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The NJEA, which is the union for K-12 public school teachers in New Jersey, is having its annual convention in Atlantic City on Thursday and Friday. That’s a big enough event that most (possibly all?) of the K-12 public schools close for those two days.
Two days off in November, when The Girl is a senior in the thick of the college application process, means it’s time for a road trip. It’s time to visit some campuses.
I took The Boy on a similar trip several years ago during the same convention, but that was before the pandemic. Campus visits then were relatively high-touch and hadn’t changed much since my own high school days. Visits have changed more in the past couple of years than in the preceding several decades.
In this case, some of the visits come with relatively strict limits on the number of people who can accompany the prospective student. So TW and I will alternate. I’ve previously visited three of the four campuses at various times, so I’m happy to let her pick. We’re doing four in total on this trip, all of them in the Boston-Providence region.
Coming from a community college, it can be difficult to see campuses like these and not come away with a devastating sense of resource disparities. I’ll try to keep that under control. This isn’t about me; it’s about TG and where she may spend the next several years.
When TB and I went a few years ago, the folks running an information session at one school commented that it was “New Jersey weekend,” since N.J. is the only state in which the public schools close for these two days and the state exports a lot of prospective college students anyway. I suspect our neighbors will be overrepresented at out-of-state campuses over the next few days again.
(I’ve never understood why some of the states that pour the most money and effort into K-12, including New Jersey and Massachusetts, then turn around and cheap out on higher education. It leads to an exodus of talented young people to other states, which seems like a recipe for long-term decline. The economic development rationale for exporting young talent eludes me. But I digress.)
So far, the most fun part has been watching TG anticipate the trip. We visited one campus over the summer, and she has seen her brother’s school. But this is several places in a couple of days, all of which she selected. It’s her show. I’m happy to be relegated to the role of driver and sounding board.
The blog will take a break while we’re on the road, returning Monday. Will a campus steal her heart? Will one fall short? Will a tour guide fall down while walking backward? Stay tuned …
