Anyone attend a school without visiting?!?

Parent Cafe
41

Our S never visited USoCal except to drive around it with our friends who live in LA until he matriculated there. (Our LA friends who live only 30 minutes away said it was way too dangerous to tour or step foot on campus.) He was very happy all 4 years and D liked it so much when S moves in it was the only school she applied to.

Back in the day, I and my sibs all attended undergrad and grad/professional campuses we had never stepped foot in until we were moving in. It worked out ok for all of us.

These days with COA at Us being so high, having a campus visit before committing and turning down other options seems prudent.

42

@vnorovy

Surely there were reasons your daughter applied to Stanford, right? Revisit those reasons. If they still apply, then go for it.

My kid went to Santa Clara which is right down the road. She loved her college experience in California and definitely did not miss the crummy New England winters…at all.

Your daughter is considering Michigan, another large university. It’s not like she is considering Williams and Stanford…

I say this because my kid visited Stanford (just to visit…she was in that neck of the woods anyway). She absolutely hated the campus. She said it was too big and way too spread out. She wanted something a campus that was much smaller with far less students and far less sprawled out.

BUT comparing Michigan to Stanford…both are late. Both are pretty sprawled out. Both have similar “University” qualities (facilities, sports, etc).

I agree…virtual tours…and then go for it.

The worse that can happen is she hates Stanford and transfers to Michigan where you are instate.

43

@Vnorovy - What is your daughters planned major? Some majors at Stanford (CS, Pre-Med) are likely to be much more stress inducing, particularly being so far from home.

Your daughters personality is another helpful indicator. Since she is studying abroad, that tells you a lot about her. She can function at a high level on her own, has a touch of wanderlust, etc. I did stress to my daughter during the college search that “fit” was the most important factor. You can’t perform well if you’re too stressed out or feel like you don’t belong. Of course, she thought I was crazy at first.

I always encouraged personal responsibility, independent thought (even when contrarian), and not being afraid of new experiences with my daughter. I also told her that everyone, if possible, should live in a thriving urban environment like NY, LA, Chicago, etc. at least once in their lives.

Unfortunately, she was listening. We live in VA (I’m originally from Michigan, like yourselves) and she decided to attend University of Southern California. She is wrapping up her sophomore year and loves it out there in LA. Currently planning her study abroad for Junior year.

Attending college should always be first about the academics. However, the life skills our children acquire in college should not be overlooked. My daughter can navigate an airport like a pro, has become used to setting up her own medical appts, and can get from point A to point B in a major city without assistance.

How many of us could look at our children as seniors in high school and say to ourselves “if my child was dropped, right now, into the middle of NYC, LA, Miami, etc. I know they could handle the situation”. My daughter would have flipped out.

Is your daughter ok with going sight unseen? Stanford is an incredible accomplishment. Michigan is a great school but the opportunities at Stanford will be amazing. If your daughter shows the interest in attending, I’d let her go. If she doesn’t, it will likely become “I had the chance to attend Stanford and didn’t”.

There is always a chance she doesn’t like the school but I think that would be extremely remote. That doesn’t seem to be a big issue with attending Stanford.

44

If nothing else, she won’t be complaining to you about the weather.

45

Agreed…the weather is quite nice!!

46

My wife, our two kids and I all graduated from colleges we hadn’t visited first. Everyone was happy with their schools.

I love Stanford’s campus.

47

Hard to turn down Stanford! And it’s not just because of the prestige factor. I had driven through Stanford once while I was in law school on the East Coast, and I had the same reaction that some have mentioned here - too uniform, too manicured, borrinng. But then, years later, I re-encountered the school at a USC-Stanford football game. My husband was teaching at USC at the time, so off we all went, and I was so put off by all the USC pomp and the Trojan warrior parading around the field - I’m sure I was overreacting but it felt kind of creepy to me. And then, enter Stanford’s dancing palm tree! All was forgiven! How could anyone not love a school with a dancing palm tree for a mascot?

48

@intparent I’ve hated Stanford every time I’ve been on campus too. :slight_smile: Love the Stepford wife analogy, it’s exactly what I feel. That said, I’m pretty sure, I could actually be perfectly happy there. I’m a bloom where planted sort of person. My parents moved every two to three years growing up and I can make myself at home anywhere.

