School Visit

Hi Guys… a newbie here…
We are planning for school visit in October this year.
We will land in Boston airport and have 4 full days to visit.
This is the only chance we have since we are from kingdom of far far away.

1. How many schools do you think can we visit in 4 days?
2. We had 2 firm schools in mind for interview and tour. Can you recommend other schools worth for a visit around Boston?
3. Do you need to apply and pay the application fee if you just want to visit school campus?
4. When is the best time to fill up the application form if you want to do the interview in Oct?

Thank you.

I believe you would be able to visit eight schools (two per day) if you plan it ahead of time and can get the earliest appointment at one school and the latest at the other school. Know that some schools do not do Wednesday afternoon appointments when you are planning. You do not need to pay anything to tour and interview at any of the schools. The schools you visit will depend on your child’s needs for a school – such as a certain sport, strong performing arts programs, etc.

1. I agree with above. Two schools per day is about the maximum. Make an early appointment at first school 8:30 AM. One hour for tour and another hour for 20 minute interview and 10 min parent chat. Lunch and transit and then 1:30 PM for tour at the scecond school is doable. I called in July and scheduled visits in September and November. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-parents/1665562-starting-2015-application-p1.html Avoid "Parents Weekends" in mid October. No interviews are available then. Schools may do only sibling interview. A few years ago, one particular weekday, was blocked out at Exeter/Andover. I think they have a group visit (perhaps international) that day and the whole day was blocked out.
   So before booking the trip, have the majority of interview dates/times confirmed. Here are couple of itineraries of mine from past. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18804307/#Comment_18804307
2. This is such a loaded question. We will need more information than that. If you don't mind driving, you can cover the entire New England states so anything is possible.
   Driving in the evenings, I covered 7 states (New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusettes, Connecticut, (passed through Rhode Island), New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, (Delaware is doable) in one trip during one winter, in snow storm. I drove about 1800 miles but I am from West so you may not be used to drive a 300 mile stretch. If you want a boarding tour from hell, I can help with scheduling that in a private message. From Boston, Andover, Exeter, St. Paul's, Tabor, Holderness, St. Mark's, Concord, NMH, Hotchkiss, Berkshire, Taft, Loomis, Choate, Westminster, Suffield, Gunnery are all doable.

Two schools per day is not only the maximum but is pretty tough for introvert students/parents. Daughter had to sleep 12+ hours each day to recoup from two visits. I suggest you book reasonably comfort places that serve breakfast each night. And study about the schools ahead of your trip, rather than planning to spend previous evenings at hotel for that since you can be too emotionally tired.

1. No fee.
2. You do not need to complete the application before interview. You may decide not to apply to the school after the interview. First, vist the admission website of the school and submit "Admission Inquiry Form" or Information Request form. That way, your child's name is added to the database and you don't have to read a long address over the phone. You can probably do this on https://www.gatewaytoprepschools.com/ but we did it on each school website. You may be able to submit the Student Profile part of Application, if it's separate, before visit. Some schools send a student interest form and want you to complete it before the visit.

Hi @msvmp27, welcome to the forum, and how wonderful you are already thinking ahead! If your child has some special talent (music, athletics, art, etc.) you might want to consider longer visits so that you can plan and meet with department heads and/or coaches. These conversations were very valuable for our child and impacted the decision on where to attend. We allowed time to walk around beyond the formal tours to really get a sense of the schools. I remember my child asking students when we visited the schools how often they were quizzed, etc. That extra time was very helpful. In other words, we only toured one school per day. ;

You could also think about grouping schools into categories of being relatively similar and then pick one school in each group, rather than trying to see all. For instance, while obviously every school is different, Andover and Exeter have a lot in common in that they are by far the two largest boarding schools. So if your child isn’t sure whether a large boarding school is a good fit, you could plan to visit one of those two just to get a feel for whether that’s something you’d even want to pursue. Deerfield/Hotchkiss/St. Pauls is another grouping. St. George’s/St. Mark’s. Brooks/Governors. Loomis/Taft. I’m sure there are people who will dispute the schools I’ve paired, but you get the idea.

Exchanging emails with your EC teacher (art, sports, etc) can be very helpful. The teacher might notice you and vouch for you better for the admission. If not, you still get to learn more about the school beyond the tour, where you care more.

Thank you all for your input and advise.

@payn4ward thank you for the links. it was awesome at the same time an eye opener. got a lot of planning and hard work ahead. Will definitely use them as reference point.

I think we will stick to one school per day. Tend to agree with @CallieMom .We can go around the nearest town and enjoy the scenery and the food just to get the whole picture of life over there. And it will also be the first time for D in US, so do not want to scare her.

If you do one per day, then you only get to see 4 schools. Maybe, depending on the schools and the distance between them, you could schedule one or two days with two schools. I think that to make the trip and only see 4 would be a shame. The process IS tiring, but it can also be fun and interesting. Definitely fill out the Admission Inquiry Form in advance, and then when you set up the interviews, see if you can meet with teachers/coaches. I agree that this is very helpful. Most schools will offer to have you stay for lunch (if they don’t, just ask). We ended up sort of playing it by ear - if we liked the school we stayed on campus longer, if we didn’t we left. Also, I agree with @soxmom 's “groupings” and trying to cover certain categories.

We were also traveling from far away and we were happy to see two schools per day because it gave us all a much better “feel” for what the kid wanted. So even though there were 7 interviews in 4 days, he ended up applying to only 4 schools. The others were not “wasted” time as it helped us narrow down the search. If you have a firm sense of choices – size, type, area – etc., then maybe this isn’t necessary. We did not have that sense but developed it from seeing a variety of sizes and reputation schools.

