<p>Are visits really that important?</p>
<p>The reason for asking is that, when I was applying to college years ago, none of the information gained from visiting some of the colleges (I visited some, and did not visit some others) had a material effect on my preferences between the colleges. Nor was there anything that I could say that I really wished I knew from a visit (that could have been reasonably found out from a visit) before deciding.</p>
<p>Perhaps campus culture is not important to you, or has not been discernible, campus to campus. It is to many others (both important and identifiable). In my experience visits can be helpful for excluding, more than including. However, they can also be for the latter.</p>
<p>The most important part of the college process is the list itself. An inappropriate list is of little use if multiple acceptances result in choices that are less than optimum for the student. Visits help to refine and expand a list, but if those are not feasible before applications, they should seriously be considered, at least on a limited basis, after acceptances. A student who cannot afford to visit in April and is a FA candidate will sometimes have a visit paid for by the college/colleges. </p>
<p>Again, it may not be important for some people, but it appears that the majority of students benefit from visits, even without any structured touring.</p>
<p>ucb–I’m assuming you’re a parent, not a student. The answer is things are just different these days. Back a couple of centuries ago when we were seniors in high school, we didn’t apply to many schools (one to maybe three for my siblings and me), tended to stay in-state (only one in my family even looked out of state; all of us went to in-state publics), might have made a visit to a school but might not have. My kids applied to eight-to-fifteen (!) schools each. The older two did many visits early in their senior years (this last one is a senior and still hasn’t made any visits). We are the overly-involved generation of parents who want to give our kids the moon. (I guess the jury’s still out on whether that’s a good thing.)</p>
<p>I do think my kids have benefited from visits. From my two data points (so far), both have gone to colleges that they stayed at, and did/will graduate in four years. That said, I think we’re probably all over-doing the research/applications/visits. Maybe the tide will turn back when it’s our grandchildren’s turn.</p>
<p>Both of my kids who have gone through this process had schools on their lists that they applied to, were accepted to, and turned down without ever having visited.</p>
<p>However, they both visited the colleges they ended up attending. I think it is fine not to visit every school you apply to, but it is really important to visit the school you attend prior to making the final decision to attend.</p>
<p>The schools they did not visit were reaches that were not their dream school, and colleges that were far, far away. The final decision not to visit at all was based on the final financial package that came with the acceptsnce letters.</p>
<p>Besides the fact that it was a great bonding time on a family excursion, both my s’s found the visits extremely helpful in both getting a feel for the school, having the opportunity to meet with faculty, sit in on classes, get tours of research labs, talk to students, eat the food, you name it. If time and finances allow, its wonderful. If not, then there are other options.</p>
<p>I think visiting is more important for the student than the parent. </p>
<p>Most of the parents on this board have gone to college, and many of us have visited college campuses on various occasions throughout our lives. We know what colleges look like, and we have no trouble picturing ourselves or our kids in that setting.</p>
<p>But to the student, this is new territory. Visits not only give the student information about particular colleges; they also give the student information about college in general and make the whole application process seem real. </p>
<p>Students also make judgments about colleges based on visits, and while these are often “gut instinct” judgments, they add to the more objective information gained from other types of research. I know that when my kids did college visits, they were asking themselves the question “Can I see myself here?” I think that’s a good question.</p>
<p>I think visiting is useful in preparing application essays, as the student often gains a good sense of the school’s vision of itself and how it differs from its peer institutions. As far as the selection process, my kids used the visit to assess social fit. I was just talking to a friend last night whose son has been visiting schools. After each visit, he’ll comment “The kids look normal,” or “Too many ____________ (some social category he doesn’t identify with, eg. jocks) there.” My son rejected one school based on the look of the boys there (way too artsy and alternative lifestyle-ish for his comfort.)</p>
<p>I think if you can afford it go. I have three children in college and took all three on tours. Colleges they thought they loved they hated after the tour, visits of schools that they were so so on became top contenders and some tours confirmed that yes indeed they did want to go to this school. Worth it in my opinion!</p>
<p>How are you defining “important”? For some schools, it is nearly essential to visit or the student will not get accepted. THose small schools that get included on a lot of lists but are “safeties” or just add ons, look very carefully at demonstrated interest. With the common application, it’s so easy to apply to so many schools, but time and money and interest constraints usually limit the visits, and the ones on the list that are most important to the student/parents are the ones that usually get the visits. My son’s counselor really jumps on families and kids about visiting certain schools.</p>
<p>Now if you are applying ot Harvard or Princeton or Penn State or UVA, they do not care if you visit. They don’t eve track it, much less take it into consideration. I’ve known kid who were accepted to HPY without an interview though they are generally scheduled for all appicants. It’s for the kid, not for the school.</p>
<p>These days, kids feel they should visit. A rite of passage. My 4th one started getting nervous and asking for visits when all of his friends were discussing theirs. </p>
<p>How valuable they are in terms of helping a student make the best choice, I don’t know. I know too many kids who visited a school along with a list of other colleges to decide where to apply, visited the school to let them know of interest and interview after applying, visit the school for accepted students day, go back in the summer for Orientation, before move in and still want to transfer because it was the wrong school before the first year is out.</p>
