It was April 2021, still in Pandemic, so no scheduled tours at Cornell.
On paper, Cornell seemed like a perfect fit for DS2022. So the plan was for him to apply ED.
Thank goodness we visited it, walked around, got take-out lunch from nearby restaurant.
Son’s body practically convulsed at the thought of 4 years at this college. Everything in his body screamed NO, you don’t belong here.
Husband and I love Cornell, so we did NOT understand what was happening.
Grateful we were able to visit.
I wouldn’t recommend applying ED to a college that you haven’t visited.
I don’t like the disruption of transferring (while that is an option).
We’ve toured Dartmouth.
Lovely, but definitely not a fit for everyone.
I haven’t read the other responses, but my ds was high school class of 21 so hadn’t visited any of the schools he applied to, including the one he chose for ed. He didn’t get in, so it was a non issue but he loves the school he attends- which he also did not visit until spring of his senior year. He is the kind of kid who would I think love just about any school, so it worked out fine. Most of the kids in his class had the same experience, and while I do think there was a little more freshman year angst among his peers, for the most part kids he knows are very happy where they are now.
I was just going to post the same as @catmom94 S21 and his entire class visited almost no schools and many still applied ED. I don’t know of any of his classmates that transfered out or regretted their choice. For some kids all schools are kid a meh. Our last visit at S24s ED choice was meh but he is still EDing there.
D eliminated the majority of schools she visited, many of which we thought would be top choices:
Amherst
Vanderbilt
U Mich.
Boston College
BU
She loved 2 of her visits and is applying ED to 1 of the 2. She also has some secondary schools that she liked but will apply RD.
Visiting in person and looking at the campus, dorms, libraries, student vibe, surrounding town, restaurants, conveniences, transportation options, and overall location (which you cant visualize in a virtual tour) are all very important IMO.
My child applied ED without an in person visit because it was a reach school. Didn’t get in so glad we didn’t spend the money for a visit. We had visited about 10 schools before she applied ED so she had some sense of the environment she was looking for.
D20 applied ED but it was literally her #1 choice and we could afford it. When we first visited, her comment after her tour and interview was, “This would be my favorite school of all we visited if it was in a better location.” She decided location wasn’t a deal breaker, so it was just #1 for her.
We would not have supported an ED application to a school she hadn’t visited because we were only willing to support an ED application if the school was her #1 informed choice, not to try to game admission chances at a reach.
I have a college sophomore son at Cornell and a freshman daughter at UChicago. Both applied ED to these schools. Neither one was able to visit in person before they made their ED choice. While not optimal to make this important decision without visiting, they both did a lot of online research, online remote admissions events and in person local admissions events, especially with UChicago.
I offered to fly to Chicago with my daughter at the last minute before she made a final ED decision (between UChicago and Duke), but she said that she didn’t feel like she needed to. She had been enamored since middle school with UChicago’s rigorous academic reputation, the core curriculum, living in a huge city like Chicago, the Harry Potteresque residential house system and the quirky reputation of UChicago’s students. She felt like it was a great fit for her, and she was right. She has only been there a month, but she is extremely happy, and very busy both academically and socially.
My son’s circumstances didn’t really give him the chance to see Cornell before he chose it as his ED school. He ended up choosing between Cornell and Northwestern. The unique College of Human Ecology and interdisciplinary Human Development academic major he is pursuing at Cornell are the main reason he chose the school. He is extremely happy at Cornell, both academically and socially, and he says he wouldn’t change a thing. He has already signed a lease with like 12+ friends to rent a house together for their junior year in 2024-25.
Maybe we just got lucky, and I definitely would have strongly preferred for my kids to visit their ED choices, but it didn’t happen and I just wanted to offer our family’s experience in case it is helpful to anyone.
Both D20 and S23 applied ED to their schools, but they visited both. In D’s case, she actually visited more than once because she went back for an interview. (Her LAC is only 3.5 hours away.) We never would have let them apply ED without visiting the school, and they wouldn’t have wanted to do it anyway. They both had experiences visiting colleges that they really liked or loved on paper, only to get there and decide it was a hard “no.”
And for D, she toured many NESCACs which you would have thought were similar enough, but when we got there we saw key differences that really tipped the scales one way or the other. I remember at one she wanted to leave after the information session, but I made her do the tour because we took the time to drive down there. Ten minutes into the tour she felt even stronger about not wanting to even apply. Before visiting, this school was one of her top 3. In fact, after visiting colleges, two of her top 3 choices (on paper) ended up coming off the list completely. That experience just underscored that visiting before EDing was a nonnegotiable for us.
Just to chime in, because our child is in fact a student who applied ED to Dartmouth, sight unseen (thanks, COVID), and loves the school unabashedly. And I would not have seen this kid embracing the outdoors or Greek life, but go figure, it happened. I agree the school is not a fit for everyone, but there is a tight enthusiastic bond in the student body that comes partially from that isolation out there in the woods. If your kid thinks it is the place he can see himself, I would vote for him to go for it. Best of luck as he decides!