Majority of schools didn’t offer lunch, and majority of families leave without having lunch at the school. But we asked sometimes and were never refused. The other times, daughter was too tired so we left to save her energy for the next interview.

If you can afford to visit just one school per day (either that you can afford longer trip or afford to apply to only a few schools) I think daughter could have given better interviews if we had only one visit per day. After all, you only need one good acceptance. I don’t think school visits are automatically a big plus. If you are going to apply many, visiting half of the schools with better coordination and more energy and focus, with the other half doing skype interviews could be a better strategy than visiting all the schools.
Where you are assigned to individual tour guides, you can ask to spend more time where it matters to you more, and visit the rest of school on your own after the official schedule.

I agree with @jwalche about the interviews probably going better if you just do one a day. There’s a bit of a middle ground here too – you could do one official visit per day (i.e., a scheduled visit, with interview, tour, etc), and then go to another school relatively near by to just walk around and get the feel of the place. If you did that informal visit in the afternoon, you might also be able to attend some home sports games which helps with getting the feel of the place too. If you just drop into any school’s admissions office and explain that you happened to be in the area and would like to just walk around to see the school, they’ll be more than happy to give you some brochures and a map of the campus.

Independent tour is nice. Tour with a tour guide is not the same as touring on your own, not if you know that the tour guide will write a report on you afterward. You can also take selfies with the gorgeous buildings during independent tours. Daughter says that tours were harder than interviews.

Okay, you are not getting the greatest advice. Tour guides NEVER write reports on you (well, maybe if you did something truly egregious, but no… they don’t do that). And part of touring is to get to interact with a student (your tour guide). The more students you can observe and interact with the better. So eating on campus is another opportunity to do that.

I certainly would try to see more than four schools if this will be your only trip. It will add a lot of stress next year if she is applying to schools you haven’t even seen, and it adds a lot of stress if you are trying to do last minute visits in April after acceptances to schools she has not seen.

Remember that interviews often are evaluative. Unless you know your kid is a strong interviewer, or schools require them, I’d skip them. And the schools that require them rarely offer interviews on campus anyway.

Tour guides do reporting to the AO (maybe only at some prep schools.) Some guides do a brief paper form. Others go back to admission office and chat with the AO. I don’t think nothing bad will happen but try to avoid the usual.
Only parents asking questions while the candidate maintains quiet disgruntled face. Insult the school. Throw away trash. general bad manners.

Are you talking about boarding schools? About 20~30 schools we researched all required interviews, and all offered and encouraged interviews on campus.
And about the tour guides, we very often felt that they are trying to measure the student’s interest for the school and list of other schools the student plans to apply, often in a bit suddenly awkwardly casual and ingenuine tone. The questions and tone strongly suggested that the question was to report back to the admissions.

Anything a student tour guide reports is not going to have much, if any impact on admissions unless it is especially egregious. More likely it would be used to get more information on the student’s interests. I don’t think my daughter was ever asked to give her personal opinion of a visitor when she gave tours.

How many schools you can do will depend on how close together they are. For instance, it would be very easy to do Middlesex and Concord Academy together because they’re about 3 miles apart and CA is 2 blocks from a bunch of lunch spots in Concord Center. Likewise, Groton and Lawrence Academy, both in Groton MA, and Brooks and Phillips Andover, in North Andover and Andover. My advice, from having done both college and prep school trips with my kids, is to schedule 2 visits a day, one first thing in the morning and another in the afternoon, then drive to the closest hotel to next morning’s school. That way you can preview the route to the morning’s school and you won’t be stressed over getting up early to make it to the interview.

I’d recommend taking the official tour (which is generally scheduled as part of the interview process anyway) then, if you have time, walking around school to observe. After an afternoon interview a great way to get to know the ethos of the school is to go to a sports match and hang out with the parents on the sidelines and ask questions. Most parents will be happy to chat with you about the school and you’ll get a more unfiltered opinion of that school and others with which they have experience. Ask not only about the school you’re visiting, but about what the family liked and disliked about other schools they considered and why they made the choice they did, although you should of course take any negative opinions with a grain of salt and confirm any information you hear independently.

I crossed a school off our list after hearing from two different parents at our older child’s sports events that a school we were considering for our younger child didn’t readily offer the support she needed despite the school’s official advertisement to the contrary. When, based on these conversations, we pushed the school for particulars on their support system it was clear it wasn’t a school strength. Likewise sideline conversations with parents helped us to confirm some positives we’d heard about schools. In one case what was for another family was a negative was for ours a plus.

A few things to remember-
Do some research on the school before arriving. Your child should have some idea of what appeals to her about the school in advance. Have her take notes after each visit so she can distinguish between them later.
I’d wait to write the application until after the visit. That way your child can reflect on what she found attractive in the school community when she was there.
The schools are looking for a fit between the family and school so they’ll talk with you, the parents, as well as your child. Be prepared to talk about what you’re looking for in a school (greater challenge? support? arts opportunities? diversity? a fresh start?) and about your child’s strengths and weaknesses.
Many schools have parent liaisons in the admissions lounge, and they can also be a good resource.

@msvmp27, Would you mind divulging the schools you’ve already decided to visit? Many parents here have experience with the Boston area prep schools and could give you good advice on traffic, lodging, and schools to add to your list.

I agree with @Sue22: “One first thing in the morning and another in the afternoon, then drive to the closest hotel to next morning’s school.” We did just that and visited six schools in three days. We flew into Boston and rented a car. In addition to the campus tours and interviews, we had prearranged meetings with coaches and teachers in the areas of interest of my child. We also had time to watch games or observe practices in her sport. Overall, a very smooth trip.