<p>The college visits are essential in two distinct ways: </p>
<p>1) Finding the right potential fit for students;
2) Demonstrating interests and have interviews (or just a conversation in case your college of choice does not require interviews).</p>
<p>While it gets confusing to remember every detail after the first 3-4 visits, it is important for applicants to consider visiting as many colleges as they “seriously” consider attending if accepted (not to be confused with visiting as many colleges as they plan to apply). College life is more about “imagining yourself” in a given environment than just researching and reading about the social scene, athletic facilities, labs and library, dorm life, academic excellence, location, etc. of a given college. You have to feel comfortable about number elements to find your home for the next four years. Most colleges look great on paper but may not be the right fit for you. A visit (or two) will help you to get a better understanding of what life will be about in the next four years. Although, you should leverage your time during the visit to talk to students and asks them about their experience, peak your head into couple of classes, get a feel for the setting and size of classes, get a feel for the campus life and social settings, read the campus paper, attend a social event, and discuss your concerns/questions with people in the Admissions.</p>
<p>College visits also help you to demonstrate “interests”. Most decent (and smaller) colleges are trying to focus on kids that are not only great fit (academically and otherwise), but “very” interested to attend if accepted (it is marginally related to the “yield” factor). So if you are focusing on a few at the end, and more interested in the final 2-3, it is good idea to visit those 2-3 colleges at least once. Go through their interviews (if offered), and keep following up with the Admissions about your interests. As you know, there is no REAL science when it comes to the admission process and some applicants that think they are very qualified for some colleges don’t get in, and some that think it was their “far reach” get in (rare cases). Part of this phenomenal is addressed through some intangibles such as your interests, quality of your writing, interview, visits, fit, and how you drew a parallel between that particular college community and yourself (when writing the supplemental application that starts with “why college XYZ”).</p>
<p>It depends on what kind of visit. The general tours can be terrible indicators of what a school is really like but they sure can help you decide quickly if a school is a bad fit.</p>
<p>Our experience with 2 kids has been that what the schools they originally thought would be the perfect school for them clearly wasnt after a visit. I think what the student can get out of this is deciding between a Big State U vs. LAC, etc.</p>
<p>"
(4) what students say about the college in books such as “The Insider’s Guide to the Colleges” or in forums like this one, since those students have spent years, not hours, at the school"</p>
<p>ROFL! I bought the Insider’s Guide for son’s school which H and I also attended, and it was completely full of misinformation. I’m not talking subjective opinions - but claims that it offered majors that it didn’t (physical education, recreation and leisure studies), claims about nearby places that were untrue (saying that students get their groceries at X grocery store) when the nearest one was 4 miles away and completely inaccessible without a car), and other complete and utter whoppers, including major mistakes in the names and locations of buildings. I can’t think of anything stupider than to trust them.</p>
<p>PG, in the interest of accuracy, you might want to send the Insider’s Guide an email pointing out the mistakes. I found several mistakes (not typos) in the [generally accurate] Fiske Guide, emailed Fiske about them, and they were corrected in the next edition.</p>
<p>The mistakes were so egregious it was clear they had just sort of googled various things and made up the rest. This wasn’t “oh, they didn’t realize that the admissions office has moved from Smith Hall to Jones Hall.” This was clear making-it-all-up.</p>
<p>Personally, I think visits are crucial. You can potentially learn so many things that are not clear from the website or other school materials. At one school we learned that campus housing is not guaranteed even for freshman and hardly any after that. Reassurances to the effect that “if you send in your deposit by such-and-such date it’s never a problem” were not reassuring when faced with the possibility that you would be looking for housing for a freshman in Queens from across the state. </p>
<p>At another school, the campus felt like a catholic high school, which was not appealing, nor was it discernible from the website. At a third, the trip to the nearest mall involved travel over hill and dale to some remote land. We learned that having an accessible mall was an important criteria. </p>
<p>To Beliavsky’s point, on the organized visits we did not randomly choose schools and go there, they all had to meet the basic criteria of SAT range, potential majors, possibility of being affordable, etc. first. There are far too many schools out there to go at it pell mell.</p>
<p>There’s something delightfully Sheldon Cooper-ish in the notion that it’s all “facts.” It presupposes that there couldn’t be a range of excellent schools, but that the school ranked 6 is always preferable to the school ranked 7 and so forth.</p>
<p>I think all the things Beliavsky notes are true. A school would never make the visit list unless it passes muster with that standard. The user review type websites/books are menaingless taken one at a time, however if we noted a pattern of a problem it would give rise to more investigation.</p>
<p>D - visited her top choice college. We did the tour, etc. and then hung around for a while. Went to a chapel. Seriously creepy. People in the balcony eyeing the seating chart and counting because of mandatory attendance. A few kids released balloons and shouted appreciation for someone on the stage. The President was giving a speech and just went off! It was very uncomfortable. Absolutely no way she would attend that school. without the visit it was a very good match for her.</p>
<p>S - visited a top 3 choice. Much deferred maintenance in the sorms. Smell of urine in a stairwell. A water fountain was bashed of the wall in a dorm and there was a threatening notice about charging all students for the damage. Very bad vibe on campus. Worth the visit to cross this one off.</p>
<p>Don’t just take the tour. We only visited schools that were likely places to attend. Hang out. Eat in the cafeteria. Go to a game or event. Spend some time in the library. It was worth it for my kids so they did not make the big mistake.</p>
<p>There’s something delightfully Sheldon Cooper-ish in the notion that it’s all “facts.”</p>
