<p>I am deciding whether to visit colleges one last time before making a decision. Here are my questions:</p>
<p> Is the college visit worth the cost (airline tickets, hotel etc.)?
If you do decide to go visit, do you go there during the admitted student days or do you avoid going during that period? What are the pros and cons of each?
When you go visiting, what do you typically do? I am thinking about sitting in classes, what else do you do?
Is parents going with you worth the extra cost? If my parents are not going, I probably can save the hotel expense by staying with students in their dorm. </p>
<p>What else do you do before you make your final college decisions? Good luck to all!</p>
<p>littlesunshine, how great that you have choices - congratulations! If you are unable to decide objectively, based on finances or academic program, I would say that it is absolutely worth it to visit to get the subjective feel of the places. Going without your parents would be fine, though. During “admitted student days”, the universities or colleges will try to showcase everything, but you will also be able to see a variety of activities and academic offerings that your “hosts” during a visit at another time might not know about. I would say to first use a list or decision matrix to examine the choice objectively, and if you are unable to decide, plan a visit. Good luck!</p>
<p>lil’sunshine, it can’t hurt to visit a place you could be spending the next four years of your life at. However, I am a wee bit skeptical about college visits. It is very possible to have a great visit and then be miserable at the school, conversely, you can have a bad experience during a visit and give up on a school that would be great for you. Visits can give you a “feel” for a place, but understand it is very, very subjective.</p>
<p>Very true. Happened to us. Visited both several times. Chose school A. Was miserable from the first day due to things we didn’t (or couldn’t) pick up from a visit. Transferred to school B where he had had a bad visit experience, but it wasn’t something that would affect his college experience there. Was much, much happier at school B.</p>
<p>On the question of going during admitted students day or not: I had suggested to my daughter that she may want to do her upcoming visit on a normal day instead, having read what people here said about those special events not giving a true view of the college. She said she wants to do the admitted students day because she is a shy person. She knows she is not going to just walk up to students and talk to them about their experience. The special visit days will give her way to do that in a structured environment. So I guess it can depend on what kind of person you are and what you’re trying to find out.</p>
<p>As for visits that actually hurt rather than help, I think that has to be an exception. As long as the visit will not be a financial hardship, I would definitely do it and take the chance that you might get a “false positive” or a “false negative” view.</p>
<p>And if you go without parents, do ask about being hosted in a dorm. Just don’t assume that every student at the school is like your host (whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing).</p>
<p>If you can afford to time and moneywise, do your “due dilligence” after you’ve been admitted, on a normal school night and arrange to stay in a dorm with a student. </p>
<p>The decision on where to attend is far more serious than the decision on where to apply. It’s a different mindset. It’s more “for keeps”. </p>
<p>Accepted students days are more for people sure of their decision to get together and “bond”. They are not ideal for performing your “due dilligence” to maximize the chance that you’ll be happy.</p>
<p>We visited a bunch of schools over two years in order to get a list together for applications. Now that the acceptances are coming, my son will probably visit 2 schools at most to make the final decision. He already has some ideas about what his top choices are but a merit award offer from a school that was not high on his list has made him consider this school as a top contender since a like school that he had high up there is not likely to give him this kind of money and he has not yet been accepted to his top choices. </p>
<p>He will go for Accepted Student Day because he really already has a good feel about the school and is really going for some detail questions. He did not give the school as careful of a visit at the time we were doing the “cruising”. Now it’s with intent to “buy”. He did consider just going for a regular day, but in looking at the schedule of events for the Accepted Student Day, a lot of questions he has will be addressed then, and he is not worried that the festive air will distract from his decision since he has some pretty solid issues he is checking out. If it were the atmosphere of the school in question, I would not recommend the visit at such times. He’d also like to see who is coming to this school.</p>
<p>Such an interesting thread. My daughter is torn between her 2 top choices right now, and they are like comparing apples to oranges.</p>
<p>Emerson was always her dream school and we went to an admitted student event in January and she loved the school. Her other top choices were USD (which she is dropping off the list as we are from SD) and University of Denver. We visited U of D and she loved it too.</p>
<p>COA with financial aid is about the same at both schools. I state this as she said she might waiver to one or the other if one was significantly more affordable than the other.</p>
<p>I asked her if she wanted to visit Emerson again, but she said no as we really can’t afford it…SHe is worried that she will miss out on the “traditional” college experience by attending Emerson and it’s urban campus. Emerson has always been her dream school and she cried whe she was accepted.</p>
<p>Except that the city in question is Boston! </p>
<p>You’d be surprised how many people pick the city and then pick the college. For them Boston IS the traditional college experience. I guess it just depends on your tradition. </p>
<p>I’m biased because I live here, but Boston really is a great place to go to college.</p>
<p>That is her positive arguement for Emerson: there are so many colleges in Boston that she can visit if she needs to “feel” campus :)</p>
