<p>Since our rising HS senior is in a fall sport, it would sure be nice to get the couple remaining first time visits done this summer.</p>
<p>However, I worry that it's tough to get a good read on a school when the kids aren't on campus. </p>
<p>What do you all think? Are summer visits worth it?</p>
<p>I think for small LACs it can be very difficult unless you are attending a “special day”. We went to a summer science day and were able to talk to students, meet professors, even talk to coaches. A student went on a visit the following week, and it the school had only admissions counselors and a couple of student tour guides. It felt like a ghost town. Large schools tend to be better, as there are summer sessions and more students.</p>
<p>We have no choice but to do a number of visits this summer for D. We will try to at least get tours, rather than just wandering around, and to spend some time in whatever town or neighborhood the school is a part of.</p>
<p>Having visited a school during their spring break, I’d say no, summer visits aren’t worth it. My kids all played a fall sport, too. I think it’s o.k. to miss a game in the fall, as this is four years of your student’s life. Your student won’t even remember that missed game one year from now.</p>
<p>I wonder about this too. We visited a couple campuses during spring break. One, a small school, was completely closed up. No one was around and I am sure that didn’t help paint a positive picture of it. All that was there was clutter around the dorms that hadn’t been picked up yet from the pre-spring break parties. We also visited a large state school that has a grad school and hospital attached. It was not busy, but did have people out and about, so at least it didn’t have a ghost town feel. lol
I just don’t want to get a falsely negative feel from a nearly empty campus. I am hoping that timing things so that the schools we visit in the summer will at least be having summer classes, hopefully giving us a more accurate picture.</p>
<p>I don’t know where you are but our high school starts after Labor Day and most colleges start before, so the end of August may work for a visit.</p>
<p>Definitely look for a summer visit day and a tour at least. Both sons toured some schools during the summer and were able to cross a few off the list and keep some on. Younger son is now attending a school he first visited in the summer since we were camping nearby. (We did go back and visit the school again once the acceptances were in.) Older son decided to cross one school off the list from a summer visit because he felt very unsafe in the urban area surrounding the campus and another during a summer visit day since he didn’t like the academic programming they offered. We found summer visits did help narrow down the list but both sons did revisit the schools after acceptances came in during the academic year.</p>
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Unfortunately, in our case, since I adjunct at a local college, the timing is dictated by MY schedule rather than D’s. </p>
<p>As rising seniors, I think kids can at least get a sense of a particular place and whether or not they might like it there. Especially if they have toured several schools. Agree with working in a revisit (or even an overnight) after acceptances are in.</p>
<p>Of course, if you visit on a Saturday morning during the regular term, you might not see very many students out and about then either.</p>
<p>We did some summer visits because that’s just how the schedule worked. D eliminated some schools based on these visits, and added some to the ‘will apply and visit again later for full experience’ list. I wouldn’t make the final decision based on a summer visit, but it can be fine for an apply or not filter.</p>
<p>agree with Sylvan8798</p>
<p>We had to do a lot of visits in the Summer, but I agree that it is more informative at larger schools than LACs because at least grad students are around. One thing that is missing is a sense of what the students are like. One option may be to return in April when your child is accepted for another visit to see if the fit is what your child wants.</p>
<p>Ya do what ya can do. If you’ve visited the same type of school during the year (LAC, midsize uni, etc), then I think you can pick up enough about a place at a summer visit to say whether you want to keep it on a list. Ds1 is at a LAC he first saw in the summer. We revisited in late April senior year to confirm first impressions.</p>
<p>Visit, visit and visit. Don 't worry about summer campus status. Enjoy the trips with your student and the tours have plenty of other families on the road!</p>
<p>We found summer visits to LACs quite useful. We took tours which were always led by students and the info sessions were informative. D got a good feel for the campus, facilities, even the dorms and could ask a lot of questions. She was definitely able to tell which ones she liked best, and eliminate a few. We did do one set of fall visits to a different region as well, but I’d say it’s very useful - and we couldn’t have visited if we hadn’t done it this way. We were able to meet with faculty with a few weeks notice. About the only thing missing was overnights and visiting classes.</p>
<p>We did about half our visits in summer. Agree that you shouldn’t make a final decision based on a summer visit, but then I doubt you’re going to get a true sense of any school just from a one-day visit. We found it about as useful as the school- year visits… But then, D mostly did not visit classes.</p>
<p>Because we live overseas we did all of our visits in the summer. We saw 14 schools and at all attended the information session and took the tour. At most we were able to get inside the art building (which was my son’s special interest) and at many my son interviewed. We tried to have lunch at the cafeteria and wander around the town (if there was one). </p>
<p>The smaller LACs were not in session but they weren’t deserted either. In addition to the admissions crew there were summer programs and a scattering kids who stayed on over the break. I think my son got a good feeling for the character of each school, enough to make an ED choice, which, happily, was successful. It turned out to be an excellent decision.</p>
<p>With older D, all our visits were in summer. She was interested in schools in Boston and DC, we did DC summer after sophomore year and Boston summer after junior year. Her impressions at that time were that she could be happy at any of the schools we visited. She returned to the 4 that accepted her in April of senior year in order to make her final decision.</p>
<p>Younger D is fall and spring athlete, so we squeezed in some visits on 3 day weekends junior year, but will have to do some this summer. She is very interested in location, so the visits will help her with the initial list. We are hoping she can get some overnights in between November and March, so she will not have to do too many April accepted days in the middle of spring season!</p>
<p>If summer is the best time for you to visit, go and make the best of it.</p>
<p>We’ve done several summer visits because the kids’ fall activities do not lend well for going on tours then. Mostly we have visited smaller LAC and there are still plenty of students around to get a feel for the student body and you can get a great feel for the campus, etc. Obviously you can’t sit in on a class but we don’t do that anyway, don’t see the point personally. I don’t know that we have gotten any more or less from our school year visits vs the summer visits.</p>
<p>I did one winter visit and one summer visit, and I didn’t find either one to be particularly better than the other-- if anything the winter visit was worse because nobody was out because of the weather. The winter visit was at a small state school, the summer visit was umich-- I have found that the summer students are a bit different from the fall-winter students there now that I’ve actually been there full time for both, but the differences were too subtle for me to notice on my first tour and weren’t particularly important.</p>
<p>We visited the same school twice with different kids–once during spring break, with an info session but no tour, and once when school was in session with a tour. The impression was much, much better when school was in session. I think a visit during summer or a break is probably better than nothing, but it may not give you the “feel” of the campus.</p>