<p>This may have been asked before so I apologize if that's the case.</p>
<p>My question is: We will be applying for about 8-10 colleges (reach, safety etc) and some are in other states. </p>
<p>Since financial aid is a big factor, do the colleges give you a decent amount of time between acceptance and the financial aid award on the one hand and the deadline for the applicant to accept as the college they want to attend on the other so you have time to visit the campus?</p>
<p>Or do most applicants visit all the schools they are applying to even though they may not receive enough aid to attend? I don't want my son to fall in love with a college and then not be able to attend for financial reasons, but we will do that if we have no other choice.</p>
<p>No, they don’t give you a lot of time. It could be as little as a month if you don’t receive the acceptance/rejection letters till April 1 (and your son has till May 1 to decide).</p>
<p>My advice would be visit a couple of safeties that are also within reach financially. That will take a lot of stress off the next few months. For schools that are reaches and too far to visit, see what you can learn by browsing YouTube videos and other online information.</p>
<p>Some folks just wait until they get acceptances and visit the top few choices. I will say…ONE school DS applied to didn’t send the financial aid award until almost mid-April.</p>
<p>If any of these schools are a short drive for you, you could you for a few “Sunday drives” and at least see them, check out the towns, etc.</p>
<p>Last year my daughter applied to 5 colleges she had not visited in advance because of distance; she decided not to see them unless she received enough financial aid. One of them was an invitational scholars day (campus visit required) which we knew about in January, so we combined it with another college in the same trip (both were early action with good financial aid.) Her final college visit was April 29, which was the one she ended up attending.</p>
<p>Most that my boys applied to included the financial aid award with their acceptance although our state flagship did not and we had to wait a bit for that. For some schools, our boys waited until they were accepted, then we visited. For others that were easy to get to, we visited before they applied.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider is “demonstrated interest” - some schools are keen on that. The college that my younger S is attending stated that they put weight on that. </p>
<p>Good luck - where is your son thinking of applying?</p>
<p>My D waited to visit the schools across the country until she knew she was accepted. One of the colleges sent the FA package before we made the travel arrangements and another didn’t award the FA package until after we made the arrangements. Both ended up being financially viable for us which was great and she’s at one of the schools now. </p>
<p>Personally, I wouldn’t attend any schools that require a lot of expenses to visit (airfare, hotel, etc.) unless your child is accepted but you might not know he’s accepted until the end of March. For the two schools my D was accepted to on the other side of the county, we did attend information sessions they held in our local area in the fall. At least that gave us an idea of what the colleges were like. We also attended a local accepted students event for one of the colleges. </p>
<p>There really isn’t much time between the acceptance notification and May 1 for most colleges. My D did apply to one rolling admission school (OOS public) and knew she was accepted there in early October. It ended up being the most expensive though and we didn’t receive the FA package until April.</p>
<p>Just to check: you’ve already done the Net Price Calculator on each college’s website so that you have a sense of the expected need-based aid?
If it is less predictable merit-based aid that you are unsure of at this point, I agree with the decision to wait until the offers are in, because that information will eliminate some schools and the expense associated with visiting them.</p>
<p>Colleges which are nearby (i.e. not expensive or inconvenient to visit) and which consider “level of applicant’s interest” are probably worth visiting and having the visit recorded by the college for the admissions boost.</p>
<p>If the colleges are regular decision you won’t have alot of time between the finaid letter and the decision date and the transportation costs will be high because of the short time to book and travel. I’m someone who did the visits with all three kids before they sent applications. We only visited colleges that we felt “might” be affordable and after the visits the kids were able to eliminate a couple places so we weren’t confronted with 10 schools on the application list. If finances are a big factor, I would be on the side of recommending visiting the financial safeties as those might be where the student has to choose to attend. And if you have not done so, fund the college net price calculators now. It would be unfortunate to have to chose the financial safety only to have a kid who comes home freshman Christmas and starts to talk about transferring.</p>
<p>You know your child best. My son completely understood that some of the colleges we were visiting were only possible with financial aid, no matter how “in love” he fell with them. </p>
<p>Is your child able to check their emotions a bit? Or will there be a lot of drama if they “fall in love” some place and the financial aid does not come through? I would base my decision on that.</p>
<p>We waited. DD applied to 10, got into 7, only visited 3. The costs had diverged greatly making the spread between the 7 very significant. DD asked that we not visit any school that we couldn’t afford (it wasn’t so much “afford” as we were just no longer “willing” to consider a few of the schools - in our daughter’s eyes it meant “afford”)</p>