Hi,
DD is junior and I plan to bring her to visit colleges…first time parent for college age kids
Does anyone know when is the best time? Now? Summer? or Senior year? after accepted by colleges?
How do you go to visit? drive by ? join the college open house? I think those college visit tours happens during school year… Do you contact the admission office? or just school websites?
Our son is a sophomore, and we’re going on our first visit over spring break in two weeks. I don’t think I’d wait until senior year, or you won’t have enough time if you want to visit more than a couple. We plan to spread it out over the next year and a half or so.
Trisherella, thanks. How do you schedule the college visit? will you be just walking around the campus? how can you find someone to talk to? I knew some colleges have tours but they are scheduled on specific days…
I started visiting colleges when my older son is a Sophomore and younger brother (Freshman) would tag along. We started visiting all the local schools, so only day trips. It helped narrow down some likes and dislikes so when it came time to get serious, we could zero on more likely schools. We tried to visit on breaks or summer, but usually the best time is when the school is in session, which is not always possible. We revisted their top choices after they received their acceptances just for reassurance before that all important final decision. College open houses and admitted student days are good and tours are given during those times and also during the summer. Most schools have tour registration through their website, so you pick from the days and times that are available. I am not a fan of 10 colleges in 10 days type of tours, so by spreading them out over 2 years, they did not feel overwhelmed.
If at all possible, register for the official tours/info sessions so that you get credit for demonstrated interest.
OP, you’ll get different answers from different posters. Some have visited a dozen or even 2 dozen schools, well before senior year. Some can’t afford to visit until after acceptance, others look locally to get an idea of size preferences, still others send their kids on tours.
What we did, since our D, by freshman year, had already visited and stayed at in-state flagships and a directional, and been on a couple of private campuses as well, was take her on a multi-state, multi-campus southern tour after her freshman year was done. This spring break she is going on a college tour to see some mid-Atlantic and East Coast schools. She’s a sophomore who intends to enter college early. These are primarily HBCU’s, so your experience might be different. For the schools we toured, all had an website link to set up tours. All but one emailed confirmations, maps, and other information about the tours. One called to confirm, then emailed the info. We also drove by a few others D wasn’t interested in, but we did want to see the campuses.
We went in the summer, because it was the only time we could all go (we also brought D’s friend). School was in (summer) session at some of the colleges but it worked out so well, even if it wasn’t. We got private tours at most of them, and got to meet department heads, program chairs, deans, and even a college president. D’s upcoming tour will be more orchestrated, but the tour leader has arranged for some private meetings as well.
It’s been a fascinating process for us-when I was looking at colleges, I only toured one-the one I chose after I got my acceptances. Good luck!
First, before you visit the schools, run the NPCs on the websites. No use wasting time and money visiting schools that won’t be affordable.
And, you would regret the day that you visited an unaffordable school that your child “fell in love with” and now won’t consider other schools. (the same goes for visiting schools that won’t likely accept your child)
If your child has a non custodial parent then look to see if his info is needed as well to determine aid. New spouses incomes also get considered in those situations.
Very few Fafsa only schools meet need. Most schools that give the best aid also require CSS Profile.
Determine how much you can afford to spend each year on college. If you have a well-funded college fund, then super. If you’ll have to pay for college out of “current income” then you’ll have to look at the family budget to figure out how much is left-over each month that can be put towards college costs. If you think you can put $20k per year towards college, then figure out if you can find $2k per month out of the family budget.
If a parent owns a business of has “business deductions” then the NPCs won’t be very accurate because those schools “add back in” many deductions.
Once you’ve determined that a school is likely affordable, and there’s a decent chance of getting accepted, then go to the school’s website and find where you set up a Campus Tour. Choose a date and time that works for you. If your child has a major or career goal, then call that dept and ask if you can meet with the dept head or a faculty member while you’re there.
It’s best to go when school is in session. Weekends and summer visits can be rather misleading. Campuses just look better when there are kids milling around.
We liked the days set for junior/seniors (various names like Discovery Day, Explore, Campus Pass). One included a football game, some meetings with department heads. All included tours, t-shirts, activities, financial aid info. We didn’t like the personal tour days as much because they took too long and you couldn’t just escape.
Just start. Go to local schools. Go to a school when you are on a vacation or business trip (take child along). Send child when friends go to a nearby school. All sizes, all costs.
