Prospective Student and Family Campus Visits

We want to do our best to provide prospective students with the information they need to make decisions.  However, as with any other visit to campus happening now (e.g., from vendors, from colleagues), a prospective student visit is still covered by the Penn State COVID visitor policy and permission must be received from the Dean before prospective student visits occur. The HHD visitor request form can be used to submit these requests and the Dean’s Office will turn these around within 24 hours. Student Affairs has provided additional guidance and, consistent with these, all procedures in the HHD visitor guidelines (signed acknowledgement, maintenance of visitor contact inform) still need to be followed.

Prospective Undergraduate Student Visits

When prospective undergraduate students and their families contact academic programs requesting visits, departments should first inform Chris Arbutina (caa1@psu.edu) of the request in order to permit her to work with the prospective student and family in coordination with the academic program. Chris will review all the available virtual and in-person options with the student and family, and make sure any visit is consistent with University Admissions Office procedures. After Chris has communicated with prospective student and family, she will contact the department and let them know if they should submit the HHD visitor request form. If department representatives will be meeting in-person with the visitors, they should make sure that they follow occupancy limits for rooms, masking, distancing, and all other COVID safety protocols.

Prospective Graduate Student Visits

The Graduate School is still officially discouraging  prospective graduate student visits. Therefore, no HHD graduate programs should plan events for prospective students or in other ways encourage prospective student visits. However, if a graduate programs receives a request from an  individual prospective student for a campus visit, and the program feels that the request is reasonable, a visitor request can still be submitted through the HHD Visitor Request form and will be considered by the Dean.

Unplanned Visits

As mentioned, consistent with the HHD COVID Visitor Policy, Dean’s approval of all campus visits is still required. Consequently, any prospective students and their families who contact programs with a request to visit that do not give the program enough time to submit an approval request at least 24 hours prior to the visit, need to be informed that the program cannot support the visit and no tours or meetings with HHD personnel on campus should occur.