Are any colleges in the eastern U.S. open for visitors wanting to learn about admissions?
Thank you.
Bucknell and Susquehanna in PA and I think RIT in NY.
I’ve heard of some doing drive thru tours with an app telling you where to go or perhaps a admissions person but I haven’t paid attention to which ones
I believe St. Lawrence is doing one on one tours.
The website - Daytripper University is really helpful as a way to supplement college tours and /or get an idea of the area even if you can not visit. They outline hotels, popular coffee shop and restaurants and the overall community surrounding each campus.
Lots of schools are open for visits and tours, but only if you’re coming from a state not on their quarantine list.
My brother signed up for a few…all virtual. The schools that had tours cancelled and made them virtual as well. Luckily he came with me when I looked. So he has seen a bunch. Cannot imagine tours opening up once students are back to campus.
My kid, fortunately, did most of the in-state visits before the virus hit, but did want to do some more and maybe go back to a few of the in-state options. Not now! Looks like it’s all virtual for awhile. I’m more comfortable with that anyway. We’re in Texas.
Tulane is doing limited tours.
I’ve heard that some of the Texas schools will let you come if you ask, but they aren’t advertising it a lot.
Frankly I would not want my child attending a school that welcomes untested/ potentially infected visitors in this environment, i.e. one that does not view the health of students as a top priority
Sacred Heart in CT is doing in person tours.
I’ve visited about 8 different schools on the west coast with my daughter. Every single one of them was closed and doing 100% virtual learning this fall. But the campuses are still open if you want to just walk through and do your own self-guided tour. The only one we encountered that actually had gates and checkpoints was USC in Los Angeles where we had to do a covid screening by the security before they gave us a vistors pass to explore the campus. But it is the only campus that we visited that actually has a fence and wall-enclosed campus. The rest are just open to whoever wants to walk through.
A couple of them have signs up all over saying that the campus is closed to visitors but people walking through were just ignoring them. I emailed ahead to a couple of campuses to ask and they told me it was fine for prospective students to come visit, they were just trying to keep crowds away. No one ever stopped or hassled us. We visited:
University of San Francisco
Santa Clara University
Stanford
Pomona
USC
Occidental
University of Puget Sound
Lewis & Clark
In previous years I’ve done a whole bunch of guided tours with my older daughter. Honestly you can find out just about as much on your own as with the guided tours. All you miss are the dorm room peeks which all look the same anyway, and the fitness centers and cafeteria tours which also mostly look the same and use the same few concessionaire companies. You don’t get the real flavor of the campus without the students there, but you don’t get that during the summer anyway during normal years.
All the admissions questions can be answered easier online than sitting through a 1 hour admissions lecture.
Which of the schools you visited were your favorites and why?