Almost all of the colleges that my daughter wants to look at are all on the same day! It’s really frustrating. All of them are over 5 hours away and I think it’s such a waste to go for just a 2 hour tour. We are just in the beginning stages of looking (shes a junior this year). We went to Penn State and did the “Spend a Day at PSU” and found it very educational much more so than the 2 hours we spent at the University of Maryland.
So I guess what I am asking is, is there a way basically to do an open house when there is no open houses?
You, and more likely, your student, will tire very quickly of those all day sessions. It doesn’t take more than a couple for them to start to sound redundant. I wouldn’t overbook to many full day open houses unless you know they are top choices. If you go to too many, your student will fry out early and not want to spend time at schools that matter later on. For some schools, even a drive by is enough - you will see! There is also a lot you can do on your own at a campus, you don’t have to be led around in a group. Check out the environment without the kool-aid and see how it feels.
We actually preferred to avoid the open house days. Colleges run tours almost every day, several times a day. Check their websites. Your kid can often sit in on a class if you ask admission how to arrange it, and you can usually eat in the cafeteria if you ask. It is generally better to go when school is in session if you can (but even if that doesn’t work, a visit can still be productive). Your goal is to get past the marketing hype anyway. Pick up copies of the student paper if there is one while you are visiting (or look for it online) – it is one of the best ways to find the stories the admissions office wishes you didn’t hear about.
This early in the game, I wouldn’t travel too far or invest too much time in individual schools. Rather, I’d try to get her to think in terms of what kind of schools she’s looking for (large public vs. smaller LAC vs. private research university) the type of setting (rural vs. urban vs. suburban), and what area of the country. And, of course, run net price calculators and figure out what you can afford.
When the time comes for figuring out where to apply, if it’s a school that takes “demonstrated interest” and interviews into account, you’ll want to set up an on-campus interview if at all possible (or schedule an alumni interview locally).
My D visited very few schools before applying. She did most of her research online and interviewed locally. She was invited to compete for scholarship at several schools, and the rest she visited once acceptances were in hand.
I guess I need to explain why we are starting early. Where we live and due to our occupations neither my husband not myself can take off from the beginning of May until October. Our daughter also works 2 jobs during the summer months. So we have to peacemeal the tours out over the next year. We are at 8 colleges so far with a mix of safety and reach. Where we live all colleges with the exception of 1 are at the least 2.5 hours away.
Thank you for the advice though! This forum has been incredibly helpful!!!
Personally I found open houses less useful in general than arranging something on my own.
We visited seven colleges over the summer. For most, we were able to arrange a tour of lab facilities and a sit-down with a professor. Then, we had a campus tour that might have only included a few families. It took some phone calls to get them set up. We did one “open house” type tour and I wish I’d gone ahead and arranged something on my own.
At a larger state school we attended a “close up” day, but that was really good because we got a great facilities tour and got the same information we’d ask on our own. At a smaller college the open house wasn’t nearly as good. I guess it does depend on the school, and how they structure it. For the larger state school, that was the only way we were setting foot in the building we wanted to see during the summer.
Most of ours were within 3 hours away as well. Some required overnight stays the night before since some of the appointments started fairly early in the morning. I’m glad to put away my overnight bag for a while, lol.
My kids did not apply to a single school without visiting. They made sure each and every one that they applied to, was a place they would want to attend. That way, they could apply to fewer schools (4 was ideal), and the stress was lower during senior year. That’s just us, but wanted to throw that in in support of visiting.
Open houses are set up to market the school. That said sometimes that is the only way to get in to see a dorm room, or lab, or whatever.
Schools have info sessions and tours all the time. These also offer mostly the positives. They tend to blur after awhile, but can be useful.
We relied mainly on hanging out on campus to get the “vibe” because so much info is available online. The campus green, the bookstore, the dining hall, the library and so on are all helpful to visit and soak in the atmosphere.
Visits to classes were generally done after acceptance but it is worth asking. Overnights are often offered.
We started in an area that had a large state public, a small LAC and an alternative type college, so they could begin to think about type of school. One loved city, one liked country. Etc. Sometimes a visit to a school your kid does NOT like at all an be clarifying too. Good luck!
