<p>So I have heard that some colleges prefer their applicants to "show interest" in their college by making an official visit... is this true???</p>
<p>I have heard that a lot too. However, most of my son’s friends did not do official visits and some still get accepted into very good schools, including Ivies.</p>
<p>Well obviously a college visit isn’t a HUGE factor in admissions but I am just wondering if it could even be considered a slight factor of admissions. I just don’t want something so simple to hurt my chances of getting into any colleges because time and money don’t always allow traveling all over the place visiting colleges…</p>
<p>I have yet to hear someone say they felt like they didn’t get admitted because they didn’t do a college visit. HOWEVER!!! One of the tactics my son used with an admissions department was ensuring they knew he had visited the school on 3 occasions to show his interest. So, I guess I am contradicting myself.</p>
<p>Could you enlighten me on how your son did that? =)</p>
<p>It’s very important at some colleges and not visitig can get you rejected because certain colleges know they have a low chance of ‘yielding’ you if you have not visited. Many schools popular on CC, such as the ivies, do not consider demonstrated interest including visits, but many back ups to them, like Vandy and Emory, do.</p>
<p>many take this fairy seriously.</p>
<p>some, not at all.</p>
<p>Ok well how does this apply to decent colleges but not ivies such as BU, BC, Vandy, Drexel, SUNYs… etc? Because I am definitely not applying to ivies and these kind of schools would be almost reaches for me, instead of a safety.</p>
<p>The Ivies don’t care; they know they’ll have plenty of high quality applicants and high yields anyway. Most publics don’t care; they’re operating in such a large-N universe that they probably can’t even track this. But many LACs and some smaller private universities do care. They’re more likely to offer you admission if they think you’re more likely to accept, and one way they gauge that is by the “interest” you show. That means visiting campus in a way that’s officially recorded, if possible—though they recognize that due to distance and cost, this is more difficult for some than for others, and they’ll take that into account. But other kinds of contacts—e-mails, phone calls, showing up at their college fairs and information sessions at your school or in your community, signing up for an optional interview, etc—can count lieu of, or in addition to, an on-campus visit.</p>
<p>It is not an admission factor for any colleges. However, the fact that you visited shows an interest towards that college, which gives a good impression to an admission officer. This “good impression” can help you greatly in a indirect way.</p>
<p>Schools ask you in their application “Why are you interested in our school” in a hundred different ways. If you have visited them, then you shown more interest than most people. As bclintonk points out, schools vary. To some schools it is a big deal, others it is not. You need to find out how it impacts your choices.</p>
<p>Hmm… ok I guess I’ll consider visiting them sometime during the summer… But is there a way to see which colleges care about it and which don’t?</p>
<p>Look up the name of the school plus “Common Data Set” on google. You’ll get a page or PDF file that says all aspects considered in admissions, and their relative importance.
You can also find some books with this info. I have Princeton Review’s 368 (or however many) Best Colleges, and I sometimes enjoy flipping around in there rather than looking things up online.</p>
<p>Even if a college doesn’t care, I feel like visiting can help in writing the application, especially when there is a “Why [College X]?” essay. </p>
<p>In all likelihood, it’s mostly unrelated, but the only college to which I was not admitted (WL) was the one I did not visit.</p>
<p>As my D applied to various schools, I believed what we read on college websites, many of which specifically stated, “Visiting/in-person interviews are not required, but recommended.” Later, I found out that for small, selective LAC’s, such visits truly make a huge difference in admissions. If we had to do it all over again, we would have visited each and every school.</p>
<p>
Actually some colleges explicitly state they take demonstrated interest into account when making admission decisions.</p>
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<p>Here. Let me fix that for you.
“Many schools popular on CC, such as the ivies, do not consider demonstrated interest including visits, but many other schools, like Vandy and Emory, do.”</p>
<p>This notion that the world revolves around ivies and the only reason one would ever look at other schools is as back-up is more than a little obnoxious, not to mention incorrect.</p>
<p>My experience with Vanderbilt didn’t seem to have any indication that they’d take visitation into account. They pretty much had the same process as Duke and the others IIRC.</p>
<p>I think Vanderbilt does consider interest - pretty sure that’s why we visited a few years ago. WashU was another where the experience at my sons’ high school was that you should visit and interview - students with very high stats were waitlisted if they didn’t, and consistently in if they visited. I was surprised to find out, after my son was accepted, that Northwestern considers interest, and glad he visited twice!</p>
<p>Well our experience doesn’t prove or disprove the visit theory: Visited U of Chicago, Northwestern and MIT - Accepted to U of C and NW; Did not visit Princeton - Accepted. Also visited NC State but don’t think we let them know that, but Accepted…I read somewhere that each time you visit or contact a school, a note goes into your file that says " XYZ was here"… so it can’t hurt, but not sure if it helps if all the rest is not 1st rate…</p>
<p>Doubtful that most of the SUNY’s would keep track.
I mean, have you SEEN UB? It’s HUGE.
Geneseo may. But I doubt any of the large universities would.</p>
<p>Oh, and I’m sorry-Vandy and Emory are NOT back-ups.</p>