<p>Looks like your mileage may vary! My personal experience in visiting numerous campuses with three kids is that if at all possible, go when college is in session or during a special summer event. I couldn’t even get my kids to apply to some of the colleges that we saw empty during summer or even Spring break because they just couldn’t get a feel for the college at all without seeing kids or classes in action. Or if they did apply, and get accepted they were not high rated because of that first impression and they weren’t interested in a re-visit. </p>
<p>I get the scheduling problem, and I think most of us are in the same boat. Time, money and logistics is just plain tricky, which is why with my second and third child we started our visits right before Junior year. We got our the school calendar and our family calendar and found open dates where perhaps school was closed for teacher in-service or vacations and assuming there wasn’t a EC event, and it worked with my schedule we would look to see if that worked into a visit day for one of the colleges. This was not an easy task, and all three of my kids did have to miss a few days of school (2 or 3 days total for each kid) for college visits, but they’ll tell you that the visits while in session made a difference. </p>
<p>It’s sort of like when you are buying a house and it’s in need of repair. Some people can envision what it would be like with changes, while some of us just see it as it is.</p>
<p>We’re planning to do Private College Week summer tours this year. Realizing that “empty campus” may give the wrong impression, I think “empty campus” also provides an honest snapshot of the surrounding community, the relative condition of the buildings, and the atmosphere without the “warmingness” of active student life. Here in Midwest, a number of LACs are located in foundering Rust Belt small towns, a context that is worth examining too when visiting the schools.</p>
<p>Hunt–I agree–one school we visited the students really turned DD off, however, I still think she would be just fine there and would like the school once she is on campus and attending classes but it’s her choice, not mine. :D.</p>
<p>D and I did two summers of visits - before junior year all California schools and mostly larger universities - didn’t take tours but they may have been available - she was able to rule out the whole state which was useful.</p>
<p>Summer before senior year toured all her east coast options - took a tour at every school except the one she will be attending b/c we met with the coach on a weekend. We did walk around by ourselves and toured the athletic facility.</p>
<p>I can say the summer visits we did were invaluable. Since yours is also an athlete, you can arrange to meet with the coaches who we found all to be on campus during the summer (except one who was at a recruiting tournament). She ruled many campuses out - all the large universities and two LAC’s for isolated campuses. She ruled out one b/c she didn’t like the coach.</p>
<p>Then, for the schools that made the cut, she went to visit again (solo) for the official recruiting weekends - attended classes and hung with the team - that’s how she picked.</p>
<p>The school my son disliked after getting to like it online, was the one we toured when the school was on spring break. There were only a handful of students there, mostly athletes. It’s better that you find out that you don’t like a school after seeing the student body. However, it’s really not to your advantage to not like a school because of the lack of students on campus at the time.</p>
<p>Just one other thing about Summer visits. It can be brutally hot and make parents very cranky! The weather doesn’t seem to bother the kids much, though.</p>
<p>I agree w urbanparent. All visits are worthwhile - even when they are a bust- they help the whole decision process. get tours - even though they can be painful & feel repetitive - they are always revealing.</p>
<p>Summer visits are helpful, especially if there are info sessions and tours available. And methinks any college visit can help in refining general priorities. Also, if the tour group is large enough you’ll get to see a sampling of applicants. Example - summer tour groups at MIT and Tufts (which also offers engineering) were very different… no right/wrong, just enlightening. </p>
<p>It’s likely that the student would want a return visit in Spring, perhaps accepted students day. But if schedules and finances permit, some early peeks are nice too.</p>
<p>I think whether or not you find summer visits useful is dependent upon whether you are an introvert, who can take things in regardless of how many people are there / not there, or an extrovert who really depends on the energy of the people around you to get a feel for something. As an introvert in a family in which 3 of us are introverts, I see no reason why we couldn’t get a good handle on a place over the summer versus during the school year. I don’t need to do a lot of observation of other students to get my own feel for something. But, different strokes of course.</p>
<p>We did some weekend visits during the school year. With the tours being on Saturday mornings, we were always wondering, “Where are all the students?” Then we realized that no one is out and about at college on Saturday morning. If you want to see students, you are better off with mid-day, mid-week visits.</p>
<p>I would skip those LACs that don’t have summer info sessions or tours at all - it’s a clue just how dead campus might be. We visited Oberlin in the summer - my alma mater so I figured, heck - I don’t need a tour guide, I’ll lead the tour. Well, everything was locked tight and there was 1 person I saw on campus while we walked around - we saw him multiple times but my kids were quick to point out it was just one guy repeatedly. They didn’t take the college seriously and felt like it was just a nostalgia-stop not a serious-college-stop. It’s easy to overlook how quiet the town and countryside surrounding is, when you have a bustling campus. But when both are quiet…not helpful. On the opposite side, PSU, UMichigan were both bustling with grad students, families, profs although it was mid-july.</p>