wooing potential graduate students

Two busy days of hoping that we can persuade the graduate students to whom we've made offers to come ... and today was a morning - and lunch - at the Huntington: some paintings; a library visit - both of those with a colleague - and a walk round the desert garden (and past the poppies - why are they so much more advanced than ours? I guess they get more sun ...) - and lunch, before back to another class visit, and dinner (before they all headed off to a bar)  It's always strange at this stage: they seem always like our new class, and they seem like a bonded flock - and then there are always some that one never sees again - or next sees at CAA, or when they apply for a job in the department some seven years later, or or or ...