<p>How does everyone do this?!?!? We are really struggling with finding the time as D2 is always in season for a sport. D2 doesn't want to miss classes and she has bball after school every day so would have to be back for that. Weekends are also tied up with practice on Saturdays. We are doing a local visit late this afternoon when practice will be over by 1:00. So how do you get the kids on campus when they have other commitments? This scheduling is driving me crazy!</p>
<p>It’s tough. I’m using my son’s sudden chance to go to an out-of-state math tournament to do some looking around at two colleges. I’m still trying to figure out how to cram some more college visiting into his summer schedule. Minnesota is far from anywhere (twelfth largest state in land area), and especially from a lot of really decent colleges (although there are some good college in-state, I think not near to where you live).</p>
<p>Very hard, my junior does a lot of activities and I work. We have spring vacation booked but there are only so many you can see in a week and I’m trying for a week in August, but the colleges won’t be in session. Fall of senior year is crazy…I think we’ll just hit the campuses she really wants to go to and apply to a bunch without having seen them first. Some are very far with no colleges or tourist attractions on the way.</p>
<p>We did alot of our visiting summers (before junior year and before senior year) - then went back to those that we will really serious about (2-3, and all within 2ish hours of home) during Senior year for revisits while school was in session, time to attend a class, etc…</p>
<p>LOL! We are in metro area…user name has another meaning! </p>
<p>We’re doing a metro visit today. I would like to do visits while school is in session rather than summer. I think you get a better feel but it may have to be that way for us. Would have liked to get her down to Gustavus today for their official visit day. Will hit St. Olaf and Carleton next weekend. If it isn’t too dark (or cold!!!) might head down the street and walk around St. Thomas after our other visit today.</p>
<p>Spring break is out for us as she has tournaments in California…won’t visit any school there…she won’t go that far!
Next fall will be hard as she will be in HS soccer which is the sport she will play in college. I will hold her under house arrest at the end of summer until all apps and essays are finished as she won’t have time when season starts!</p>
<p>We never had our kids in any organized sports, in part because we found the schedules and some coaches unbearably tyrannical about their time, with not enough allowance for other family goals. Sorry, but that was our conclusion. </p>
<p>I honestly think the person who needs to modify just a bit is your D to be willing to miss a practice or two on Saturdays. As for bball after school every day, well, if it’s every day then how bad is it to miss just a day? Probably your school has the excused visit if it’s for colleges, so she could work it out in advance with her teachers, get classnotes, and do any quizzes early not late… That’s how we did it.</p>
<p>If my tone sounds unsympathetic, it is NOT to you but to the sports schedules!</p>
<p>We crossposted, and now I see how important sports are to your D. Is it possible to focus then on one sport, soccer, and let the others take a backseat somewhat?</p>
<p>My sister and I both went on big college road trips during Spring Break of junior year. I saw four or five colleges in the week, which is very do-able and not overwhelming. Colleges are in session, the weather’s nice, and usually there aren’t many conflicts. Will there be practice during vacation period? My coaches sometimes had required practices over breaks, sometimes optional work-outs, and sometimes nothing. It really depended. I saw three other schools fall of senior year over a long weekend that we had to fly to, and I did an on campus interview at one of the schools. My high school gave seniors a long weekend in the fall to visit colleges. I did a day-trip to briefly see one other, more local college.</p>
<p>Sorry, cross-posted with your most recent. It’s too bad that Spring Break is out. When does school start for your daughter? Many colleges start late summer, so depending on her pre-season schedule she may be able to go on a quick trip before school starts but after many colleges are in session. Are there any three day weekends that you could extend into a four day weekend? She’d miss one day of classes but possibly over a three day weekend there wouldn’t be any practices, especially if it’s after a particularly tough game. My coaches always gave us a couple recovery days after hard weeks or were at least somewhat lenient. Are there any other vacation periods at your school, such as a fall break or mid-winter break? Is she mostly interested in schools in one region? If so, that would be very helpful. Also remember that you don’t need to visit a school, especially before applying. Spring senior year is almost more difficult than fall, depending on what her spring sport is, because of AP exams, finals, and lots of time constraints, but you may be able to grab a couple of weekends sometime winter of senior year.</p>
<p>Yes..the bball schedule is a killer! She missed a week over the holidays to attend a soccer tourney out of state. She’s just now seeing the floor again so she won’t miss any more. D1 didn’t seem to have as many conflicts when we went through this with her a few years ago. But…it really paid off in scholarship $$$ when her academics and athletics were combined. We’re hoping for more of the same for D2.</p>
<p>My S2 was not really interested in visiting during spring of jr. year. By the time he became interested that summer, he was into football practice full force and it was impossible to miss. He only applied to a couple of instate schools so we just sent off the apps. and decided to do the visits when the decisions came in after football season. </p>
<p>So he just did his first college visit 2 weeks ago (only 4 months before h.s grad). He liked it right away, did the tour, bought the bumper sticker and t-shirt and came home really enthused about the sch. </p>
