<p>How can you get a complete picture of a college without visiting? For financial/time issues, it will be next to impossible for me to visit any colleges in the northeast (which is where the bulk of my college list is). I will visit if I receive any acceptances, but that is after the fact. I have to cut my list of 15 down to 8 (optimal)-10 (maximum). I'm a bit weary to cut without having seen the campuses and seen what it's really like. And on top of not visiting most, I'll visit during the summer, when they're not active (again, my dad cannot take off work, and we don't have enough time during the weekends and my mother can't take off any more days- she's a special ed. teacher).</p>
<p>celebrian, make sure you do the virtual tours on the web sites. Then, contact students at each place via e-mail or phone. It's only one other person's view, but it's better than nothing. Some schools have a link on their website to get you in touch with students. If not, call the admissions office and get the e-mail adress of one of the students. Many of my D's friends went only after acceptances came out. For one, the visit totally changed her priority list. Her family hails from New England, so she was sure she's end up there. After being accepted at and visiting UNC at Chapel Hill, she fell in love and is now finishing her freshman year!</p>
<p>Hi, echosensai [again, lol]<br>
Did she find the classes really large? Was it hard to meet other students as an out-of-state student? Did she join a sorority? I think UN-CH is on my s's mysterious and ever-changing list.</p>
<p>celebrian, can you call colleges and see if they have a CD to send you? My s got one from Emory and one from Tulane, and both were helpful.
Some posters have posited that visits can be spoiled by tour guides and weather, and it is better in some ways to visit after acceptances. I really don't know, having visited exactly 0 at this point with my junior s.</p>
<p>Your best bet is to make contact with several different current students to get their opinons on things. You'd want to try to get as diverse a group as possible since they may view the same things differently coming from personal perspectives. Get as much information from the admissions office if you can and find out if the university has a special student website (my.georgetown.edu for Georgetown University) that can give you an even bigger glimpse into what's offered at the school. Reading the university's student newspapers is always a good idea too.</p>
<p>celebrian - I know people who showed up Freshman year without ever having seen the campus or spoken to anyone associated with the college. Yikes. Personally I can't imagine applying (especially ED!) without ever having visited. So I'm going to suggest something radical. Do you have any friends or relatives in the Northeast? Would one of them be willing to drive you around sometime this summer?</p>
<p>PS, Videos are better than nothing, but they won't give you a good "feel" for the place, or the surrounding areas where you'll be spending a lot of your time while in college.</p>
<p>No, all of my family lives in Detroit, Michigan, Cincinatti or Columbus Ohio and I have one uncle in California. I'm the first person to even be considering an out-of-state college in my family.</p>
<p>Celebrian, I'd recommend the videos from collegiatechoice.com if you can't visit. They were made by two guidance counselors who visited hundreds of colleges and simply video taped the admissions tours. They are not professional at all (sometimes infuriatingly amateurish) but at least give you a sense of what the school looks like in real life without the marketing hype of the videos/cd's that colleges produce themselves. They are about $15 each but worth the price when you consider the cost of travel. My daughter and I have found most of them pretty true to life, although some are a bit dated (several years old).</p>
<p>I think the best way to get a "feel" for the school you can't visit is through student publications. Also, if there is a LifeJournal community for the school, you can ask current students questions, and will usually get straight answers. Reading through old questions and comments can also be very helpful.</p>
<p>Celebrian:</p>
<p>In addition to the good suggestions here, I recommend looking at the "statistics" for a school:</p>
<p>a) The enthic diversity</p>
<p>b) The percentage of students qualifying for financial aid.</p>
<p>c) The percentage of varsity athletes.</p>
<p>d) The percentage of frat/sorority membership.</p>
<p>e) The percentage of grads going on to grad school and the breakdown of type (PhD, Law, Med, MBA, etc.)</p>
<p>f) The percentage of class sections in each size range.</p>
<p>All of this data is available in the USNEWS online edition or on the school's common data set.</p>
<p>In addition, I would try to find information about the intensity of the drinking scene -- the surveyed binge drinking rates, the number of students hospitalized for alcohol poisoning each year. </p>
<p>Taken as a whole, these stats paint a good picture of what a school is really like. I would recommend assembling these stats for every school on your list.</p>
<p>Heidi, my daughter's friend is majoring in theater, I think. She was right at home from the outset, it seems, and brought friends back home with her on spring break (she brought them to our high school musical). According to her mom, she's very happy.</p>
<p>The student publication(s) would give you a pretty good feel for whats going on, and what interests students. </p>
<p>I would also suggest comparing the activities links - it will show what folks do in their spare time. If you find yourself really wanting to attend some of the activities - that's a good sign.</p>
<p>Also, if you haven't done this: visit schools which are near you and can give you a feel for different "types" of schools. It's not the same, but a lot of us had our kids do this first. Helps a lot in deciding re large/small, urban/rural/suburban/village , high/low frat %, big-time sports vs. not, architectural style, and other "comparable" features.</p>
<p>Do you have any friends/acquaintances who might be visiting by car with whom you could go along, at modest expense (maybe help with gas, arrange to stay in dorms when possible, share hotel)?</p>
<p>We would have been v happy to take another student along on any drive trip we made, and I imagine many Ohio families visit the northeast/mid-Atlantic by car rather than plane.</p>
<p>Maybe you'll even find someone on cc!</p>
<p>Lots of good suggestions here. And remember, there isn't one perfect school for you. There are probably a lot of colleges where you could excell and be perfectly happy. So don't worry too much about accidentally eliminating a good fit. There are other good fits, too.</p>