49

Stanford’s mascot is a Redwood tree but who’s keeping track…

50

Other things to think about:

Is it affordable? Or does she have a high scholarship other option?

What if she doesn’t like it? Can she make it through a semester or a year?

51

I did. I transferred to Columbia University having never seen it, despite it being only 25 miles from my house. My mom and I toured everywhere I applied the first time, and agonized over the choice. Then I transferred with one application sight unseen.

It was the right place for me.

52

My D is currently a junior at a college she did not visit before arriving for orientation. She has done well and has been very happy. We visited 5 or 6 colleges but most of the schools she ended up applying to, we hadn’t visited. Time, distance, and money made after-acceptance visits difficult. I would have made sacrifices for a visit before committing but she didn’t feel it was necessary.

Some caveats:
She has a very agreeable personality and takes things in stride.
She had gone to boarding school many miles from home.
The college visits we did do, helped us both read between the lines of the literature, websites, etc.
We watched, read, explored everything we could find, especially nonofficial stuff, like student-posted videos, postings of student performances, etc.

If your D is doing fine studying abroad, it’s a sign that she can adapt to another new, sight unseen environment.

53

socaldad2002 Yes, a redwood would make more sense! Cool tree in any event.

54

I committed to Reed without having visited any of the schools I applied to because as an international applicant I couldn’t travel to the States for a college tour.

It was not a problem at all. I’d done so much research that Reed was exactly what I’d expected it to be, except prettier–the photos of campus that were available online in 2011 didn’t do it justice.

Honestly, I’ve often thought this forum’s emphasis on college visits is a bit disproportionate. You can find out most of the important things about a school online nowadays, you can come to love/get used to a lot of aspects of campus life that don’t immediately strike you as appealing & as for the visit itself, it produces a vague and frequently misleading gut feeling that could sometimes be based on stuff you’ll never care about again (the tour guide’s personality, how the admission office does things, etc.). The fact some visitors seem to find the Stanford campus boring or Stepford-like is actually a great example of the kind of meaningless input/impression that might prevent someone who would be very happy there from enrolling. Like… who cares? How does this actually affect student life? Does it oppress students to the point of distraction and make them wish they’d gone somewhere else? I highly doubt it.

I’m not saying campus visits are actually misleading and should be discouraged, but I definitely don’t think they’re indispensable. Seek out students’ testimonies on the internet, read the student newspaper, look at the school website critically, etc. and you’ll probably get a pretty good sense for what Stanford’s really like.

55

The college I attended was my absolute last choice, but it was the only one I could afford to put myself through. It was 15 minutes from home but I never set foot on the campus until registration day - there was no online course selection in 1976. I didn’t visit it when I applied because my 16 year old magical thinking made me believe that the money for a desired school would somehow materialize and I could cross the school from my list. It didn’t. I wouldn’t say that I bloomed where planted, but I survived the 4 years and made it into law school, which was my ultimate goal at the time.

56

I did it 3 times. The main thing that could go wrong is if the main architectural style is somehow offensive or creepy. Just about everything else you can adapt to. You have have faith that a place as wealthy & popular as Stanford is going to do a decent job with money-sensitive factors
…food should be at least ok, dorms clean, campus safe, etc. Weather is uniquely moderate in that general area. Probably few colleges would be as safe to attend sight unseen. I mean when the most common gripe is it’s TOO perfect looking…

57

@jcwjnw99 @thumper1 Funny. My son lived in SoCal (San Diego) his whole life. His #1 school of choice is Virginia Tech :smiley:

58

I hadn’t visited Cornell before attending. Never regretted it. I came from a big family, and I simply couldn’t afford to take time off from work for a trip.

59

My daughter applied to eight schools during her application season, only having set foot on one of the campuses where she had attended summer music camp for six years. We never went on a college visit tour. And as hunters of merit she was always going to attend the school with the best bottom line. It has worked out beautifully. She has loved her school, thrived there, will be graduating at the top of her class in a few weeks, and has been admitted to a PhD program that is the top program in her field. It can work out.