<p>Most prob. wouldn’t wait until after decisions come in but it worked out well for us. In fact it sort of gave him a feeling of ownership over the whole thing. Because he knew he was already accepted , every little thing on the tour took on a bigger meaning to him. FWIW, all the other students on the tour with us had already been accepted also.</p>
<p>You could visit Grinnell as a day trip. I suppose you’ve already seen Macalester, another great school in your area. We visited quite a few in the summer because we were able to take the time. It did help my son decide where to apply, but once he had his acceptances, he felt he needed to see the campuses with students on them, attend classes and do an overnight before deciding where to attend. So if you can’t fit in visits before applying, it’s ok to wait until she knows where she’s been accepted before visiting. We’ve found the college guide books, such as the Fiske Guide, to be very accurate in their descriptions of the schools. So reading a few of those can give a good sense of the school even without a visit.</p>
<p>A lot of colleges don’t require or even offer an interview on campus, so I don’t think not visiting before applying really hurts. We’re going to visit the schools that my junior might want to apply ED to.</p>
<p>I took DD back east to look at schools the summer after her sophmore year. She had no interest at the time. We took a week and it enabled us to see about 5 schools. The next summer we did the same thing. In retrospect she was very happy I dragged her early because all of her friends were scrambling to do visits senior year with no time. So my advice to all is to do them as early as you are able. If nothing else, you can eliminate a lot of them that way. One downfall is that she was thrown into a couple of interviews because we came from out of state and they knew they wouldn’t be able to find an alumni interviewerlater. She wasn’t very prepared and didn’t know enough about the school yet. I don’t think it hurt her chances though. Our biggest problem right now is return visits to accepted schools. She hasn’t wanted to miss any school and right now those visits conflict with some of her brother’s activities. We’ll just do the best we can. Our kids are all stretched so thin. Good luck to all trying to do it!!</p>
<p>We shoved them in wherever possible, also around an unrelenting (but sometimes helpful!) sports schedule…</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Two spring break trips (Jr/Sr year, both in SoCal…first time, we were in town for sports competitions and stayed longer to do visits, second time was to double-check schools that I was really considering).</p></li>
<li><p>Day-trips after weekend practices (practice was early-early-early, so plenty of time to do trips within 2hr drive).</p></li>
<li><p>Family vacations (spent a morning in Northfield while in the Twin Cities).</p></li>
<li><p>Anything super-convenient (We drove/walked around some schools I didn’t have a lot of interest in, just because they were easy to get to, and still helped me get a feel for campuses, what I was looking for, etc. Literally, we were driving home from a sports practice one morning and my mom saw a highway sign for a campus, so we went and drove around it :p).</p></li>
<li><p>I didn’t do a big out of town visit…college trip to the east coast or anything…although in some ways, it would have been helpful. The one east coast school I did apply to was a big reach, so we decided we’d cross the bridge when it came (which it didn’t).</p></li>
<li><p>There was one out of town school I really wanted/needed to visit, but no other reason to go (other schools, family trip, etc). My dad had a late-in-the-week business trip there, so I flew from CA to TX on a Fri night, spent the night in a hotel w/my dad, we went to a Sat morning tour, and I flew home with him. Less than 24 hours, found good airfare. If you can find good out-of-town travel fare, you usually won’t have to worry about paying for much else, because your daughter can probably stay and eat on campus.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>While nice, visits aren’t absolutely necessary. When I applied to college some 30 years ago I didn’t visit a single one, and I was perfectly happy with my choice. She can always visit in the spring of her senior year after she is accepted somewhere.</p>
<p>as some have mentioned, if we were somewhere and had a few minutes or hours to spare, and there was a college nearby, we’d at least try to drive through. Not necessarily to see if that particular college would be appropriate for my daughters, but so that they got a good idea of different kinds of colleges: urban vs. rural; small vs. large; campus layouts, etc. When you do this, students may quickly rule out certain colleges - for instance if they realize exactly how big a large state U is by driving around it, and feel it’s not their cup of tea, they might choose to rule out large campuses; or if driving through a small campus is to claustrophobic, they may realize they want something at least 10,000 or more students. The more different campuses they can compare, the better it helps them narrow down what they think they will feel comfortable at. We sometimes used trips to visit family to take a quick ride around a campus. </p>
<p>Both my Ds were involved in an EC that lasted from August to May, with the heaviest commitment from November through late March; and their sponsor did NOT look kindly upon missing ANY rehearsals, even for the D who was pursuing study in his area of involvement, and did not have a choice but to travel to schools for auditions 
We finally just sucked it up, minimized the absences and tried to balance them between missing school days and missing rehearsals… for instance, one trip was a quick one-day turn around trip on a scheduled day off of school, but she still had rehearsal that night. We took a 6AM flight to our destination, toured the school for several hours, then flew back home. She was home in time to attend rehearsal. It was a looooong day, but it allowed her to actually rule the school out. As much as people recommend that you have to visit a campus while students are in session, it doesn’t always work. </p>
