We did a trip to Ohio recently to visit several schools (we’re in Illinois). We saw Earlham (in Indiana, just across the state line), Denison, Kenyon, Wooster, Case Western, and Oberlin. All in three days :-). A bit rushed, but doable.
We only had things scheduled at a couple of the schools, the others we just intended to do a quick visit. At a couple, we got there just as a tour was starting, so we joined in. At another, we got there about half an hour before the admission office closed, but someone there was willing to give us a tour (their suggestion!), so we did that. At another, no guided tour, but we got a map and did our own tour, and stopped in the library and had an extended chat with someone working there. (For a quick visit, a tour is probably more valuable than an info session, for which most of the info can be found online.)
BTW, these schools know people are visiting several of them – at a few of them, they had sheets with directions to the other schools, they often asked where we had come from and where we were going next. Kind of like Santa in A Miracle on 34th Street :-).
As others have stated, visits can give you a feel for the school, the campus, and the students (if it’s in session – always better, especially for smaller schools). It shows interest, something that’s important for many schools (you can view a school’s CDS to see how important they rate that). And if you visit nearby schools of different kinds (e.g., big/small, public/private, LAC/research university), you can get a sense for what your child likes.
Although, sometimes that isn’t so clear. For instance, on this trip, my son liked Earlham, Wooster, Case, and Oberlin, but not Denison and Kenyon. It might not be so clear what distinguishes them, to some degree these schools are similar (well, not Case). But it was something about the students there, and the activities (there’ll be flyers up advertising them), that gave my son a sense that he’d fit in there, and be able to talk to and have fun with the people there.
Sorry to hijack the thread a bit, but I’m getting a little concerned that it’s not going to be easy for us to do further visits. We’ve visited about a dozen schools now, almost all the schools within about 500 miles of home that might make my son’s list (he’s a junior). But there are still several farther away that we’d like to visit – some on the west coast, and some in the northeast. We might be able to do a trip this summer to see some of them – but the schools won’t be in session. If anyone has suggestions on how to deal with this, I’d appreciate hearing them. (We will do things like visit/get info online and read college info books; the fact that we’ve already visited several schools should allow those to be more productive/useful.)