<p>But also don’t let the dorms scare you away. Freshman dorms aren’t very nice at most schools :D. </p>
<p>One school we visited keeps the dorm hall lights off during the day and only uses 1/2 at night. A lot of people were turned off by that until they saw the sign at the end of the hall showing how much the college saves in electricity by doing that—then it was a really good idea :D.</p>
<p>Since neuroticparent showed up here too-I will put a plug in for reading her book/blog. It really puts this whole process into perspective :D. Not sure if I can post a link but if you google The neurotic parents guide to college admissions it will show up :D.</p>
<p>I personally think it’s hard to do, say, 10 in one trip- they can all turn to mush in the kid’s head. You asked how to look beneath the surface- that was all research at home, for us. Looking into D’s major, what actual classes, whether the profs were engaged in their fields (or even specialists in the classes they taught.) What extra opps there were in her field. We looked at the sorts of kids they touted in the web or admisions pages- were they go-getters, doing x research and y service? Or social butterflies? </p>
<p>Most juniors change (can be a lot) from now til mid fall semester of senior year. We made all the early visits just fun look-sees, mostly local or a day trip. Not necessarily contenders- just to give the kids an idea of what colleges are like, in general, and how small or large or distant dorms or lousy food, etc, etc, felt to them. Later, we refined.</p>
<p>But, I will agree with this: seeing the library was key to D1- she wanted to know kids studied. </p>
<p>In the end, we had a similar experieince to MWMom’s. D1 had a half dozens schools she knew she could be happy and productive at, but when we were on campus at the very last, I saw the shoulders go down, saw her breathe- she fit, she knew it. No matter what that school threw at her, it was “it.” </p>
<p>Good luck, have fun.
ps. if you judged the college where I work from it’s newspaper, you wouldn’t stay long.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that the students you see on campus during the summer might not actually be students at the school. Many places have summer programs of various types for high school students and students from other universities. The more elite the U, the more likely it is that a random student you see on campus during the summer is not actually an undergrad there.</p>
<p>Anyway, we did a round of visits during the summer (combined with vacation travel) which helped get a feel for the places, and helped with the “why University X” essays. Then, S made another visit to the top contenders after he knew where he was accepted. The second visits were more thorough and useful. If we had another kid, we’d try to do it the same way.</p>
<p>Take time to talk to some of the custodial and cafeteria staff. Find out what they think of the school. Do they know students personally? Are the students kind to them? Observe how students interact with the staff. Do they smile and say hello or engage in conversation, or do they just walk by without acknowledging them?</p>
<p>At a couple of very “elite” private universities we visited, the students didn’t interact with the custodial and cafeteria staff at all – not even any eye contact. We all had the feeling that the students saw themselves as better than the staff. (I’ve also heard stories about student treatment of the staff at one of those schools.) That was a huge turnoff to all of our family. However, at all of the public universities and some of the privates we visited, we saw students carrying on conversations with the staff. At one university, we stopped to talk to a cafeteria worker who was cleaning. She beamed when talking about “her” students (she knew them by name), and several came up and hugged her while we were talking.</p>
<p>You can tell a lot about students’ character by how they interact with ALL the employees, not just with their professors. They don’t have to hug (maybe that’s more of a Southern thing 
), but they should be kind and treat them with respect.</p>
<p>Be aware that sometimes the in-depth examinations of colleges can be misleading, or even a waste of time. Regarding sleepovers, what if your kid just happens to dislike whomever he/she spends time with? Are you going to write off a whole college because one person is a jerk? Also, for some people, picking a college is more like picking a spouse than picking a life insurance policy…it can be more of an unexplainable attraction at first sight than a rational decision based on statistics and empirical evidence.</p>
<p>You look for data here- not information. You’ll have to be the one who turns the raw impressions into something meaningful. </p>
<p>First- know the school before you go or you are just wasting your time. Check out other trip reports and responses on College Pr0wler. Check teacher rating sites to get a sense of how students respond to hard profs. </p>
<p>You can probably also locate a few student blogs and the college newspaper on line. If not in advance pick up the periodicals on campus. [I asked about wifi dead spots on campus and receive a cherrie “oh wifi is great” from the tour girl, however the student paper ran a humorous collection of student twitters- and a lot of them moaned about the wifi.]</p>
<p>It good to have in your mind the biggest reason why your kid would NOT want to go there. Try to gather data to confirm or deny this premise. </p>
<p>Once you know about the school figure out what will be the most important areas to investigate in your visit. Everyone says they have a great internship program but what can you actually find out from the kids who are in it? What your tour guide as they navigate you across campus- usually there are things in the script like “this is the rock/brick yard/quad” were we are gather for the big pep rally" but is the student really connected with it? Do they have their own stories about areas on campus being important to them socially. How do they interact with other students as they lead you on the tour. I had one place where it was our tour guides birthday and at least five students must have congratulated her as she lead us across campus. That means a lot more than just a line saying how friendly everyone is. </p>
