Living in a small state like Maryland, our in-state choices were very limited. Our daughter wasn’t crazy about the University of Maryland but we signed up for the tour anyway. That didn’t help; the student guide was not very knowledgeable and we were just overall unimpressed. A friend we knew from high school marching band offered up the services of her son, a UMD senior at the time who was very active in the music programs. He showed my daughter what she really wanted to see and capped it off with watching him play in the pep band at a basketball game. D is now a happy UMD freshman in the Scholars program and member of the marching band and Gamers Symphony Orchestra.
When our kids were juniors, we combined college “visits” with family vacations, visits to relatives, and the like. We strategically visited those friends and relatives who lived near colleges. Our kids sort of expected us to drive through college gates if we were on a trip. This made it more like a regular trip, and less like a search for the perfect college.
Older D (junior) wants to wait and only visit schools that she’s been accepted to. We’re ok with that.
If the schools aren’t far away, that works great. If not, we see students drop schools from their list in April every year where they were admitted, but the logistics of visiting on short notice are overwhelming. Sometimes they drop schools that seem like a great choice for them. Kids may be okay with this plan, but it is the parents who are paying for the travel and handling the logistics. It also makes for a very stressful April, IMHO.
@MotherOfDragons Is your daughter applying to all the same type of school (e.g., all big public state universities, all small LACs, all urban schools, all rural schools)? Or is she applying to a variety? I wonder if it would be valuable to at least visit one school of each type she is applying to in order for her to at least validate that she likes that “type” of school. Seems like it would be a shame to get accepted to several schools and then visit them only to realize that she doesn’t like that type of school.
In full disclosure, way back in the day I applied to, was accepted to, and agreed to enroll in a school without ever visiting - even though it was only 2 hours away so easy enough to visit. Loved the school so it worked out for me in the end but in hindsight I guess I took a pretty big risk.
@adlgel, she doesn’t know where she’s applying yet, but she wants a medium sized, walkable campus not out in the sticks. Her HS is 3k people, so at least that large, she says. Also with the HOPE scholarship in our state the public flagship is on the list by default, but she’s looking at a variety of public and privates beyond that. That leaves a lot of options open-she’ll narrow them more once the test scores come in, I’m sure. She’s had summer camps on a few campuses so she’s somewhat familiar with how campuses look and feel, but she says she’s more interested in meeting with the professors of the department, looking at the course offerings, and sitting in on a few classes rather than the “sticks and bricks”.
We like road tripping, so we’ll probably spend time doing that during next fall break for her safeties and reaches, then after the EA stuff comes in, we can do spring break at some matches if she still wants to look. We can also fly since H has a lot of frequent flyer points and he can take her over to california (although he really doesn’t want to-wants her to stay east coast/south).
I’m trying super hard to be cool about it all since there’s so much pressure on her right now with grades and testing…
@MotherOfDragons I’m finding it hard to be cool about anything right about now . . . but agree that it’s definitely important to try to not put any more pressure on these kids.
My S16 was gung ho to start looking at schools early and often so D17 has been on a lot of tours. They are very different people though and he wants a largish school and I think she really needs a small school. For the major she is interested in and the amount of rigor she wants there are no schools in our immediate area. I kind of forced the issue by making her go on a fall break trip but it made a huge difference because without her brother’s influence she realized she really did feel much more comfortable with the small school. Our tour guides at the large school did a great job explaining the things they did to make the big school work for them and none of them were things my introvert would do willingly. She still doesn’t want to make a final list and visit them all insisting she’ll just apply to a ton of schools and visit the ones she gets into next Spring. Ummmm NO we can’t spend the month of April flying around the country as few are even in long range driving distance. Plus why waste all that money and time applying to places you may not like. My son ended up having a strong dislike for a few of his favorites on paper.
These kids really have no idea how different college campuses can look and feel until they visit at least 3-5. Reluctance is normal. I have seen a huge change in DS’s comfort with the entire process from spring of sophomore year to senior year. The most important message throughout has been “you can go, but you will need to do x, y, and z if you want to go to school a rather than school b”. I cannot imagine getting to senior year without that learning. Now he is truly comfortable choosing where to apply and could make a commitment to a school today, if all the offers were in. So, yes push the visits now. Remind your DS that his schedule will be tight later and he will be in better shape to enjoy his senior year if some of visits happen now.
Did you already have a college fair?
I had my DD go to the fall college fair to get some ideas.
Then in fall of junior year I took her to a school I thought she would like and I liked the price of, and also to our Big State U. This was to get an idea of what she is interested in. She hated the huge school.
Over the winter we researched at other schools I will have to say I did a lot of the research. My DD is gung ho on going to college, but not on researching colleges. During spring break, we visited more. Based on those, we returned to the ones who needed interviews over the summer.
