father have driven 300 miles from Seminole to Tallahassee to experience an American rite of passage: touring a college campus.
Like thousands of teenagers visiting Florida universities this spring, Katelyn has no idea how to choose the school that is right for her. And like many parents, her dad doesn't want to say anything that will sway her decision.
So while Katelyn gets excited about FSU's old brick buildings and the opportunity to perform in musicals, her father says little about parking hassles and signs warning against recent thefts in the dorms.
There is no talk of money during the trip, though putting Katelyn through college won't be easy for the Dunns, especially if she chooses a school outside Florida. Mike and Beth Dunn say what matters most is letting Katelyn make her own choice.
How will she do it?
"I don't know," says Katelyn, giggling. "I'm sure I'll be making plenty of weird lists."
Thursday, 4 p.m. On the road ...
Mike Dunn maneuvers through Tampa's rush hour traffic on the drive to Tallahassee. Katelyn pulls out her history homework. The assignment: Answer 10 questions about World War I.
"The commander of Allied forces?" she asks her dad, a history buff. "Treaty where Russia dropped out of the war?"
"Why are you doing homework on a Thursday afternoon when you won't be back at school until Monday?" he asks.
He's just teasing. Mike Dunn knows his daughter.
Student council president. Cheerleader. Volunteer at Alpha House, a women's center in St. Petersburg.
All that and good grades, too.
Katelyn has a 3.74 grade point average and a 1380 score on her SAT - more than enough to earn her a Bright Futures scholarship that will pay 100 percent of her tuition and fees if she enrolls at a public university in Florida.
But that's a big "if."
Katelyn has applied to six universities: FSU, the University of Florida and four out-of-state schools: Georgetown University, Catholic University, George Washington University and Boston College.
She claims not to have a favorite, but the in-state schools seem to be losing out to the allure of living in Washington, D.C., or Boston, where the other universities are located.
FSU is the last school she will visit.
As they veer onto Interstate 10, the final leg of the drive, Katelyn pulls out a packet FSU sent her in the mail after she was accepted in December. Inside are driving directions, a map and other tour essentials, items her father spent much of the day tracking down.
"Daaaaad, I didn't know," says Katelyn, after her father points this out.
Mike Dunn, a 50-year-old with glasses and salt-and-pepper hair, looks at his daughter with bemusement. His love for her is obvious, but he doesn't always know what she wants. He sometimes wonders whether she knows.
"What are you looking for really? The ambience?" he asks about FSU.
"I have to see what's going on," she answers.
End of discussion.
The car radio has been on most of the drive. Dad likes oldies stations. Katelyn doesn't mind, and often sings along to songs written long before she was born.
As they enter Tallahassee, Katelyn pops in a Cat Stevens CD that her mom has left in the car. Dad and daughter listen quietly.
"Oh baby, baby, it's a wild world. I'll always remember you like a child, girl."
Thursday, 8:45 p.m. Dinner and an endorsement
The Dunns check into a Courtyard by Marriott near the Capitol, then go across the street for dinner at an Olive Garden. After being handed a menu, Katelyn whispers to her dad. She recognizes their waiter. She wants to know if he does, too.
Finally, she asks out loud. Kristi Bates, exhausted from serving pasta and salad since 11 a.m., breaks into a smile.
Kristi graduated from Seminole High in 2001. Katelyn's mom taught her to play the piano at the Dunns' house after school. Kristi, now an FSU student, predicts they'll enjoy their tour the next day.
"I really love it here," Kristi gushes.
Katelyn pulls out her cell phone to call her mom.
Beth Dunn, a part-time teacher at Bauder Elementary School, was supposed to be here instead of her husband, who sells computer circuit boards for a living. But she had to stay behind to help with a school program.
Mrs. Dunn calls eight times in the 24 hours that father and daughter are away. Once to ask how to use the TiVo, a digital video recorder. Once to tell Katelyn that Georgetown University phoned to set up an interview. The other six times she was just checking in.
Katelyn doesn't mind. Despite the long day, she is in a good mood. Kristi's strong endorsement of FSU has her looking forward to tomorrow.
Friday, 8 a.m. Preparing for the tour
Katelyn wakes up early to blow-dry her hair and apply makeup. She dresses in khaki pants and a shirt that she packed especially for this day.
The shirt's burgundy color is similar to the shade worn by FSU's tour guides. Katelyn giggles at the thought of other campus visitors asking her for directions.
It's cool and drizzly when the Dunns get in their car and head downtown. Katelyn soon sees the Capitol and begins to chant, "Jeb, Jeb."
"I'm liking this - these government buildings," says Katelyn, who is thinking about going into politics after college. That's one reason she is visiting FSU. If she is going to stay in Florida, Tallahassee makes a lot of sense.
It doesn't hurt that she is a shoo-in for the school's honors program and a $1,000-a-semester academic scholarship.
Mom and Dad have a lot at stake in their daughter's decision, especially since they already have a son at the University of Central Florida and another in high school.
When Katelyn began the admissions process, her parents sat her down to explain some realities: If Katelyn stays in Florida, scholarships and her prepaid tuition plan will pay much of her college costs, which should run between $10,000 and $15,000 annually.
But if she chooses an out-of-state school such as Georgetown, which costs upward of $40,000 a year, she will have to take out loans that will take years to pay back.
The choice is hers.
"We don't want money to be a determining factor. We have always been prepared to pay for college," her father says. "The most important thing is that she's enthused."
At this point, with the campus tour scheduled to begin in just a few minutes, it's clear Dad has no idea how to find FSU. He asks Katelyn for help, but she is just as lost, even with a city map in her hand.
Dad finally decides to take a right.
"This is strictly a guess," he says. "It's a connector road. It must connect us somewhere."
The university is now in sight.
