<p>Or, is visiting the only surefire way to do that? I hear often that colleges understand if visiting in advance of acceptance is not affordable for a student - but I feel like a student who is able to visit might have a bit of an edge. Thoughts?</p>
<p>LOTS of ways. You kid could:</p>
<p>1) Contact the school and get on the mailing list
2) Go meet admissions reps when they come to their HS
3) Go to the evening roadshows when they come to your area
4) Sign up and then sign in to the online chats and webinars schools put on
5) Contact the regional admissions rep to ask questions</p>
<p>Thanks YDS - I know there are <em>ways</em> - but I’m wondering if those ways mean as much as visiting.</p>
<p>Unlikely, but you’re correct that colleges know that it’s not always affordable to visit on the front end so if you can’t visit I wouldn’t sweat it. Ds2 is at his dream school, and he didn’t visit until after being accepted EA.</p>
<p>Congrats to your DS! What was his dream school? My oldest did not visit many schools before applying and it didn’t matter, but that is because he was looking at big public universities which go more by the numbers. This kid has a bit of a different goal.</p>
<p>I’ll PM you. :)</p>
<p>Son did not do any official visits before applying. He decided to apply in December of his junior year, with 2 days to get LORs and transcripts in. His list would have been different if there was more time. He had seen several colleges in earlier years. We also traveled 1 1/2 hours to hear an admission rep talk about a certain college. He wrote about what he heard from the rep and the alumni at that meeting, and enrolled at that college.</p>
<p>Once accepted, we did visit 3 schools.</p>
<p>I remember seeing a post about an applicant who used to stalk the schools Admission’s Facebook page. He asked lots of questions on FB and the admissions people would respond, ask him to call, like his posts, etc. Once he was admitted, the Admission’s FB page congratulated him and mentioned something that they were glad he got in, etc. So you never know who in Admission is manning the FB pages, but it could show a way of showing interest by communicating via FB, twitter, instagram, tumblr, etc. and get to know the admit people that way. Just an idea. Good luck!</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1626043-ways-to-show-a-high-level-of-applicant-s-interest-p1.html”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1626043-ways-to-show-a-high-level-of-applicant-s-interest-p1.html</a></p>
<p>If you live within a few hours’ drive of a school that considers demonstrated interest, it would be a mistake not to visit. If you live a great distance from a school, not visiting is unlikely to hurt your chances of admission.</p>
<p>Also see if there are alumni interviews in your area</p>
<p>There was an article that mentioned how some schools keep track of how many times u log into your admissions portal acct.</p>