<p>Visiting helped me. I never dreamed that I would even apply to Berkeley before visiting it, which is where I am now. I thought I would feel… stupid, I suppose, compared to freshman admit Berkeley students. I did my UC tour right after high school, just before starting community college. I was thinking mid-low tier UC’s would be the best I could do. Then, just because my family is in the south Bay Area and too close to Berkeley to NOT visit, my dad and I went… and I fell in love with Berkeley. I didn’t feel out of place like I expected to. Then I figured, if I liked Berkeley, might as well see UCLA and UCSD too-- and they were big shocks for me. I loved San Diego, as a city, but didn’t like Los Angeles. Then I found UCSD unappealing and I loved UCLA so much it become a dream school, just under Berkeley for me. I thought, back in high school, that Davis sounded nice… and I didn’t like it. My visit at UCSB made me feel like transfers were more accepted there, and soon it became my third favorite school, which was unexpected. I didn’t even apply to Davis. Seeing all the colleges (especially Berkeley and UCLA) gave me the motivation to get a high GPA at community college. Heck, I only picked community college over where I got into after high school–SJSU and SFSU–because I sang with my choir at our local community college and had the chance to walk around and get a feel for it. I was really against going there before that. So here I am at Berkeley and not San Jose State (no offense meant to SJSU, though)… and I have tours to thank for that.</p>
<p>I think visits are great if at all possible. Just my two cents. Of course, not everyone can afford them… but there are still virtual tours, web chats with admissions, etc. Heck, UCSB visited our school for admitted students, and most UCs (I think all but except UCLA) sent reps to my community college. Sometimes they even come to you. I guess I’m lucky I live in a state with connected public schools, but I even had good alternatives to visiting, really.</p>
<p>Back in the day (40+ years ago), I did a college tour with my parents which influenced my decision for all the wrong reasons: I rejected one college because the tour guide’s socks didn’t match, and I chose the college I eventually attended because I loved the architecture. Skipping ahead to DS’s experience, he did no serious tours of any college until the acceptances came in. Then, the tours made all the difference in the world, and he chose his college based, in part, on unique resources available to students in his eventual major.</p>
<p>Back in the day I visited colleges too. I remember vividly learning at least two things. I visited a woman’s college that was supposedly closely allied with the men’s college next door, but when I sat in on an English class there were no men in the class at all. Having gone to an all girls high school I was dead set on going co-ed for college. That school was off my list. </p>
<p>In another case, I discovered that a school famed for academics was also a place you could have a lot of fun. </p>
<p>Every senior in my school (early 1970s) was allowed two college weekends where you could miss either Friday or Monday classes.</p>
<p>For my boys. Oldest hated visits. We did one spring tour with him kicking and screaming. He was fine with all the colleges and only cared about computer departments. He was willing to visit after acceptances. He ended up picking the best CS department over arguably the best university. The two visits could not have been more different and he did find the decision difficult.</p>
<p>Younger son liked visiting. He identified his probable major through visits. Figured out exactly what he wanted in a campus. And found a safety he loved. He found it much easier to write the Why ___ college essays when he had visited and/or had a family connection he could use in lieu of a visit.</p>
<p>Our kids thought they were essential. They wanted to see the campus, see the students, get a feel for the surrounding area. They visited some schools that on paper were great fits, once we got there, no way. They probably would have been fine attending those schools but they had better choices. I would hate to show up freshman year and find that you don’t fit in at all because you never visited.</p>
<p>I know kids, some instances with my own included, where a bad or great tour made a difference when the criteria should not have been considered. Kids still cross colleges off the list because of a bad tour guide or experience that could have happened anywhere, unfortunately. And those things can happen after the acceptance. My son had a bad visit at a top choice school which had nothing to do with the school, and he had such a bad taste about it that he crossed it off his list, a mistake he now acknowledges. </p>
<p>I don’t know if in the end, the visits end up beneficial or not. I am for them, because it does put more information on the table. Sometimes reading about some things don’t register, but going there and experiencing them does. I always suggest visiting and checking out crucial points about a school. If you are not sure about the weather, don’t have the visit when all is well and warm there. Notre Dame in January is a better indication of how cold it gets there rather than when things have warmed up. Kids who have never experience humidity might want to give it a go, and the reality of living in non air conditioned dorms. If those are things that can be a real problem, make sure they are right out there.</p>
<p>It still continues to amaze me when I hear of situations where a tour guide is the deciding factor in turning someone off from a school. It’s not that I don’t appreciate that this could occur, or that a tour guide could be awful. It’s just that tour guides are usually 20-year-old KIDS and no one should take them too seriously, IMO.</p>
<p>Our family always found it more telling when an adcom gave an awful presentation. We felt that this reflected more on the school than when a young tour guide was inadequate. We have seen adcom presentations that were amazing, but some were also boring, simplistic, snarky or arrogant.</p>
<p>What was more important than a tour was the overall feel of the school: the kids we saw on the tour, the kids on campus, how they dressed, the feel of the buildings, the classrooms, the town, etc. Not to mention a million other factors about what a school had to offer. Maybe we just never had a horrible tour. But we would never judge a school based on a bad tour.</p>
