<p>My kids each visited at least one college on their own, and my middle child visited three on his own. If the logistics work out, then I think it’s fine for a first visit but I would want to go see the college on the accepted students follow-up. Our college payments are more then our mortgage, no way would I feel comfortable just forking that over without at least seeing the school. I also thought hostels had an 18 and over policy.</p>
<p>I visited colleges on my own back in the day. I stayed with friends at the colleges. I agree with others here that you should try to set up overnights - seeing the college in the evening really gives you a better picture. That said, I really did enjoy visiting colleges with my kids (and there were a few at accepted students weekends where they had overnights and I stayed in a hotel.) While I didn’t push my kids to attend one college or another, I did want to see them so I knew what the choices were.</p>
<p>Support dodgersmom’s excellent idea. Some colleges will find you a place to stay on campus. Unless you enjoy the whole youth hostel grunge mystique, with the free wi-fi, and free scabies and bedbugs.</p>
<p>I just want to second what other posters have said, if your parents would be hurt because you want to go by yourself, consider whether inviting them is the best route. I honestly would have been hurt if S didn’t want me to go, but that is just me. I would have honored his request and hidden my feelings, but there it is in case you think either of your parents might feel rejected. It is hard for us sometimes to let go!</p>
<p>I was pretty independent at 17 . I took a p/t nanny job ,which provided room and board . I paid my own tuition as parents were divorcing . In the 70ies there really wasn’t all the hoopla there was today about college .You applied to 3-5 and got in somewhere .</p>
<p>Yeah, and you paid a few thousand a year…</p>
<p>When we looked at colleges, we went together, but split once we were on campus. My daughter thought that gave her a more realistic view of the college. </p>
<p>Have fun.</p>
<p>Don’t see any problem with it. At 17, my older d. went by herself for 12 weeks to India, Cambodia, and Thailand, and at 16, my younger one went to Egypt. Most of the time, when we went on college tours with the kids, we felt like 5th wheels, though we were helpful in asking questions that they wouldn’t have asked (when they were away from us doing other things.)</p>
<p>I like going on college tours and did go on a few with each of the boys but like I said earlier they each did one on their own since my schedule didn’t permit. My H dislikes college tours so doesn’t go. Once they are in college he does like walking around the campus (once). He went to college in the 70s and paid his own way working and attending, so I don’t think he has the same nostalgia I do…and definitely not the same experience.</p>
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<p>When my daughter went on her first trip to visit colleges in the DC/NY area in late September, she didn’t see any other students without parents either. She had scheduled interviews at various colleges as well as an overnight at one, and her interviewers were quite surprised – and impressed! that she had traveled from the west coast on her own. Most of those colleges were subsequently dropped from her list, but I think that her interview was a strong factor in her admission to the one college she ended up attending. </p>
<p>Obviously we will never know – but I do know that in a competitive college atmosphere, anything that makes a student stand out from the rest in a positive way is a good thing. </p>
<p>I would note that I have no idea whether or not my daughter opted to go on the organized walking tours around various campuses or not. I personally wouldn’t find that too helpful – I’d rather just wander around on my own, campus map in hand. So it may just be that the kids on their own are skipping the tours – this would be especially true of kids who have opted to stay overnight with other students on campus.</p>
<p>This is great unless your parents really want to be a part of the tour. I know I wanted to participate as a parent. Don’t cut your parents out of the experience. It may be very important to them as well. And don’t underestimate the opinion of experienced parents! Your parents may be focused on things very different than you. Different questions get asked, different concerns come up–all good. The more concerns that get answered the easier it will be to make a decision later.</p>
<p>I personally wouldn’t want to be left out of the process , but it sounds like you are mature enough to handle the traveling
I think parents might have questions otherwise forgotten.</p>
<p>I think it is certainly an okay idea but I am going to present a similar scenerio.</p>
<p>A 17 year old or 18 year old is old enough to go to the doctor alone so why not go alone? </p>
<p>This is why not. When you go with someone else, they think of questions to ask that you don’t. They point out things to see or consider that you don’t see. They take the initiative ask if they can be shown around in a special perhaps closed off area to regular the tour and as parents they are taken seriously and shown.</p>
