<p>Actually, 7th grade college tours. </p>
<p>From the Times:</p>
<p>College Hunt Starts Earlier at New Breed of Schools</p>
<p>"At Avenues, a for-profit school scheduled to open this fall in Chelsea, college counseling will begin with students in ninth grade. Similarly, L</p>
<p>I’m advocating for the prenatal college tours. If listening to Mozart in utero affects future child, imagine what breathing the rarified air of Cambridge Mass will do! </p>
<p>:rolleyes:</p>
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<p>And yet my two public-schooled kids are sitting next to them in their classrooms at their top 20 university and top 10 LAC respectively. (Indeed, my D’s roommate is a product of one of those elite private schools in Manhattan.) And they are all on the same level playing field at that point. Go figure.</p>
<p>Despite regular prenatal college visits (twice a week for nine months), demonstrated prenatal interest there, and two legacies (both parents), DD2 is not interested in attending Purdue :)</p>
<p>And people wonder why kids are so stressed out these days…</p>
<p>I don’t think informally visiting schools early is a bad idea at all. When we would travel, if there was a school near by we would always try to drive through or stop and walk around for a bit. Nothing formal at all but it let the kids know that college existed and what the different style schools were available. When it came time to search for schools they already had an idea of the feel of a rural vs. town vs. city school was like. The visits weren’t about the specific schools or programs that they offered it was just to get a feel for what college life could be like.</p>
<p>I agree,pop. We were in DC and walked around the Georgetown campus. While our oldest liked the look of the campus, the area was just too busy for him. That was kind of the “start” of his college selection process. Having a class dedicated to this in 7th grade, nope, not even close to necessary OR helpful for that matter.</p>
<p>Crazy times…different type of entertainement from 5 years ago. D. visited only in senior year after we had a list of UGs she will apply based on her HS GPA and ACT score. So, I asume that 7th grader in OP has a crystal ball that shows the HS GPA and SAT / ACT score…I am glad that we did not have such a ball. We were busy with real life activities and enjoyed them as much as possible including many out of town sport competitions and great vacations abroad, that was enough of travel and entertainment for us. Another point to consider besides mathcing HS GPA / ACT / SAT is that young person of 13-14 will not be the same 4 years later. How they can predict that they will like the same school at 18 that they liked at 14? Here we go again with the crystal ball predictions…</p>
<p>We took our juniors on their first official tours last summer (between sophomore and junior year) because fall touring doesn’t work with their activity schedule at all and there is only limited time in the summer we can go. It was more of a scheduling issue than anything thing. They prefer to visit the campus before they apply and I guess I agree with them. I don’t understand not visiting until after you apply and have been accepted but whatever works for you works I guess.</p>
<p>"And people wonder why kids are so stressed out these days… "</p>
<p>^This. </p>
<p>What is wrong with these people?</p>
<p>I don’t understand not visiting until after you apply and have been accepted but whatever works for you works I guess.</p>
<p>While growing up our family thought oldest would attend the state LAC. Several family friends are alums & they are extremely successful & great advocates for the school. She did go on a regional college tour with her junior class. Time & money precluded taking her on a larger tour, which impacts available options for many I imagine.</p>
<p>Senior year I took her to see the Catholic University that was close by her school, because I wanted to tour the chapel. 
We also attended an awards luncheon with one of the state schools that awarded her merit. ( Younger D was drug along as well on a few of these tours). Older D took a gap year & applied to private LAC which was a better fit than the state LAC.</p>
<p>Younger D began visiting her sister at school when she was in 6th grade, by 8th grade, I put D2 & her best friend on the train by themselves to go visit. Oddly enough that years later & it was time for D2 to consider schools, I asked her if she was interested in D1s choice. " Hell, no" was the response. 
