We found early touring very helpful. While I understand the “inducing stress too early” argument, we found that there was honestly nothing more stress-inducing than trying to squeeze in tours late in junior year (particularly during spring break when half the country is in your tour group) and the summer before senior year when the kids were immersed with summer research programs, jobs, etc. Tying in a tour or two with an existing family vacation was easy to do and much more enjoyable than the “seven schools in seven days” death march (which we also did).
As others have mentioned, demonstrated interest is a thing at many schools, and tours can be an important part of that. And good notes from information gleaned on in-person tours and department-specific information sessions make the “why” essay in the admission application much easier to write.
I don’t remember the timing, but we took my oldest daughter on a campus visit early in the process just to understand what it was all about. Parents had been out of school for decades and we were sure things had changed. So we traveled about an hour to a nearby school for the experience. It wasn’t anywhere we considered attending, but we took a lot out of the experience - knowing what to expect, what questions to ask, and how to get the most out of the experience.
Looking back. It was better to figure this out in advance rather than after the first visits that actually mattered.
My younger daughter also took a lot from visits with her older sister, a few years before she was looking.
If you have 1/2 day to spare on the trip, I think it’s worth the time investment - just pick a school. If nothing else, the Harvard visit/tour was historically interesting, and MIT has a very good presentation.
It depends on why. If it’s a broader intro to colleges and campuses, or something unique like West Point or home to a favorite sports team then have some fun with it. It’s a new experience or a vacation stop at that point. But if it’s to see a specific school or program then it’s too early. Kids change, interests wax and wane, schools can even change, and staying so narrowly focused for an extra couple years at a time when horizons are supposed to be expanding might make it hard to see the full spectrum of options when it does come time to make choices.
I couldn’t disagree more that it’s too early. We did a lot of opportunistic touring, being very clear that we were just visiting as we were in the area. Maybe it’s different in other areas, but our state has so few schools that other than the flagship down the road, there was so little here that to really get a feel for other options, they had to be out of state and we really didn’t want to cram it all into junior year - which thank goodness we didn’t do as my son in particular would have been sol by covid. They had no clue what an urban campus really meant, until the visited one - which coincidentally was when we were visiting their grandparents. We hit a handful of different schools when they were in early high school when we were vacationing in the area to just get a feel for what they might like - it was utterly no stress and tbh I’m not sure my kids actually applied to any of those schools - it was very much about big/little urban/rural - later they went from those preferences to also really diving into major and ec at particular schools.
I would suggest U Vermont if it works with your travel schedule. Emerson in Boston is great for writing and design but very $$$ so you might want to make sure it would be in budget for you before you dangle that. If I recall correctly it’s about $60K a year with very little aid given. Should be LGBTQ friendly though if it works for your budget.
I agree. We started visiting maybe sophomore year and like you they were sort of opportunistic tours. The first set was in the Boston area because we were in town for the marathon. We did some in Chicago when we were visiting family one year too. We tried not to overdo it or make it super stressful but I think the tours helped my D start to get an idea of what she was looking for. My D missed a lot of school due to her major activity which was a sport not affiliated with her school, so taking any more time off to tour was hard so we took advantage of times we were already traveling. My D was the type of kid who wanted to SEE schools before applying so we did a lot of tours. Funny enough the school she ended up at was the one school we didn’t visit before she applied and had to quick rush there after she was admitted.
I would say those early tours were different than the later ones when she had started to pinpoint a major and understood more what she wanted. But they were still helpful.
When we went on a family vacation, if we saw a college, we would drive through. We didn’t make plans to do tours or anything else. These were just visits so our kids could see different kinds of colleges in different parts of the country. A drive thru was sufficient.
We did go back to some of these places when our kids starting when they had completed their sophomore years of high school. The planned visits were only for schools the kids had researched and wanted to see more in depth.
Yes, our kids knew they wanted to go to a U outside our state so it made the most sense to drive past Us when we were traveling for other reasons. Most of the time, driving past and/or thru the campus was enough to get a feel for where different Us were situated and the different types of configurations.
S did end up accepting and attending a U he had never stepped foot in. We all 1st stepped foot on that campus when we went to move him in as a freshman. D liked it best of any U and that was the only U she applied to and was accepted at.