Just don’t go to open houses! Look onnthe college websites, and I am quite sure you will see info sessions, and tours offered. Check the schedules for each college…and go to those. You will get the same information as at an open house day…and with less people there overall.
We toured well over 25 colleges between our kids…and NEVER went to an open house day. Not once.
I didn’t even know schools had open houses! Just go and visit on a weekday when there are tours, info sessions, and classes to sit in on. You are much better off visiting during the school year when students are on campus and spreading them out, IMHO. We never did more than one school a day, and the max was a 4-school trip broken up with visiting family and friends.
If some of the schools are near each other, make a couple day driving swing to go to multiple at once. If they are close you may be able to do 2 in a day (although it is often hard to sit in on a class if you do that, just due to timing). Or if you are going near for some other reason to a school (vacation, family visits, etc), then add in a visit. Schools usually have tours on Saturdays, too – can’t go to class, but that is probably ok if campus is full of students.
Your kid can take a second look at accepted student visits at her to choices after she has acceptances, too (those are worth going to if possible).
Remember how much money college is going to cost. And transferring can be tough socially, financially, and academically. Investing now in making sure her choices make sense is worthwhile. (And running the Net Price Calculators before you visit is a good idea, too)
Are any of the schools close enough to each other to combine visits? Your daughter could go to the open house at one, and then hit another the following morning and you drive home in the afternoon. (Or if there’s a third nearby, visit that in the afternoon and drive home that night.)
Don’t worry if you can’t visit every school. We visited a lot of schools that were close to home that D ended up not applying to. It was still very helpful, as it helped her hone in on what qualities she wanted in a college. In the end, she applied to 4 schools she hadn’t visited (and 3 that she had). Two of them she visited after admission and one of them is where she’s headed in a couple weeks.
Our D only saw 3 of the 8 schools before applying since they were within driving distance. The 5 requiring a flight we decided not to visit unless she was accepted and they were affordable. 4 EA acceptances helped her eliminate some iffy school applications. She didn’t see 2 schools, one rolling acceptance (poor financial aid) and 1 waitlist (both plane trips.)
We flew to 3 accepted schools in April and did an admitted student day for one nearby, which she didn’t like as much the second time around. Intparent mentioned this earlier: our D revisited 2 after applying and had a surprising negative reaction to both (1 was waitlist #2, so that was fine.)
The last school we saw was on a normal college tour day but she was able to get a good sense of what it was like without having been to an open house. It was one of her reaches (we couldn’t fly to see it until 4/29) and that was the school she selected.
We visited all before applying to keep the applications to a minimum. All three did a whole day special visit in winter/spring of their senior year at there preferred college just to seal the deal. But yes the info sessions and tours are good enough and generally it isn’t terribly difficult to meet with a prof.
We visited all, but we started doing so very early (beginning summer after freshman year HS). We made it a point to make visits associated with vacations and business trips. Worked well.
We did visits/tours at just over 10 schools and also drove/walked through a few others. The only open house we did ended up being one of our least favorite visits. I liked that college better than my D, but we both felt the open house was very crowded, impersonal, and poorly run. The smaller visits were more helpful to us. You can also try to plan ahead if there are specific areas of campus that you want to see or if your child wants to sit in on a class. As others have suggested, spending time on campus and doing your own thing for a while can also give you a feel for the atmosphere. If you have any connections to any students on the campuses you’d like to visit, maybe arrange to have lunch with them to ask questions etc.
We only went to one open house. While I found it reasonably useful to go see presentations about programs of interest to my D (e.g., the honors program and presentations by students and faculty from several humanities departments), you really don’t get much of a feel for “a day in the life” of a student on campus. A weekday visit in which your kid can sit in on classes or spend a night or two in the dorms is much more enlightening. Open houses are not worth traveling any great distance to attend.
While there are obvious advantages to visiting schools before applying, how necessary visits are depends on the schools to which your kid is applying. My D applied to a lot of reaches and lottery schools (HYPS, etc). It hardly seemed worth visiting them as her chances of getting in were fairly slim and the schools don’t track interest.
One suggestion I have for when senior year rolls around is (assuming your kiddo is applying RD or EA rather than ED) to try not to have too many commitments in April. That’s the time to arrange for overnight visits to schools, attend admitted student weekends, etc.