We have always made appts with depts. Right or wrong, I have idea, but we have not gone through admissions, but have contacted depts directly.
My kids search the website for the head of the dept where they want to ask questions and write a brief email introducing themselves as a prospective student and state they would like to arrange a meeting to discuss opportunities within the dept.
My kids have found these meetings invaluable. They have ruled out colleges bc of the meetings or schools have moved to the top of their list bc of them.
A few examples:
as a high school sr was dual enrolling in 300 level courses at our local U and working for a professor there. He had spent 2 summers at camps like SSP. Participating in research was one of his top filters. When we visited one dept and asked about UG research, the deans response was that as a high school student he already had more direct research experience than most of their UGs bc research was grad-focused. Ds scratched that school off his list.
At another school, we met with the dean and the UG advisor. Ds asked about UG research and the response was that most professors were too busy to take on UGs. They said every few yrs, one might take on an UG but it was very unlikely. When he asked where undergrads from their dept had gone after graduation, the 2 looked at each other and asked if they knew. They talked for a minute and could finally mention 1. When ds asked about the ability to take grad level courses as an UG (this U was in the same system as where he was DEing and had complete reciprocity), the UG advisor looked at him and told him he needed to stop rushing through classes pretending he was learning something and start back at the beginning bc he had NMF and AP Scholars sitting in his classroom crying bc they couldn’t understand anything about physics. This man knew nothing about ds at all other than the names of the courses he had already taken. (Ds had the top grade in every class he took, spent time talking with his profs outside of class asking questions not covered in class, and had profs lending him books from their personal libraries; that is why he was asked by the prof if he wanted to participate in research.) We ran from that dept. It was toxic compared to every other school we visited. (Ironically, prior to our visit it was near the very top of his list.)
At another dept, the UG dean took him on a tour of the labs, introduced him to profs, talked to him about how profs gladly took on dedicated UG students, and that he would be happy to work him on taking grad level courses. After touring and talking with ds, he took ds back to his office and told ds that ds reminded him of himself when he was ds’s age and that professors would lend him books from their personal libraries. Ds beamed and told him, yes, that had already been his experience. They continued to talk for about another 1/2 hr.
Probably not hard to guess which of the 3 schools ds chose. Prior to the visits, the last school was an afterthought and not really a serious contender. After his visits (more than these 3), the last school remained his #1 choice. It was one of the lowest ranked schools he applied to, but it absolutely lived up to his expectations from his high school tour. The dept offered everything he could possibly have wanted and supported him 110% all the way through. Great professor mentors. UG research. Grad courses.
My other kids have had similar experiences where the atmosphere and interactions within the dept have given them clearer visions of what they want from a dept and where they see themselves fitting in.
Fwiw, many kids talk a lot about finding likeminded peers. Peers are incredibly important and I am not discounting their absolute need in kids’ lives, but great professor mentors are worth their weight in gold. That is the side my kids try to feel out during dept visits. So far, they have been pretty good at using dept visits to find that fit.