<p>My son, also due to expense, was not able to visit before applying. However, he did visit his top four choices after acceptance. Those visits did help him decide. One advantage to waiting until after acceptances to visit--you won't fall in love with one school only to find yourself rejected by it or unable to afford it. If you only visit the ones that accept you and provide enough aid, then you could save yourself a lot of heartache.</p>
<p>Try an online search for each college's student newspaper. Although most colleges don't publish a newspaper in the summer, the archives may be accessible. You can learn alot about the school from the editorial pages and news pages. Also search online for the crime log to learn more about criminal activity near the campus and drug or alcohol related arrests. Read the local city's newspaper online to find out what kind of relationship the college has with the community. I also agree with the videos from collegiatechoice.</p>
<p>Also do an online search about the number of classes offered in your chosen major...do you have much choice, or does everyone need to take the exact same classes? Just because they offer your intended major does not mean that they have a strong program in that major...some colleges offered only 15 classes in my daughter's major while others offered over 50!</p>
<p>jmmom beat me to it....visit local schools of different sizes to feel the difference betw small, medium and large, and then narrrow your search to schools that fit that range</p>
<p>One thing that I'm wondering about as I read this is -- I have heard that, for some schools, applicants who haven't visited before applying have negative points counted against them in the application process. Someone on this site mentioned that their GC told him that, if he was serious about Wash U, he MUST visit. I also heard this about Tufts, and some other schools that have a high rate of students rejecting them who they have accepted. There's a feeling that the student hasn't shown enough interest if they haven't visited......... So there must be other things you can do to show the school that "yes, you are serious about them", if you can't visit?????</p>
<p>Celebrian,
What kind of person are you?</p>
<p>Are you the kind of person who gets along easily with a lot of other kids, or are you the type who finds it hard to make new friends? Are you the type of person who adjusts easily to new situations, or are you upset easily by small things in your environment? Do you "roll with the punches"? or is it more important to you to have things just the way you like them?</p>
<p>I ask that because the I think the concept of "fit" is kind of overrated, and to the extent it is valid -- I am not sure that the college visit really does all that much beyond creating a set of impressions that may or may not give an accurate picture of the college. Sometimes students are very conservative or naive, and they are exposed to something on an overnight visit that is very offputting - like drug use or heavy drinking -- and so they rule out the college entirely, choosing a school where they students seemed more serious-minded. Only later, they find out that their chosen school has the same problems. </p>
<p>Or they visit a school in Minnesota on a lovely autumn day, fall in love with the place, only later to realize that they should have visited in February to test out their feelings about icy wind and snow. </p>
<p>I know that my own kids are very resiliant and adjust easily to new situations. Both kids had foreign exchange experiences in high school - sent off to live in faraway and somewhat remote places with strange families where the parents didn't speak any English -- and both absolutely fell in love with their host families and had wonderful experiences. You might say that my kids were lucky to be placed in such great homes -- but I know that part of it was simply my kids' readiness for new experiences and willingness to overlook disappointment and accept cultural differences and the inevitable misunderstandings that occured. In fact, my son's very modest and tiny home in Thailand was the source of many great stories afterward -- it appeared to be haunted, it lacked western-style plumging, the drawer where he kept his pajamas was infested with ants -- plus it was monsoon season. </p>
<p>Knowing this, I am not too worried about whether my kids visit a college in advance or not: I know that they will probably be o.k. with whatever choice they make. If things aren't quite as expected, they will have a sense of humor about it and adjust. </p>
<p>But I realize that many kids are far more sensitive, and so I understand why the visit may be more important for some. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that every college has an array of different students with different interests, and your ultimate experience is likely to be different than what you see on a visit. The only place where you might have to really worry would be a very small, isolated campus.</p>
<p>heidi</p>
<p>My son is also finishing his first year at UNC. He is in the honors program and four of his classes this year (2 each semester) were honors classes capped at 15 or 16. On the whole he said most of his classes have been in the 25-35 range with the exception of of one elective he really wanted to take that is on the list of "10 things you must do before leaving Chapel Hill" and was a large lecture class that he said was great nonetheless.</p>
<p>He entered with 40 hours AP credit and has been able to fulfill many of the core requirements that way and is taking upper division classes this semester.</p>
<p>Just another note about class size; his calculus class was capped at 45-50 and was taught by an English speaking full professor whereas his best friend's class (at U Penn) was 300 strong and taught by a Ph.D candidate that they could barely comprehend. So much for the sterotype small/private = small classes, large/ public = large classes even for freshman.</p>
<p>He has loved every minute of his time at UNC and turned down other more "prestigious" schools including Yale to accept a scholarship there. He has a very large circle of friends that he says are "all amazing" and I know is not looking forward to leaving on May 11. UNC was the friendliest place we visited and Chapel Hill is the quintessential college town. Your S would be very happy if he ends up at UNC I assure you.</p>
<p>If you have anymore questions about UNC don't hesitate to ask.</p>
<p>Celebrian, on re-reading your post I see that problems you cite are with your parents' schedules, not money. Would your family be able to pay for you to go on an arranged tour of college campuses? There are several companies that offers such packages. Or is there a way for you to tag along with another family? My daughter visited colleges in Chicago as a guest of another family - we paid for air fare and nothing else. I sent my son alone at ages 17 for all of his college overnights. </p>
<p>As a parent, I actually prefer it that way - I'd rather not be letting my impressions of a college get in the way of my kid's view point, and obviously it is less expensive and saves time if we only have to pay for one plane ticket.</p>