<p>I can understand the coach’s upset over your daughter’s week absence, but if you spread your days out over several months, and take a day here and there, it might be more tolerable. I will say, I think high school coaches (and any EC sponsor) have no ground to stand on when it comes to penalizing kids for college visits. It doesn’t mean they won’t be vocal about the absence, but school should always come first, and sometimes college obligations need to take precedence over ECs. Another thing you might try is to contact the sport’s coach now, explain you need to schedule some visits, and were wondering which day/weekend would be less disruptive for your daughter to miss a practice or two. That way you’re showing that you understand their position of strict practice discipline, but communicating that this is very important to your daughter, too, that she needs to start making plans for after high school.</p>
<p>Try to do college visits and then auditions. I ended up flunking a final because school was 2 hours late the day we watched a filmstrip and was on the way to Syracuse for an audition on the make up day when we had to do the creative writing assignment on the filfstrip! Luckily I had the highest A in the class, so I just got a C, but it could keep me from getting into a school. I could write to the schools, but at this point–7 auditions done, 2 to go…I’m over it!</p>
<p>Despite what the colleges say, I think they do want to see visits where possible - it’s part of what they call ‘demonstrated interest’. We shoehorned visits in beginning spring break sophomore year, whenever we had a family event scheduled where there was a college of possible interest nearby (wedding in St. Louis = visit to Wash U; family cruise out of Seattle = visit to UW; anniversary party in Boston = BU, Brandeis, MIT, etc.; long weekend in November = Northern Cal: Berkeley, Stanford and Davis). My younger son, now a senior and in wait mode, was dragged along with his older brother, and some of those schools we do not need to revisit. If post #9 only wants to see one school, great - and if it works for her son, even better. I just think there is merit in seeing a variety of schools so that you student is making the most informed decision possible. We have seen all but 2 on sons list, and are waiting for admissions outcome. Unfortunately our spring break falls smack in the middle of that notification time (end of march/beg april), so we may have to scramble, or he’ll possibly miss a day or two of school. I just don’t want a decision of this magnitude to be based on anything but his impressions - he’s the one who’s going, not the Dad and I! That’s the ownership factor.</p>
<p>it might be worth your while to make use of the Collegiate Choice walking Tours videos. The person filming the tour is not a professional, and he follows the guided tour the college gives (not the promo tour on the college website).Sometimes, theres extra footage of campus spots after the walking tour is done. Quality varies, but we found them useful .It made S decide to follow up on one Southern school he wasn’t sure about, and took two schools off his list,even before the apps went out.Some HS guidance offices have them in stock, around here some public libraries have some in stock. Or you can order them. We donated our purchased ones to S’s HS.</p>
<p>NorthMinnesota-I sympathize. In my experience, competitive coaches will rarely release athletes from meets/tournaments/practices for educational purposes (College visits, make-up tests, etc.) They often expect you to fully release that your commitment to the team is a a commitment and there are plenty of times to make-up your tests (before-school, during lunch, Athletes Study Table). Therefore, I’ll tell you what my family did. We made sure that I attended as many high school-sponsored field trips to local colleges, which include a tour of the campus. (Your school’s chapter of NHS or other Honors/Collegiate Organization may hold an over-night tour of two to three competitive schools each year.) Also, we looked out for any “Staff Development” Days-days where the students had no school, but the staff had mandatory “team-building” days. In effect, days where coaches can’t possible schedule practices! Finally, if all else fails, attend any college fairs or talks on schools. Hope that helps. </p>
<p>Also, do consider California. There are many excellent schools probably nearby DD’s tournament.</p>
<p>If you can’t make it at all, try online tours.</p>
<p>NorthMinnesota:</p>
<p>What is most important for your D’s future?</p>
<p>Dispite what others have posted, I believe it is critical for your D or any HS student to visit colleges (many) to assess what the colleges have to offer and how those offerings, atmosphere, stucents, faculty, appeal to her (him).</p>
<p>Waiting until after being accepted to visit is IMO the primary reason so many students transfer from or fail to complete their initial college.</p>
<p>The demands of sports (and coaches) for practices (daily and Wends) is excessive. Their must be time during the Junior school year to visit colleges (while they are in session) and not just to run down to Northfield drive around Carleton and then St Olaf. You have to stop, visit, tour, have D sit in a class or two, have lunch, meet students and get a decent view. Both St O and Carleton are good schools but different in some respects.</p>
<p>After all this is the place your D will spend 4 very crucial years of her life. HS has it’s place, but the most important aspect of HS is the growth of your child, in college it will be the forming of the basis for her adult life.</p>
<p>I would secure sufficient time during her Junior year Spring to visit colleges. The Senior year fall term is very crowded, but still she should visit as well the schools she really liked from the Spring.</p>