<p>ucb – I think they’re very important for many students, much less so for others.</p>
<p>For my own children, they were vital. One “fell in love” from a campus visit in elementary school (no, we weren’t on a college visit, just going there for a cultural event) and totally focused herself on getting into that school. She became so motivated that she excelled in everything she did after that point – and is now a very happy student at that university.</p>
<p>Another child visited many colleges. The visits completely changed his and our minds about what would be the best fit for him. One college that we thought would be perfect for him would have been a really bad fit; another that he wasn’t interested in at all went to the top of his list.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I have a friend whose son was an academically successful high school student but didn’t really care where he went to college. He told his parents that they could just pick for him, and they chose the nearest large university. He applied, was accepted, visited the campus for the first time at orientation, is making all As in a very tough curriculum, and is very happy. I don’t understand it, but it has worked for him.</p>
<p>Oh, I don’t know. Even in the stone ages when I enrolled, I visited. My whole life (like, all 17 years at the time), I’d dreamed of one of the big state schools. (Hard to say whether or not it was the flagship as there were two and each had different specialties.) But, I went to visit and I HATED it. Unfriendly. Advisor I had an appointment with pretty much dismissed me as too stupid to get into his program (and dude, I had excellent stats back in the days when you took the ACT/SAT ONCE and nobody in the state “weighted” courses). Very glad I didn’t go there sight unseen.</p>
<p>We loved the visits (20 campuses). Some people thought we were barking mad to do that, but we visited family members and friends all over the country, ate local foods and went to some great museums. We have just one kid and flexible schedules so we turned the visits into fun family vacations. That said, I felt that the Fisk Guide nailed every school for social fit, so if we couldn’t have visited, our son could have relied on that. Our son seemed to learn so much about himself on the visits, especially when he could interview. Some of the schools do appreciate the demonstrated interest.</p>
<p>I visited about 6 colleges back in my day - I did a college tour just like my kids did. We all found it valuable. We find look and feel important data points. If you don’t see yourself someplace, it’s not for you. I wouldn’t rent an apt or buy a house or car sight unseen – this is a big investment as well.</p>
<p>I’m with ucbalumnus on this, but I doubt many others are. My kids certainly weren’t.</p>
<p>From my standpoint, visiting a campus for a few hours, or even overnight, produces a bunch of essentially random, but vivid and highly convincing, information about the college. There’s a good chance that some of what you see is “typical,” but almost a certainty that a good deal of what you see is not representative at all of life at that college.</p>
<p>It’s like eyewitness testimony in court. It FEELS really reliable, high quality, but in reality it’s one of the least reliable types of evidence.</p>
<p>During her visiting period, my generally thoughtful and analytic daughter decided: College A was anti-intellectual, because the tour guide was slightly over-blonde. College B was not even worth visiting, because as we parked the car across the street from the campus, a family crossed the street headed toward campus, and both the father and the teenaged son had on lime-green corduroys. English classes at College C were awful, based on one awful English class attended.</p>
<p>Objectively, none of that was true, or even almost true.</p>
<p>On the other hand, as a corollary to what eastcoascrazy writes – it turned out to be nearly impossible to get our son to consider choosing a college he had never visited over one he had seen several times and knew he liked. If you are going to visit some colleges, you had better visit any of them your parent wants you to consider seriously</p>
<p>I think they can be both idiosyncratic and useful - how is that for a straddle. </p>
<p>D didn’t like Mt Holyoke because of the tour guide’s skirt and I wish I were joking.</p>
<p>Having read probably a few hundred of his posts, I would describe ucbalumnus as smart, rational, and well-read. I don’t think people like him give great weight to the impressions of a few hours of a college visit.</p>
<p>A thread describing how college visits can mislead people is <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1407917-projection-bias-college-visits.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1407917-projection-bias-college-visits.html</a> .</p>
<p>"These days, kids feel they should visit. A rite of passage. My 4th one started getting nervous and asking for visits when all of his friends were discussing theirs. "</p>
<p>I disagree that it’s " these days." Both my H and I did college tours back when and so did our friends. It was just part of the process. The kids at my kids’ high school DON’T do tours since most are staying local. I think it’s a socioeconomic thing, not a new trend.</p>
<p>JHS, I can certainly see what you mean. There was a distinctive of a prospective school we didn’t think we liked after reading about it in the literature, but the adcom who gave our info. session really sold it. So S decided to attend, and as it turned out, our original assessment was correct and that feature was far more of a disadvantage than a positive.</p>
<p>While I think it can be very helpful to visit if you can afford it, we found it REALLY critical after acceptances to narrow down choices. At that point, my son sat in on classes and went to some events that were important to an EC he planned to be involved in at college. Those visits helped to confirm his decision.</p>
<p>No one I knew did college tours, others than those who went to reunions and such with alumni parents. Same set of families, and socio economics (easy to fix since my dad was GS) and now they all feel like they have to do college tours. Yes, in the inner city high school and schools where most kids go locally to college, it’s not a thing anymore, but for those kids applying to away school, it has become a rite of passage, and it is a tough pill for those families who can’t afford. the visits.</p>