So you are in no way behind, but are actually ahead on looking. Since your child is more reluctant I would tell the a schedule now…start writing down interesting colleges s/he has heard about and the go visit over spring break and summer break (as works out for you) .
You should include your Community College…as they are reluctant, CC may be a stepping stone for them.
My D1 happily perused the Fiske Guide to Colleges in her own and flagged colleges. D2 asked me to go through and flag schools she might be interested in, then we talked through what I flagged and made a list to visit. Different kids have different amounts of enthusiasm for the process.
So is it the sticks and bricks that really makes a kid happy? I’ve attended ten different colleges (and counting!), and some have been beautiful and some have been really ugly.
What really mattered to me were the teachers, the peers, and the administration-something that you don’t necessarily get exposed to on one of those tours that they do while school is not in session.
To be fair, I’ve only lived in one dorm and it was nice, but one of my roommates was still a bit of a crackpot. I think I would have taken a spartan room with a good roommate over a nice view with crazytown.
Younger D was at Georgia Tech over the summer and liked it until her dorm room was robbed (they got all the rooms on the floor). After that, not so much. Older D was at Duke during the time and was amazed that it had happened, and more amazed that younger D always had to keep her dorm room locked. It was an instructional eye opener into the pluses and drawbacks of living on an urban vs. suburban campus (D1 thought she wanted urban, now wants hipster walkable suburban like an Emory or Duke setup).
I’m not sure you learn stuff like that on a tour, either-you can Google Earth most campuses and see how much fun stuff is in walking distance, and figure out the crime rate fairly easily.
Hi Lucky Charms,
I’d suggest that you try to get S in volved in making the list. This may be tricky, but if you ask what programs he would hope his future college would have, maybe getting him to brainstorm a bunch would be a way to get him started. Then he could do pretty simple searches for examle to see which schools have both XYZ major and also a rugby team, or a down-hill ski facility. The list of schools that are generated from these searches seem more appealing to kids. Have you also considered utilizing an educational consultant? Kids will tell those folks more than they will their own parents about their real dreams. This gives him an avenue in between the extremes that you and your husband seem to represent.
One of our S2’s friends was not at all interested in touring colleges. His mom put together an itinerary anyway, including several schools far enough away that it required two nights on the road. She worked so hard to include schools she thought her shy and reserved son would like, hoped they would have good mom-son time in the car. And when they arrived at school #1…he refused to get out of the car. I’m not kidding. He would NOT get out. Just had a pout fit like a four year old. They came home.
^^Oh, man. That is one stubborn kid. I would not have wanted to be in that car on the way home!
I wonder what job she made him take for the summer?
OP back with a positive update after our weekend of travel. H was planning to come along but our dogsitter had a last-minute emergency, so just S and I went.
Visited St. Bonaventure on Saturday (after driving through snow on Friday night!). Lovely campus, friendly students, many things to like–but at about 1,800 undergrads, too small and too rural (for him). That was as I expected but it was worth a look as I have heard good things about the school. After about 2 hours there, we decided to cut out early for some fun and headed to Niagara Falls (which neither of us had ever seen, but H had, so we didn’t feel guilty). That was a nice trip and not a bad drive (and I hadn’t mentioned it ahead of time since I didn’t know how the weather might work out, so S was pleasantly surprised).
On Sunday we visited Canisius in Buffalo, also for an Open House. S liked some aspects of it, especially the urban setting, but again thought it was on the small side (2,900 undergrads). I was pretty impressed and think it will stay on the tentative list, at least until he sees some more. I agreed to let him choose the next couple of schools, maybe for Presidents Day or, if close enough, just Saturday day trips (Dad will definitely come along for those).
Biggest benefit to the trip was getting S thinking about what he might like to study. He was quite attentive to the academic presentations (we did business at St. B and then two distinctly different majors at Canisius) so we talked on the way home about finding other schools with the majors he is interested in. He was looking up admission stats on his phone, which brought home to him that he’s got to keep improving his grades and take the SAT prep seriously if he wants a range of options.
So, again thank you to the many posters who offered advice and encouragement.
Too bad you didn’t think to stop by Niagara University while you were in Niagara Falls. It’s bigger than St. Bonaventure…about 3200 undergrad, I think. Very good business program, Division l Baseball, beautiful campus and if you check their website, you will see they are a bit more affordable. I believe it said 98% of freshman receive some sort of financial aid. Perhaps it was too rural for your son?
So glad it went well. You have hit upon one if the biggest benefits of early searching–self motivation to keep the grades up and do well on the standardized testing. This is how reluctant searches come around.
@Peachy267 I did have Niagara U in mind initially! Their official visits cut off at 2 and by the time we saw the falls it was close to 4, but I was willing to least walk around the campus for 15 minutes before it got dark. However, I didn’t push it, knowing that we had a full day on Sunday. Location (from the website) seemed suburban to me, but would you characterize it more as rural?