What Is a Mock Site Visit—and What Should You Expect?

Hello again, readers! Over the next few blog posts, we’ll take a closer look at one of the services we offer programs working with Scott Massey, PhD, LLC: the mock ARC-PA site visit. And today, we’ll begin with the easiest question: what is a mock site visit, and why do we do it?

Think of it this way: when an event is important, we tend to rehearse it.

We rehearse weddings and graduations. Actors rehearse before opening night. Speakers practice important presentations before stepping in front of an audience. Law students participate in mock trials before they ever have to stand in a courtroom. When an event matters, we don’t want “the real thing” to be the first time all the moving pieces come together.

For programs working with Scott Massey PhD, LLC, a mock site visit is often an optional service that can supplement the consulting engagement. After all the work you've done to prepare your program for the actual visit, the mock visit gives you a chance to put that preparation into practice in a realistic simulation before the ARC-PA Site Visit Team arrives.

More Than Another Consulting Meeting

One misconception about a mock site visit is that it simply gives your consultant another opportunity to review the work you've already completed. There’s much more to it, though. The goal of a mock site visit is to simulate the actual ARC-PA site visit as realistically as possible. Instead of simply talking about what may happen during the visit, we work through the process with you.

The mock team works through the standards, files, documentation and schedule in the same manner expected during the actual review. The mock team approaches your program from the ARC-PA team’s perspective, reviews the available evidence, and asks the types of questions that may arise during that review. That distinction is important. Preparing your program for a site visit differs from seeing how that preparation performs under conditions that resemble the real event.

Recreating the Site Visit Experience

Many people may play a role in the rehearsal. During a mock site visit, we meet with the same types of constituency groups that may participate in the actual visit. Depending on the program and circumstances, that can include faculty, staff, senior administration, preceptors, and students. Each group sees the program from a different perspective, and each may be asked questions related to its experience and responsibilities.

The mock process gives participants a chance to experience what those conversations are like. It also gives the program a chance to see how all its individual preparations work together.

Does everyone understand the schedule? Are the appropriate people available when needed? Can supporting documentation be located? Are virtual files organized in a way that an outside reviewer can readily navigate? When questions arise, can the program demonstrate what it has described in its application and other materials?

You can certainly discuss these things ahead of time. But it's also valuable to walk through them. A walkthrough under realistic conditions can expose hidden problems; sometimes very innocuous things, like a schedule that doesn’t work as smoothly as it appeared on paper, or an unexpectedly long walk across campus. Just as importantly, experiencing the process ahead of time can help participants feel more comfortable with what to expect, and ease some of the anxiety surrounding the real event.

Why Make the Simulation Realistic?

You may be wondering whether all of this is really necessary. After all, if you've worked carefully with your consultants, reviewed your application, assembled your evidence, and prepared everyone involved, shouldn't you already be ready? Hopefully, yes. But being well prepared is exactly what makes a rehearsal worthwhile.

Consider a theatrical production. The dress rehearsal doesn't happen because the actors haven't learned their lines or because nobody knows where the scenery belongs. It happens after all of that preparation, when it is finally time to put the individual pieces together and see how they work as a whole. Dress rehearsals show us the prop that tends to slide over, the costume that snags on the furniture, the real amount of time it takes Curly McLain to get from the back of the auditorium to stage left.

Of course, Curly McLain probably won’t be attending your ARC-PA site visit, but the principle is the same: there are problems that we don’t even know are possible until we see the play in motion.

The same principle applies here. A mock site visit gives your program a chance to move from preparation to practice. For a brief period, you behave as though the visit is already underway.

Sometimes, that reveals things you didn't expect. Perhaps a document isn't as easy to locate as everyone assumed. Perhaps a participant receives a question they never considered. Perhaps something that makes perfect sense to the people who developed a virtual file isn't nearly as intuitive to someone seeing it for the first time.

Finding these problems doesn’t mean the mock site visit failed. They are precisely the point.

A Chance to Practice

No simulation can completely reproduce the experience of an actual ARC-PA site visit. When the real day arrives, the stakes will feel different, and there will always be questions or circumstances you cannot predict. But the process itself no longer has to be entirely unfamiliar. Your program has had an opportunity to see how its preparation holds up when someone approaches it from the outside.

When an event is important, we rehearse - and we’re usually glad we did!

In our next blog, we’ll examine one of the greatest benefits of that rehearsal: identifying vulnerabilities in your application, documentation, website, virtual files, and supporting evidence while there is still time to do something about them. Please join me then.