<p>I agree. I don’t know what world those who say it’s all facts have been living in…this world where everything is logical, empirical, measurable, predictable, and explicable. The world I am familiar with is one in which if your daughter says she really really dreams of marrying a tall blond cardiologist, and you line up 100 tall blond cardiologists, there is no guarantee she’ll have chemistry with any of them, yet she might have amazing chemistry with a short, dark-haired, ex-con with a GED who works at Jiffy Lube.</p>
<p>My daughter and I visited schools that were possibilities. We went on tours of most of them, and i cannot believe how much the tour guide influenced our visit. Most of them were terrific and one was just awful. She went on and on just talking about herself and her course work, and that was irrelevant to most of us in attendance. </p>
<p>Colleges were ruled out because of the visit. Example: Claremont McKenna dorm on the tour featured 2 boys with the bottles of alcohol set up on the ping pong table before noon. My daughter said “gross”. </p>
<p>For us, it was just the feeling of the place. We knew all about the school, pored over the websites, and some just came down to the feeling of the school and/or the town. I remember when we finished up at Bowdoin, and were in the car and at the same time we said how we just didn’t like it.</p>
<p>You are making my point – people often foolishly ignore base rates. What fraction of cardiologists’ marriages end in divorce, and what fraction of ex-cons’? What fractions of their kids turn out well? There’s a reason why parents have had a role in finding spouses for their children for most of history and still in much of the world today. My children will of course have the right to choose their own mates once they are adults, but a sign that my wife and I have been good parents and have earned their respect is that they will want our input in important decisions.</p>
<p>Every college we visited would have provided a high quality education to my son. He’s a motivated learner and would have made the most of any college, so then it does come down to fit, given that we had the money saved to pay for any of them. I also agree with those who have said that the whole college search, very much including visits and interviews, was a tremendous growth process for my son. </p>
<p>Like kristikuca, our family had one visit where my son, H and I had the exact same response to one school. After the tour and info session, we sent our son off to attend a class and my H said, “I’m not paying for this school” and our son came back from the class saying, basically, “Get me out of here.” It’s a perfectly good, highly ranked college, but just felt wrong to all of us. I’m not going to name it, because I’m sure it’s a perfect fit for lots of students, but it does illustrate why some of us do invest in visits.</p>
<p>I don’t think so. Correct me if I’m wrong, but your point was that you need to focus exclusively on the facts when narrowing the choices, otherwise you might end up with a college that isn’t a perfect fit.</p>
<p>My point was that you can do that all you want, and still end up with a college that your kid hates…that a perfect fit on paper is different from having great chemistry with the place. Like you, I hate the trivial reasons some people give for deleting a school (e.g., the tour guide’s shoes were yucky, an admissions officer was rude, or the roommate on a sleepover used drugs); that’s one reason that during visits I prefer to focus on things that don’t lend themselves to such anecdotal evidence…we focus on how compact the campus is, the surrounding neighborhood, the proximity of stores and restaurants, general cleanliness and repair, etc.</p>
<p>Beliavsky, there would seem to be ways of using both approaches (just the facts and total chemistry). Perhaps the best way would be to use the facts to narrow things down towards the beginning of the search, but make the final decision based on chemistry. That way, you are sure to have a school that fits your basic criteria, while still allowing for the inexplicable chemistry to work its magic.</p>
<p>College is no more important than any other “as is” sale. </p>
<p>So, if you’re willing to buy a car sight-unseen without a test drive, you’re good-to-go doing the same with college.</p>
<p>Of course, an average-priced college is like buying a brand-new car (if you’re a parent, that you won’t drive) every year for at least the next four years.</p>
<p>Would you buy a house without inspecting it first? If you consider the cost of college PLUS the “opportunity cost” of going to college instead of working, the average college is pretty close to the cost of a house.</p>
<p>But go right ahead. </p>
<p>My own philosophy says that if I am obligated to pay, than I have a duty to check out what I’m obligated to pay for.</p>
<p>As I’m ready to face this again, I’m looking at our long list and wondering which ones are must visits. I’m thinking the ones we consider safeties are must sees, so if she at least loves them it will be a victory tour not a consolation lap if they are all she gets into. She’s already visited some big southern schools, do we need to visit every single southern big school? </p>
<p>I think instead of doing the grand spring break tour we’ll go see each school on it’s own because last time I did that my son was sick of driving, tired of the same old talk before the tour and we felt too rushed to make it to the next place on the list. But I will say the schools I was sure he would love he hated, and he ended up loving and now attending a school we threw in because we were at another school nearby.</p>
<p>I absolutely agree you need to see the schools in person before agreeing to go. And I think it could be a huge time crunch to expect to see everything before decisions are due if you wait til the end. Plus admitted student days may not be the best indicator of daily life on campus.</p>
<p>But most students aren’t comparing cardiologists to convicts. They’re comparing cardiologists with dermatologists with anesthesiologists. Put another way, most students are comparing schools that are generally equal in terms of caliber of overall student body (however measured) and opportunities. There are so few quantitative differences, objectively speaking, between a lot of schools that (leaving financial considerations aside), why shouldn’t a student pick based on overall chemistry or look and feel of the campus or preppy student body or Greek / no Greek or whatever he desires?</p>
<p>we are in California.
so far, we have only heard from Tulane and we will visit in April if my son receives a full ride. (he has been offered $105K over 4 years in scholarship as of now). we are postponing campus visits until the acceptance letters come in. with that said, if he gets into UCBerkeley,
we will probably skip the tours as the cost of attending Berkeley is significantly less than any east coast school. we will chose Berkeley over Tulane even if a full ride is offered by Tulane. For us, it is not necessary to visit safety schools. They are all in UC system.</p>