<p>She also has the ability to take classes at Berklee College of Music through a program available at Emerson.</p>
<p>I have a feeling she will end up at Emerson, but she is still waivering… We are going to an event next Saturday in San Diego at the home of an Emerson alumni, for admitted students in San Diego area. She is hoping she can find a “fly buddy” there :)</p>
<p>How many schools do you all recommend visiting? My dad says 2-3, which I think sounds reasonable… except how do you narrow it down to those 2-3? I have had the good fortune to be accepted to a number of schools, and am still waiting on some more decisions. Since I like all the schools to which I applied, I’m rather torn about how to narrow it down. Any advice for an indecisive student :)?</p>
<p>We’re all different, but for us, a lot depended on out-of-pocket cost to our family to attend the U. Us w/o merit aid were tossed. Thereafter, we conferred with each U about their policies regarding accommodating students with documented health issues which allowed further pruning of the list. S chose the school he liked best from the remaining Us–not the cheapest but within our means.</p>
<p>It can be useful to make a spreadsheet of all the pros & cons of each U to weigh. FWIW, S did not step foot on the campus of his U until he went there to move in for the fall (tho we had driven around it once). He was quite satisfied with his choice & D transferred to join him there; she attended Parents Weekend with us at his U & loved it. It was the only U she applied to.</p>
<p>We did offer S the option of visiting the campuses before he made his final choice of which U he would be attending but he felt it would be a waste of time & $$$ and said he would be happy where he was planted after all the analysis we had already completed.</p>
<p>Our kids have visited on admitted students’ days and on their own time. Admitted students’ days are very fun! But you can make a decision based on either.</p>
<p>Ours winnowed the list down to 2-3 and then did the more serious visits. Any more colleges than that is too expensive and time consuming.</p>
<p>Keetermom, my D used to be in love with Emerson, but over time she decided she wanted a traditional campus and a well-rounded liberal arts education, so she ended up not applying (she’s a senior in HS now). She has two friends there, one who came in for theatre but ended up finding the theatre program too narrow and wanting a broader liberal arts education. so she is transferring to a liberal arts college. The other is in communications and loves it. Several of my friends’ kids have gone there, in theatre, marketing and communications, and they all liked it and did very well. But Emerson is not for everyone. It’s for focused kids who know what they want to do, and who are happy living in the middle of the city.</p>
<p>As for traveling to the schools, my D doesn’t feel it’s worth it, plus she has very little time, but I’m not so sure. She had a top-three list, and after getting into a few schools, we sent her from California to Pennsylvania to Admitted Students Weekend at one of them last month. It ended up being a grueling, quick trip, but worth it-- although not for the reason we expected. We thought she’d love the school even more than when we first saw it last spring, but she didn’t like it nearly as much. And now it’s slipping farther down in her personal ranking. But that’s good-- it’s helping her find the right fit.</p>
<p>She now has a new top-two list, but it’s such a money and time issue to send her 3,000 miles to visit them that we probably won’t. I do think it would help, but it’s not essential. So she will keep making pro and con lists!</p>
<p>One way to winnow down a list is to separate the similar colleges into groups and then see if there is one college in the group that you would go to above all others in the group. Keep that one college and remove the others from consideration. By the end, you’ll probably have 3-4 categories and 3-4 colleges to seriously consider.</p>
<p>Think of it as the NCAA basketball tournament. 4 regions leads to the final four, then the final 2 and then the winner.</p>
<p>I visited colleges over the summer and I thought it was a waste of time and money (I’m an international). The only useful thing was I decided what I didn’t like (very urban campuses, to my surprise). It’s hard to get a feel for a college during an Admitted Students weekend or during a summer visit. The atmosphere is very different. One college which was so cheery during an Admitted Students day was soo dreary when I visited it on a normal day. And after I left, I kept second-guessing my gut feelings. Did I like Swarthmore only because of the pouring rain? Did I like Harvard only for the pizza? btw no to the first Q and unsure about the second. :P</p>
<p>D and I are leaving tomorrow to revisit her final three. All three are very different from each other, all are in different cities, and all have great academic programs. </p>
<p>D is approaching this more seriously than our “cruising” visits and is looking at it from a “fit” perspective. She wants to check out the students and the surrounding area off campus. She understands that many kids move off campus at some point and wants to understand what she is getting into. She is looking to see if the schools has a vibe that she likes.</p>
<p>As you can see by my name, we are from the Boston area and one of Ds choices is in Boston. She originaly insisted on “getting out of town” for college but is seriously reconsidering becasue of the Boston allure. She will “get out of town” when she studies abroad so that gives her an out of town experience.</p>
<p>To echo classicrockerrdad, Boston is an unbelivable college town. It isn’t like attending just one school but many schools with different vibes. Kids often attend events at other schools to “mix it up” and Boston/Cambridge is like one big campus. For example, Springfest is a huge concert and you need a college ID from a Boston school to get in. It has a very diverse crowd (geographically and socioeconomically) and is never boring.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, it is my Ds experience, not mine, so it is her choice and she will have to live with it. Because of this, I think a final visit is worth the $$.</p>