<p>I think a lot depends on the kid and the types of campuses. Some kids easily adapt and will find their way at almost any place they attend college. Other kids really have a specific environment they are seeking and will need to find the “perfect fit” in their mind before they will be happy.</p>
<p>As for the campuses visiting, if a kid is from a suburban or rural upbringing and has never lived in a big city environment, it would be more critical to visit if they are contemplating a truly urban campus. Similarly, if one has been raised in a big city, they would want to visit if they are contempleting schools in the middle of nowhere or small campus environments that might be foreign to them given their background.</p>
<p>Visits were important to my daughter in determining what kind of college she wanted–that is, between LACs and larger universities. I agree that you can’t tell too much about the education or even the students from a brief visit, but you can see the size, the physical plant, the proximity to stores, services, and transportation–and I think seeing those things is helpful, even if you can also read about them. I think visits are a luxury, but a useful one if you can afford it.</p>
<p>Maggie, I agree. But I’ll tell you, that it can color the perspective on the school We hit two schools in one day, and the tour guide to the first was A-1. It really gave us a great perspective on the school. The next tour at a neighboring college had terrible guides. They really gave a terrilbe feel to the school My son still cracks jokes about that tour. It was really bad. It doesn’t help when there is construciton, it’s pouring down rain, an appointment gets lost, a mistake is made, a professor is a bit short because he has some pressing issues, the admission guy is a jerk. All of these thing could have ZERO bearing on how great the school could be to a student. My one son had the tour and visit from hell at a school that would have been wonderful for him, and where many of his friends and fellow students attended. But he still has a bad flavor about the place, and from the tour and experience, no wonder. I was not so thrilled myself.</p>
<p>My daughter got into her top choice school, was thrilled etc. but when we visited, we had barely arrived on campus and she said “Absolutely not”. She had wanted urban and this was about as far away as you could get from that. She is now at an urban college and loving it. I dread to think what would have happened if she’d taken the original top choice offer; I’m sure she would have settled, but she’s so happy where she is now.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse-a bad tour guide we can get past, add in all those other things and no way. DS had a similar experience at one school and there is no WAY he would go there.</p>
<p>I’ve taken my kids on college visits- but not necessarily where they apply. After my first, I took my kids to see small- big- private- public - college town vs city. That gives them a basis of what kind of school they want. I did it in the NE with my older son and now we’re going to FL for the youngest. He threw a fit last night as “x was nothing like what he wanted” but they don’t always know until they see.
Shopping is different than buying…what they see when they’re shopping may be different then April senior year.
My oldest was SO excited he got into a top small engineering school and while we were in the state, visited the one and only large school he applied to (he was going smaller) He liked the smaller one ok, but totally fell in love with the bigger school, has spent his college years there loving it and will graduate in May. I asked him over break if he would tell his 17 year old self anything different and he said, absolutely not.</p>
<p>Sometimes you have to trust your kid to be able to put the subjective impressions obtained from a visit into perspective, along with all of the other information that the kid has collected about the college.</p>
<p>My kid #1 preferred university X over university Y when he visited. But after he was admitted to both, he chose Y, despite its more impersonal atmosphere and less appealing campus, because it had a better program in his intended major. </p>
<p>My kid #2 fell in love with Columbia when she visited. But after giving it further thought, she didn’t apply to Columbia because she didn’t like its Core Curriculum. She ended up at a school with a more conventional curriculum and had a good experience there (even though her visit to that school was unpleasant because the weather that day was extremely hot).</p>
<p>I found it was a fun way to spend Easter break and get some good one-on-one time with my 3 children as they each were ending junior year of HS. I got to see a lot of schools that I had heard about but never seen. We managed to visit relatives that lived in the path of our caravan trail.</p>
<p>Useful? In the eye and mind of the potential student.</p>
<p>One benefit of visiting I didn’t originally anticipate has been the opportunity to spend a lot of unstructured time talking with our kids. Traveling to and from colleges brought me closer to each of them and gave me time and a reason to talk with them about goals and the future, values and priorities. Some of the best quality time I’ve had with my teens has been during college visit trips.</p>
<p>Stevema, thanks for the thumbs up. Yeah, it was one bad visit there. And lots of merit money at that school too. My next one loved ths school and it was his second choice. Shows how “YMMV” can truly vary.</p>
<p>I don’t know. My two college trips were easy enough, possibly good family bonding experiences. I did get some inaccurate impressions but I don’t think they made a difference.</p>
<p>Writing this almost two years later…honestly, I don’t remember substantial differences between any of the schools.</p>
<p>Since today’s students are aware of more choices, and it’s so easy to appy to a dozen schools, it makes sense to use the visit to help sort your selection. As part of the process with S2, he moved or dropped some good fits after the visit. Lafayette?-didn’t like Easton, and wanted a school in a more urban environment. Drexel?-loved the coop program, but he wants a more well defined campus, not one that integrates with the surrounding area. We also found out that he wants to stay relatively close to home.</p>