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<p>I imagine it was too small. or something.</p>
<p>D’s application rules were very simple. Apply to schools that will definitely give substantial Merit awards and are within 4 hours driving from home. D. has visited all schools that she applied to and some several times with overnight stays and even sport team stay. D. ended up attending UG on full tuition Merit award within 3.5 hrs of driving and it has worked perfectly because she considered her own criteria and not somebody else’s, not her advisor’s, not her friends. Lokking back, she said that it was perfect place for her. She has visited it many times after graduating last May.</p>
<p>We haven’t given the kids any application limitations. They are free to apply to which ever schools they want. We have given them financial limitations on how much we choose to pay. If their reach schools come up with the right dollars for them to attend, great, if not, on to #2 or which ever has given you the package that makes the most sense. DD’s “reach” isn’t all that much of a reach and with her athletic and merit potential, probably looking at a full ride or very close to it. DS’s reach doesn’t give merit aid but with 3 in college, FA is going to probably be close to doable. We will see in about 13 months how it all shakes down.</p>
<p>We did not give D. any limitations. I suggested to apply to the ones with combined bs/md programs. She liked this idea. She was also looking for 2 other criteria in my post #12. She (and we) did not care at all about rankings, never checked them. And as she graduated #1 in her HS class and had no desire to apply to any of Ivy / Elite, then I suppose all of her schools were matches, she simply did not care about matches / reaches or any other “rank” type of criteria.</p>
<p>We visited some schools in our region as we were driving by or near when returning from summer vacations, etc. We did our first such visit after sophomore year because it was handy. We did our fly-in multi school trip over mid-winter break Junior year. D heads back to the favorite on her own tomorrow. If kid does a spring sport which practices and has games over spring break, it’s tough to go at other times. D revisited both pre-junior year schools last month after she was admitted. She has applied to 2 state publics without a visit and one distant LAC without a visit. We will make visits based on necessity after she gets accept/deny + aid from LAC and packages from the rest. I would assume the final numbers will narrow the list some. D had to travel for her sport over the one long weekend in the fall and couldn’t miss school otherwise. She did eliminate some states/regions based on travel for non-college related sports tournaments so that narrowed the list of possibles as well.</p>
<p>When we did the early visits it was about getting an impression of size, urban vs rural, etc. not so much school specifics. It gave her a frame of reference when looking at all schools.</p>
<p>Our kids are more concerned about the fit of the school. None of our kids had any desire to go to a large school, they want a campus where most students live on campus all 4 years, they would prefer not to be in a major city and they have to have the EC’s the kids want. They have no desire to even look at any east coast schools. DD is having a little harder time meeting her wants because of her sport but has about 5 schools that are good so far. The hardest thing for her is going to come down to choosing a school that is the right ‘fit’ for her sport. She can pick a DIII school and pretty much be guaranteed to go to nationals at least once but most likely all 4 years in college or she can go to the scholarship levels of DII, DI or NAIA and be a “scholarshiped athlete”. It’s a really hard choice. She does not want to go to a school where she is an athlete first and oh by the way, you are going to get a degree too.</p>
<p>DS has 6 solid choices right now that he would be happy to attend any of them. He likes his top three the best, which is why they are his top 3 :D, but would be fine at the next 3 too. We still have to visit 2 of those last 3 so those may or may not change.</p>
<p>^ I have never heard of anybody living on campus for 4 years. Usually it does not last for more than 2 the longest, then they do not care to stay in dorms. I geuss there are exceptions.
As a caution, be carefull commiting to college sport. D. did not pay any attention to some coaches pursuing her and had hardest time participating even in club sport. She dropped it after freshman year as almost all of her teammates. These kids were in their sport from age of 5-7 all thru HS, practicing every day year around and 2 times/day during summers. I am talking about very dedicated to their sport kids who still are holding some records somewhere that they broke 10-15 years ago and nobody could break them since then. Commitment to college sport is very time consuming in any Division. D. also did not care too much becuase she had academic Merit awards at several places. She continued to use her sport for workouts all thru college, but currently cannot afford even that because of her very busy schedule.
If you commit to sport because of sport scholarhsip, it might put a great burden on a student. Merit awards are better options, they are for 4 years as long as they maintain reasonable college GPA, which they shoud do anyway if they want to have reasonably good future after college.</p>
<p>The appropriateness of early tours depends on the situation and on the kid. DS has a solid safety, the state flagship down the road, that virtually all of his friends are planning to attend when they finish HS. Though he was aware of highly selective and prestigious colleges and universities before we made any visits, they were like some distant phantoms and thoughts of attending them seemed to be no more than idle fantasies. The flagship was reality and looked like an inevitability. So to keep him from becoming too settled on this choice too early, we all agreed to look at a few schools after his 9th grade and a few more in the winter break of 10th grade. </p>
<p>The mood on our visits has always been light and I do not believe that DS has felt much if any pressure. He wisely decided to keep the visits and possible future applications to highly selective schools from his friends so that he would never feel any pressure and would be able to avoid embarrassment if he were to apply and be rejected. His thoughts of those elite and distant schools could not be so accurately classified as idle fantasy anymore, though they are a part of his life that he keeps secret from the other kids at his HS. And he appears to like it that way.</p>
<p>Miami–every school the kids have looked at has on campus apartments for juniors and seniors or at the very least, large apartment complexes across the street from campus where about 90% of the upperclassmen live. It’s pretty common around here. Usually the set up is typical dorm freshman year, a suite sophomore year and on campus apartments jr/sr year.</p>
<p>She has been very careful in her picks for her sport about time commitment, especially how much school is missed. What she has found has been very doable. DH and I were both college athletes and understand the commitment.</p>
<p>D’s favorite school has close to 100% living on campus (including separate honors and interest houses down the hill) all 4 years. One needs a special dispensation to live off campus.</p>