Friday, 9:30 a.m. Assessing her options
FSU senior Connie Myerson provides the must-knows about FSU:
The school colors are garnet and gold. Football is huge. And the FSU identification card is a student's ticket to campus life.
"Anything you are looking for, you can find here," says Connie, 22, a psychology major and volunteer tour guide.
It's time for the tour.
About three dozen students and parents, including the Dunns, follow Connie up and down hills to the library, the student union, the recreation center and, of course, Landis Green, the huge lawn where students gather each day.
At Wescott, the main administration building and one of the entrances to the school, Myerson explains that students aren't true "Seminoles" until they are thrown into the fountain out front on their birthday.
"It's prettier than I thought," Mike Dunn says, looking at the brick buildings on the oldest part of campus.
"I agree," says Katelyn, her hair pushed off her face by sunglasses.
The 400-acre campus in the heart of Tallahassee is surprisingly compact for being home to almost 40,000 students. It only takes 20 minutes to walk from one end to another, which is a good thing, given the gloomy weather.
At an orientation center set up that day for prospective students, Katelyn surveys booth after booth touting student activities.
She stops at the student government table, where she is offered a smilely face lollipop. She talks to students at the recreation table, where a rock-climbing photo catches her eye.
At the Greek booth, FSU junior Angie Fox extols the virtue of rushing a sorority.
"You see the sterotypes," she says. "I don't think that's true."
Mike Dunn points to the cheerleading table, but Katelyn gives him a thumbs down.
"I don't think you can do everything like you can in high school," she says.
It's 10:40 a.m., and the Dunns have stopped for a snack at an Einstein Bros. on campus, a coffee and bagel shop she visits several times a week at home.
"What do you think so far?" her dad asks.
"I like it," she says. "But I'm not ready to make my judgment yet."
They drive past the law school, modeled after Thomas Jefferson's home in Virginia. They listen to an informational session at FSU's well-regarded theater department.
"Politicians are performers," says Judy Nunez, the department's director of student services. Katelyn, who has only thought of acting as a hobby, begins to think about minoring in theater.
"She's got such a wonderful mind," her dad says. "I think whatever she wants to do she'll do well."
Last stop: Gilchrist Hall and the dorm room.
Mike Dunn considers staying in their illegally parked car while Katelyn takes a look, but quickly changes his mind.
"Mom'll get mad."
Friday, 1:30 p.m. Different impressions
There are things Katelyn and her dad didn't do during their college visit.
They didn't see the city. They didn't visit any classes. They didn't get information about the honors college or internships, which Katelyn had planned on doing.
Most importantly, she left still undecided about where to enroll.
As they settle in for the drive home, Katelyn is more concerned about a party she plans to go to that night, and the high school prom coming up in a few months.
"Who's taking you?" Dad asks.
"Some boy."
"Which one?"
"Some lucky boy. I don't know which one."
The Dunns agree that FSU was more interesting than they expected. But the two were drawn to different aspects, and left with different ideas about what was important.
Katelyn was happy she could bring her new Ford Explorer with her, and that there was free Internet access in the dorms.
Dad worried when he heard students in the dorms were out at all hours of the day and night.
"I'm not sure you want people playing Frisbee outside your building at 3 a.m.," he says.
But he keeps his opinions to himself. "I kind of let her express her opinion and she will eventually ask for mine," he says.
The Dunns now must wait.
All of the other schools Katelyn has applied to are on a more traditional admissions schedule. They won't tell her if she was accepted until April.
At 6:50 p.m., the Dunns pull into the driveway at their Seminole home.
Epilogue
A few weeks after returning from Tallahassee, Katelyn is accepted into UF's prestigious honor program. A year ago, Katelyn was certain she would attend UF with her best friend.
But now she has options.
If she stays in Florida, she likely will enroll at FSU, unable to resist the idea of living in the state capital. If she leaves, she will not attend Catholic University, which she considers too small and no better than the Florida schools.
She's down to four schools.
"They're all equal," she says. "They're all equally open."
So how will she make the biggest decision of her life so far?
Money will be the first factor. Then she will consider city life, the campus atmosphere, the weather, the distance from home, the ability to drive her car and the students she might already know there.
She thinks about things like FSU's and Boston College's football programs. She thinks about George Washington's and Georgetown's link to politics.
The real lists, she says, will begin once she learns where she has been accepted. She will keep making them until she is forced to mail back her acceptance letter May 1.
"I have no idea how I will determine it," she says, "but I'm sure the letter will go out the night before."
What the daughter noticed:
-Freshmen can have cars.
-Free Internet access in dorm.
-Einstein Bros. Bagels restaurant on campus.
-Close proximity to the Capitol.
-Security phones around campus.
-Few hours' drive from best friend at UF.
What Dad noticed:
-Too few parking spaces.
-Signs warning about recent thefts in the dorm.
-Litter on campus.
-Too much construction.
-Lack of signs and directions.
-Dorm rooms small, but adequate.
Things students and parents should know when visiting a college:
-Don't overschedule. Visit no more than one school a day.
-Ask questions.
-Sign up for the official campus tour.
-Read the college paper.
-Sit in on classes.
-Ask for a specific tour if you are interested in a specific department or facility.
-Read the campus bulletin boards for information about campus life.
-Walk around the city.
-Speak with at least five people not introduced to you by the admissions office.
-Make sure to see things not on the official campus tour.
-Keep a journal of your findings.
-Videotape the tour.
-Sign up to stay the night in a dorm or fraternity or sorority house. If that's not possible, try to stay with a student from your high school who is living on campus.
-Read the recruitment material and guidebooks.
-Hang out in the quad.
-Eat lunch in the cafeteria.
-Go on a weekday. Avoid holidays and semester breaks.
-After you get admitted, go back for a second look.
