I’m about to visit my first college. If anyone had any important tips or things to look out for when visiting, I’d appreciate it. Thanks!
What are your interests? What school?
Bring some water /snack. Bring Questions about the school /programs your interested in.
One thing that helped us was to actually make an appointment with a department or professor in what your interested in. We got great information about the school /program. All schools they were more then happy to meet with us. Some Appointments were very last minute.
I enjoy studying different cultures and bringing about cultural awareness, art, but I most enjoy and most focus on science, particularly neuroscience.
I really appreciate this! First school I am visiting is Johns Hopkins University seeing as this Friday was the only day that worked for my parent. I had only made the appointment just yesterday, and I’m worried that to put in a request today would be too late.
Nope. We put in requests at University of Chicago while we were there on tour. The math department head was thrilled to meet with us. We told him we just thought of doing it since we loved the school and the tour. Trust me, the time is now. Other schools we did have an advance appointments.
Plus as a pro tip: for doing your essays you can always point out you met with professor xxxx and that meeting enhanced your wanting to go to that school. Nothing says I am interested more then actually going out of your way to meet faculty! Since no one else is actually reading this, you will have a slight advantage. 
You can also sit in on a class at Johns Hopkins. There is a list of which classes will allow visiting students. Probably not too late. Contact the admissions office!
My tips:
If you are able, try to eat in the dining hall.
Wear super comfy shoes and a coat that can be easily unzipped when you are indoors. The JHU tour goes in and out of buildings so you’ll be inside for a good amount of time. Hard to balance the heated interiors and the cold!
Pay attention to student interactions as you are walking around campus. If you have time, maybe hang on campus for a bit after your official tour is over.
Try to talk to both students and profs who are in your intended major. Spend extra time in that building if possible, an visit the office. We found department offices had many hand outs and staff were happy to answer questions. We also asked the individual departments the “how hard is it to schedule classes to graduate on time” questions. Probably not a problem at JHU though. We got some interesting responses!
Enjoy the visit! We enjoyed the tour there very much!
If you will be going on multiple college visits, take time after a visit to jot down notes. You think you’ll be able to remember which school was which, but after a few visits, they may start to run together in your memory.
Observe the students on campus. This can be impacted by the timing of your visit, but do they seem happy? Do they interact with each other? Engaged?
Pick up a copy of the student newspaper. As mentioned earlier, eat in campus dining.
“If you will be going on multiple college visits, take time after a visit to jot down notes. You think you’ll be able to remember which school was which, but after a few visits, they may start to run together in your memory.”
Yes yes yes!! I kept notes, D19 didn’t because “she’d remember”. Guess who ended up using my notes :))
I read it
My kids liked going to a class. That can be arranged at most schools — contact admissions ahead of your visit and ask them. (Picking between class or the info session if your time is limited, usually the class is a better option — there is rarely much in the info session that isn’t on the website). Go on the tour, of course. I agree about eating in the cafeteria, too. As much for people watching and eavesdropping as for the food.
While walking around look at one of the kiosks to see what is happening on campus. If you are a student these are some of the things you’ll be choosing among (although not everything is listed). Pick up an issue of the student newspaper before you leave to get a sense of what is happening, events offered, etc.
If you are at all outgoing then walk up to a few random students, perhaps ones sitting reading the paper or in a small group. Smile, introduce yourself as a HS visitor, ask if they have a minute or two. Have a few questions such as “Is there anything you wish you had known before you came here?”, “What type of students do you think find the best fit here?”, “Have there been any surprises since starting as a student here?”
Someone once said they found out almost everything they needed to know with 2 questions. 1) What are students doing on Thursday nite? 2) What are they doing on Sunday nite? I don’t know if I fully agree, but it’s a thought…
If they have one visit the honors college. Also visit the Study Abroad office. We learned a lot at both places at each college. Make sure to set up a meeting with someone in the department that you want to major in. Visit the student union, grab a snack there, look for ATMs. Look around the library. See if you see a place where you could see yourself studying. Totally agree with talk to students. We chose the school son goes to partially on the fact that as we were walking around we had students stop to talk and help us. A professor stopped and walked us where we needed to go (ended up being the head of a department), another professor stepped outside her class to show us what they were doing. Happy professors and happy students. A year and a half later and those impressions were totally correct.
I always like to look at a campus map after the tour and go someplace they DIDN’t take me. Why did they leave that part of campus out? Also, if you think you know what you want to study go to the building(s) where that is housed - is there anyplace to hang out, eat lunch, study? Any place you would want to spend time?
My favorite question to the tour guide: “What did you do Saturday night?”
We visited nearly 30 colleges over a period of 2+ years. With very few exceptions, we enjoyed and got much out of these visits. Not only we found the list of colleges my S wanted to apply to, but also he even found what he wanted to major in (he was completely undecided before the visits). Here’s what we did:
- Prepared a spreadsheet divided by the different categories/areas where we wanted to know about these colleges.
- Found out as much as we could about these colleges in each of these category beforehand (colleges websites, online campus newspapers, youtube videos, and others via googling).
- Filled the spreadsheet with the information we found out and made a list of remaining questions in each category.
- On the visits, focused on these remaining questions and tried to confirm items we weren't sure about.
- Attended classes and/or visited interested departments (some colleges have department-specific tours) where offered and time permitted.
- Did overnight visits at a few colleges where either the "demonstration of interest" was important or more in-depth observation was needed.
- Scored the colleges from 1-5 in each category upon return.
There are many threads on this subject but just know that your student guide should not determine your experience. Some of these kids are just much better then others. Sometimes when you get a dull one your thoughts on the school are not so great. We also at some schools stopped doing school tours. After a few as my son said, "the chemistry buildings that they always , all pretty much look the same. Well, he was right. After doing a few school tours they all sort of blend together. I thought every schools grounds were beautiful. We went mostly on spring /summer and trees, /flowers were in bloom. A lot of the architecture started to blend also. Every school speeches were rah, rah that school. Does every school in America have both a squirrel watching club and a people watching the squirrel watching club???
So after a few school visits we would get to said school early, the day before depending on where we were going to and try to at least eat dinner at the suggested hamburger or local pizza place. Got to see lots of college kids this way. We also walked the grounds a bit to get a feel of the school. Actually just stopped a few students and just asked them “why this school” all student’s got it and were nice.
So after the rah rah sessions we had meetings with professors or departments of interest. This usually gave us a bit of time on the tours but then we just dropped off. We let the lead person know this prior so we wouldnt be rude and they were all great pointing to us what directions we should walk to get there.
Meetings like this were extremely useful for both my kids either at large big ten or smaller Lacs. Much more then the generic tours.
Also my son never wanted to do the lunch with “real” students thing. It just was not his thing but having lunch where kids go worked out fine and he gained the information he needed. He was tougher then my daughter to get a “fit”, “feel” on. He is a realist. He said where ever I end up the chemistry building will be just fine, the cafeteria food will be what it is, the dorm rooms are pretty much what they are and the students will all there and yes dad… The grounds are all beautiful in the spring /summer.
Know thy kid… Lol… He was right.