<p>Rising B student NJ Junior is about to visit some colleges while we're on vacation. Considering Education major. We are first planning SC, NC, TN as a vacation run, then to VA, MD, DE.</p>
<p>Have only visited one school so far.</p>
<p>Some tips on college visits, please. There are so many!!!! How do you narrow it down? How many did you see in a week so you can get some quality vacation time in, too? What things do you look for/measure before you actually go and drive there? How can you tell beyond the websites?</p>
<p>People to email? Questions to ask?</p>
<p>Are there any other resources other than this great website to help you gain real feedback?</p>
<p>A rising junior? Or rising senior? I didn't quite catch that. </p>
<p>But forget quality vacation time, now's the time you should start working hard. =P You can slack off senior year summer, but these two summers are the most productive for the application process.</p>
<p>Basically I started with looking for the colleges I liked. There's no good visiting a state if you're not interested in any of the colleges there. You can first narrow it down by determining whether you like east coast or west coast or the um.. middle part of the States (for lack of better word. =P). That knocks off a lot of schools you have look out for. </p>
<p>Then urban, suburban, or rural? Again, that will cut down the number of schools significantly. Next would probably be size. Do you want large, medium, or small? Everyone's definitions of size are slightly different, but just think if you like a campus where everyone knows your name (but also all your faults), or a place where you're part of the crowd and meeting someone new everyday (but also likely just to be a number to professors). That cuts the list down even more. </p>
<p>These are all things you should think about before you actually go there. It's no use sitting down to write your apps in senior year and think, uhhhhhh that summer spent visiting colleges was absolutely USELESS because I'm not interested in ANY of them right now.</p>
<p>To tell beyond the websites, I'd go to places that have students or others review the college. Some books publish reviews of colleges, and some websites compile them together.</p>