<p>I like to take pictures of whats on the notice boards. What events are going on- speakers series, charitable events, seasonal activities. Ask your tour guide about them later in the program- is that toy drive for the kids in town a thing students are really involved in? </p>
<p>Students in the cafeteria- what are they doing? Hanging out or does it look like there are any studious discussions going on? Any professors eating with kids or is it a private dining room place where that kind of fraternization doesnt go on. </p>
<p>The most important thing is to schedule a couple of stops at “local hangouts” off campus. A Starbucks or a juice place is good- run into kids and get some information. Also I like a bar/restaurant just off campus and try to arrive around 3 or 4pm and the place will be slow and if you eat in the bar you will probably get to talk to the manager or the owner who employes a ton of students and deals with them as customers all the time. Are you able to confirm any of the opinions from College Pr0wlr? We had a waitress in my son’s major tell us all about her department, the professors and her research project while she was rolling silverware for that nights service. </p>
<p>We had good luck when looking at schools in DC on the subway in talking to students. Students wear their school apparel and its easy enough to ask them how its going there. Are they graduating soon? How what internships did they get? How are interviews going? Provides a good way to look behind the veil at the effectiveness of the schools employment efforts. </p>
<p>Once you are done make sure to write down all of your impressions in the next day or so, so they dont fade or blend into all the other schools you will see. You will have received a lot of data and it is up to you to make sense of it- “Party School” isnt binary so you’ll have to assess how much that is the case. If a school has a First Year Program how effective is it really if none of the students you talked to really thought it was important to them academically. </p>
<p>Look at what you thought the biggest disqualifying issue was- are you able to confirm or deny it? To what extent? For instance if someone on Pr0wlr said “all the guys here are lax bros and there isnt much social scene beyond that” did that look to be the case. What did the flyers look like for social activities. What did your off campus intel find out. </p>
<p>Here are the biggest thing:
<p>All great advice here.</p>
<p>For us</p>
<ol>
<li><p>2 schools in one day was doable. It knocked some schools off immediately b/c the “feel” of one was much less energetic than the other.</p></li>
<li><p>We often stopped in the school cafe and sat just to get a feel.</p></li>
<li><p>DS didn’t believe in digging in too deep before the visit, but I did. I enjoyed reading blogs and watching YouTube videos to see if the “feel” from afar was the same on campus.</p></li>
<li><p>We had some summer tours before classes were in session. Even during the summer, you will see students around campus. We always found students or faculty who were friendly and willing to chat, no matter the school.</p></li>
<li><p>We definitely agree with picking up a school newspaper, creative journal, etc. Learned much from those.</p></li>
<li><p>We circled the neighborhood a few times, making a wider circle each time. DS won’t have a car, so it was important to us to see what he could get to, where public transportation stops were, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>DS was very laid back, but I am a bit rigid. I noted date, day of the week, names of tour guides, etc. and retained the info. This helped him for at least one application that asked if he visited, when and impressions. Adding the details made his response sound very focused. This also helped for schools that he interviewed off-campus after the visits.</p></li>
<li><p>Realize the campus visit is not the be all, end all. If the school seems great on paper, but the visit didn’t have spark, take into account your mood can be effected by weather, traffic getting there or in one case for us, a very annoying parent in our tour group that continually interrupted the guide.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>My kids would never ever stop random students and ask them questions so we were dependent on tour guides, info sessions (which often featured students) and overnights. We never visited more than two colleges in a day. With younger son we visited 2 during our Feb break, 2 during our spring break, three in Sept before our school system was in session. We visited all schools while in session, though one Brandeis, we messed up on timing getting there the afternoon before Passover break and the campus was already empty.</p>
<p>What we did do:
Read the student paper
Eat in the cafeteria
Have a cup of coffee at the student center
Take a look at the library if it wasn’t part of the tour
Take a look at the neighborhood - see how transportation to downtown worked
Ask the tour guide what was the one thing they’d change about the university if they could</p>
<p>1) grab the campus papers (mainstream and alternative)
2) walk through the departments your child is interested in and read the bulletin boards (awards, post-grad plans, study groups, intramurals tend to get posted there – or not)
3) walk through the departments and see if professors are around. At one school, the profs came out of their offices during a summer visit and dragged S1 in to talk about their courses and programs. At another equivalently-ranked school right down the road, there were no profs around, nothing ont heir doors, no signs of life at all. Made that decision easy!
4) hang out in cafeteria
5) have your student contact recent alums from your HS who may be attending a given school.
6) student can contact profs in advance and ask to sit in on classes (mine went for junior-level courses in their intended majors). Professors never turned them down and often stayed afterwards/pointed them to others who could be helpful.