<p>What I suggest is that you go see some colleges with your parents and some alone so you can see the difference in what questions they ask and then you can ask them when they aren’t there.</p>
<p>Interesting discussion with many different perspectives here.</p>
<p>Lakemom – I am curious what kinds of things you were able to see “behind the scenes” </p>
<p>There is so much a parent can figure out without seeing the school or asking questions on-site. I think the best reason to go on visits (for parent or student) is to get a feel for the place, location, what’s nearby. And it can be a great bonding experience. But I still think the trips are somewhat of a luxury. It is expensive and time-consuming, and unless one is definitely committed to a small geographical area, there will always be more schools than one could possibly feasibly visit. Sure, it can help with admissions to show interest at some schools, but there are other ways to do that that don’t involve visiting. If a student can go on his/her own, more power to them. I think that shows a great deal of initiative and independence.</p>
<p>I find it somewhat intriguing that a parent would think that the answer they are given during a college visit/tour is better or more reliable than the answer they could get from asking the same question over the phone, via email, or through reference to the college web site or outside reference sources. I would think just the opposite: the student tour guide or the admissions rep are both trying to “sell” the school so I would consider answers to questions asked in that context to be particularly unreliable. That is, they are likely to minimize any problems and be overly optimistic about potential benefits & options. They are likely to offer potentially misleading anecdotal information rather than clear statistical info in response to questions – for example, if asked about student internship opportunities, to give examples of particular internships that a few students have done, without an indication of the relative difficulty of getting those internships. </p>
<p>I also wonder how much a parent’s presence stands in the way of a student engaging on their own to ask questions or consider issues that are important to them.</p>
<p>I absolutely agree that these trips are a luxury. I have to say that as a parent I loved watching my kids suddenly start figuring out what they themselves wanted. Can a 17 year old go alone? Of course. And s/he might not have one of those immediate and totally irrational dislikes to a campus, having taken all the trouble to travel there alone. So there’s that.</p>
<p>LBowie, I didn’t do the visits. My husband and son went. I know more than once, because he was present, when someone was talking about a particular project the students work on my husband might comment that he wouldn’t might seeing that. The person would then say okay let me show you. </p>
<p>My husband and son did not always do the school tour. We took a different tack. I made appointments for them with someone from the dept that my son wanting to major in and they would meet with someone there first. Then if that went well, they would do the school tour. If that didn’t, they left because it didn’t matter how the rest of the school was if the area of my son’s interest was not a match. </p>
<p>I think in part it depends on how many and where the schools are a student is applying to. My son only visited maybe 7 schools, all driving distance from our house so the expenses to make visits weren’t great. I suppose if you are applying to schools all over then it can get costly for more than one to go.</p>
<p>It was really important for me to go on these trips with my kids, and if I’m paying $50-60K a year for something, I want to see it myself. Ironically, the only tour we didn’t go with our kids on was at our alma mater - S wanted to go himself, and since I didn’t need to see the campus, it was better for him to go see it “fresh” versus what would have been a biased view through my eyes.</p>
<p>If you are in a position to pay $50-$60K a year for anything, then you probably wouldn’t have much a problem with the expense of traveling to a college, arranging & paying for local accommodations, & taking time off work to do the visiting.</p>
<p>For those of us who relied on need-based aid, every dollar counts. I don’t have to see a place personally to figure out whether or not its worth spending money on.</p>
<p>Maybe I am just not that picky. Of the 8 or so schools my son and I visited together, there was only one that I had a very strong aversion to. The rest I would have been fine with. He, on the other hand, disliked 2 of them. Our dislikes did not overlap. My dislike was based on what I felt the school was not investing in adequately (they seemed to invest in sports at the expense of basic infrastructure and who knows what else). His dislikes had more to do with the campus vibe.</p>
<p>My benchmark for a school is always their library. I made a point of visiting the library to see if the school seemed to value having an up-to-date place for students to study or do research. If the library did not measure up, it was off the list. Only one school did not make the cut!</p>