For my older D, we did 2 visits her senior year. After we had the all the decisions we went back to her top 2 schools for a final look before she decided on where she would go. All the initial visits we did her junior year, we didn’t look at any new schools her senior year.
@MAandMEmom Clarkson will also do an admissions interview with your child when you schedule your visit and have you meet with a professor in the afternoon. IMO, they had a really good visit structure - interview, tour, and one on one with a prof. In our case, the prof gave my daughter a more comprehensive tour of the labs and spent a good deal of time with her.
We have done all the tours we’re going to do until (hopefully) we have admitted students days in April for the top contenders. Whoever they are. Gah, I hope kiddo has more than one. At this point I don’t know which would be worse - getting in to only one school or getting in to all of the schools.
@ilovebillyjoel You can show interest without visiting…(if the college is even interested…look in section C7 of common data set)
e.g., the following can be available
+Sign up for information.
+Attend a college fair and talk to the admissions counselor/alumni. They will have a method for you to share your information.
+Attend a High School visit if the college visits your HS
+Attend a regional information session.
+Take a tour/Go to open house if possible.
+Sign up for an alumni interview in the fall of your senior year if you can’t make it to campus.
+Contact the admissions counselor in your area;
+Read emails the college sends you (yes, colleges can tell if you have opened the email)
+Asking questions not answered on website or in this forum by emailing admissions
@MAandMEmom - If you visit Clarkson check out Maxfield’s restaurant - that was where I had my first date with DH 27 years ago! 
Back then it was the only nice restaurant in the area, usually only visited by student’s on parent’s weekend when we didn’t have to pay!
Sounds like a plan @momtogkc! Thanks for the advice. Clarkson is a long 6.5 hours from home so I’m still in the undecided camp. It’s in the network of exchanges at hubby’s work so we might need to suck it up and go.
@MAandMEmom - I understand the long drive dilemma. I grew up in MA and went to St. Lawrence - the same 6 1/2 hour drive. The crazy thing is that after doing it a few times it felt like nothing - we would even drive all the way home just for the weekend sometimes (marathon, Head of the Charles, introducing DH to my parents…)
Another tip - if you are driving the Mass Pike/ Albany route make sure to stop at Oscar’s Smokehouse in Warrensburg, it is right after you get off the main highway and start on the smaller mountain roads. They have this cheddar they call counter cheese - it is SO good - as well as tons of other meats and snacks that are great.
We’re visiting a few schools next week but other than maybe slipping into some things coming into town to show interest, we’ll be done after that.
I would say yes, most definitely. Unless we can’t get the kid to go anywhere else. He’s visiting Boston schools this weekend. Still need to get him to the state flagship to see if he’d feel OK there. There are some Southern schools we want him to look at, and I desperately want to get him to Case Western to check it out. Also, they seem to highly value a campus visit, and don’t seem to have any recruitment events in our area where he could go to show interest. But our school schedule is very cramped this year - no long weekends in the Fall and only a few days for Thanksgiving, so I don’t know how we’ll fit this all in.
S18 is now in college, but we didn’t visit any until senior year. We drove to a state where he toured a small, medium, and large college. Then, he went to the colleges at which he was accepted that he was still interested in (he decided he wanted a small school). Can’t say this is the best method, but on the other hand, he didn’t fall in love with any place he didn’t see (and wasn’t accepted). It was a bit of a hassle senior year, though.
We started touring with D15 during her sophomore summer and brought along S18 on most of the tours, around 10 out of 16. They now both attend schools that they didn’t see until their senior years, hers in August and his in October.
We visited our D’s top three college choices during her high school’s Fall Break in October of her senior year. Because of the distances involved, we had to do a multi-stop plane trip. It helped confirm her decision on which one to apply to ED, and she received her ED acceptance letter around the Christmas holidays. After we returned home, she also met with the regional admission counselor for the college she applied to ED.
We were very fortunate. Our D’s college search was focused and consumed relatively little time and effort because she did her research up front. I told her I would commit to visits to her top three college choices which required plane travel as long as we could do the trip in a week or less. She also visited the local state university as well as a few colleges in Southern California in conjunction with school trips.
“With how competitive everything has become these days if you don’t have a hook the average (3.8UW 32 ACT ORM) doesn’t have a huge chance at most top 40-100 schools let alone better ones”
Ok let’s not exaggerate here. Students with those stats routinely get into schools in the top 100. You’re guaranteed to get into Iowa for goodness sakes. I know many with those stats…many …who got into Wisconsin. It’s tougher with top 50 but I also know many kids who get into those schools with those stats.
@ emptynesteryet: Coming from a town with less than 25K people is something which may have a kid’s application given a closer/second look?
Was there an adfitional consideration, such as rural ( or some other)?