7) both of my kids talked to departmental advisors. Very helpful.
8) parents went to information session (hohum, they all say the same thing, and it’s all on their website anyway), kids explored independently. They did come back to do the tours.
9) we also drove around the surrounding area looking at public transit, food and other amenities.
10) as parents, we got out of hte way for at least part of the time and let the kids explore the school themselves without any input from us.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The most important school on the application list is the safety.</p>
<p>If your student has an idea of what they want to study visit the administrative office for that department and have your student ask a few simple questions. The questions don’t matter. You are looking for organization, how current students are treated with their concerns while you are waiting your turn, and how your student is treated. This is the office that your student will be dealing with for four years. They are far more important then admissions after April 1 and how the place is run matters a great deal.</p>
<p>Example 1: We were visiting school A and S2 had a couple of questions related to his major. We wandered over to the admin office for the e’school. While waiting his turn we observed students asking for help in a variety of matters. It was clear that the two ladies working there ran the place and yet were very accommodating and not the least bit rude when giving instructions to a student for what was probably not the first time. When my son explained he was a prospective student they were very kind and willing to answer his questions, then asked if he would like to meet with a professor in his area of interest. They made a phone call and within 15min we were sitting with a wonderful professor who spent 45min, not selling the school, but asking my son questions, engaging him, and really talking to him. He left feeling very confident that anything he would need help with administratively would not be a headache.</p>
<p>Example 2: After our experience at school A we thought it a good idea to check out the administrative offices of the e’school while visiting School B. While waiting we observed current students being sent away to other departments, fussed at for incomplete paperwork (a signature that took 5 sec), staff unable to answer questions (and no offer to follow up), and a general feeling of annoyance. When S2 explained he was a prospective student he received an eye roll. He only asked one question which they were unable to answer. It doesn’t matter how awesome the admissions office or tour guide makes you feel. Potentially being reliant on this office for four years was something that really put this school in a negative light.</p>
<p>Read this forum for particular schools, there is also some valuable information.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not for purposes of the college visit.</p>
<p>^^ yes, it is! If you don’t love your safety, college may be very dreary. You can fall in love with a school all you want but if you can’t afford to go there, not much point…</p>
<p>We have read time and time again students quite literally miserable come August when it’s time to leave for school and reality is setting in “I never would have applied to this school if I actually thought for one minute I was going to be going here! It was my safety!!”. This is why the mantra for many here on cc is ‘Love Thy Safety’. If the stars don’t align in acceptances and finical aid/merit affordability for your reach or match schools, you better darn well have researched and be happy trotting off to your safety school in August. As a parent, I feel it is my job to ensure I help my student find that school. It takes research. When my S2 stopped referring to his ‘safety’ as a safety because he could see himself happy there I knew he was okay with the choice.</p>
<p>I find as we are building S3’s college list we are discussing and looking at the safety with greater scrutiny then the others. The reaches and matches weren’t hard to choose. We’ll look at those certainly, but they choose HIM. With a safety we want to make sure as a student in the top 10-25% of the class is he going to be challenged? Will he be bored? What percentage of courses will be taken in advanced courses? These are important questions that aren’t going to be a factor at a reach.</p>
<p>Something I found helpful while I was looking at schools was taking individual tours. The information sessions, from my experience, do not give you much more than what you can find online. If you call ahead and ask for a tour of a college usually it’s you and a college guide so your one on one. I’ve always found that more informative.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If you consider visits important in helping the student decide what school is suitable and likeable, then shouldn’t the most important school on the list (the safety) have as carefully prepared a visit as every other school on the list?</p>
<p>Before we started “The Tour” (there were several,) we had visited a variety of schools that were local or a quick overight. Not all were contenders- in the beginning, the point is to get their feet wet, get them envisioning themselves in college. Start at the top of the list and some kids will have their sensors thrown off. </p>
<p>We don’t know what schools OP has in mind or what his D’s picture is. For all we know, OP may have a solid list that includes safeties/likelies. But I agree that they have to find reasons to love their safeties. And, that can mean seeing them early, letting the kid feel the fit before the perfection of another school overwhelms. And, if the fit isn’t felt, finding others.</p>
<p>The best thing that happened on all the visits was when my son visited American University and declared it great. We knew he’d probably get merit money and he was highly unlikely to be rejected. In fact he ended up dropping some higher ranked schools because he liked AU better. (In his prospective major AU was much better than its overall ranking which was nice too.) Having a kid who feels good about a safety is priceless. </p>
<p>I also deliberately took DS to one school I was pretty sure he’d hate, but had some redeeming features he might or might want to look for in other schools.</p>
<p>Want to second CD’s suggestion of looking at the department headquarters to see what’s on the walls there. I’d forgotten we’d done that.</p>