There can be many reasons to visit a campus you don’t plan to attend. If you live in an area where there are a lot of schools, pick a few and visit an urban campus, a rural campus, a large U, a small LAC, etc. This way your student gets an idea what they want in a school and you aren’t spending $ traveling far. Regardless, definitely register on line and attend the tour/info session. Eat in the cafeteria. Talk to students. Pick up a school newspaper. Visiting in the summer may not be as helpful if classes are not in session. Spring break is a better idea to start the visits. When you do travel so see schools, go to the northern schools int he winter and southern schools int he summer. Your student needs to see what the weather will really be like!
I strongly agree with @jym626 about early sample visits at schools close to home. Both kids benefitted from a dry run at a “day trip” school where they weren’t really interested. It gave them a better idea what to expect, look for and how to evaluate a place. Also, our D was much better early on at saying what she didn’t like about a place than what she did like.
Also, if you live close enough to a number of types of schools doing really contrasting places on the same day to get your toes wet can be beneficial. Our D was better able to see how she liked one type of place when seen right next to a place that she didn’t like as well.
And if you are not yet familiar with how to identify which schools may be very generous with merit aid, selecting visits that you “think” may be unaffordable may cause you to eliminate many truly fabulous schools. Add to that the possibility that your student may think they wont like a school, but after visiting it rises on their list as they feel a connection they did not expect.
We also did the sample tour of schools, comparing the large flagship with an large urban university, suburban LAC, rural LAC. We probably should have tossed in the mid size university when it became evident that small was the preferred size. For these visits, schools were with two hours of home; selectivity and cost were irrelevant. Almost every school has a way to register for a tour and information session on their website, so that was an easy task.
The dry runs were very helpful in evaluating how the tour guide may influence the way you see a school, as well as figuring out what’s important to the student.
We used spring break of junior year to visit some schools farther away from home. We did not visit schools on the other side of the country until after acceptances came in and we received merit award information.
I would avoid summer visits if possible - I think ideally visits take place while colleges are in session.
For my younger son this is what we did and it worked out well. All the colleges were in session, though my son was on school breaks.
Feb junior year I took a day off and took him to see two nearby colleges - one very rural one in a small city both LACs. Neither fit his criteria of “bigger than my high school”, but the larger city one stayed on the list.
April junior year took a couple of days off and went to see Tufts and Brandeis in Boston. Tufts stayed on the list, Brandeis didn’t. (Honestly I think he didn’t like all the modern architecture, but the info session was a little bit off-putting too.)
September senior year we added a day or two to the Labor Day weekend and saw three colleges in DC.
He saw a couple of colleges with friends in the summer.
He then applied to seven colleges, including U of Chicago which was too far away for a visit since it was as super reach.
April senior year he visited the colleges that accepted him, including seeing U of Chicago for the first time. There were things we learned about during the accepted students events that we hadn’t heard about at the initial visit including learning about the Global Leadership Institute at Tufts which provided some life-transforming experiences for my kid. Some people say that accepted students events show the best side of a college and the real thing is likely to be disappointing. While that may be true, if you visit several of these events, you’ll find that they are all quite different. And despite their best efforts a kitchen that can’t cook, can’t cook even when they are trying!
I went, and took my kids during Spring Break Junior Year. By that point you may have taken the SATs and have an idea of what scores you have to work with. Also colleges are ready to have juniors visit then and will have open houses around that time.Then, if you like the schools, you can do any oncampus interviews over the summer.
Also over the summer have them write a draft of their Common App essay question. Senior year you will generally have the most challenging courses so it will be more difficult to visit colleges/write essays then. The student will have to write any supplemental essays anyway, so it is good to have the Common App essay out of the way. I CANNOT STRESS THAT ENOUGH.
The other thing i cannot stress enough is “LOVE THY SAFETY” Have them pick out a financial/academic match/safety that they would be HAPPY to go to. If you look at CC now, you will see tons of “OMG I am on the Waitlist” for all these reach schools, and i really don’t want to go to my match/safety school.
thanks everyone… Bopper, what is common APP essay? DD hasn’t created a common App account yet, can she start doing it during junior year?
nope - the whole system gets purged and restarted. It won’t be available until some time in August (usually). Anything that she might enter before that would be lost
Good advice here about visiting college campuses that are possibilities for your child to get accepted at, and for your family to be able to afford. Does your child have a desire to stay closer to home, or is there a dream to go to college across the country? My D wanted to stay within a few hours drive of our hometown.
The Admissions Office will help you arrange a visit, whether that is registering for one of their official “Visit Days” or meeting with you personally on dates that work better for you.
Pick a local college or two that you can visit and get a feel for how these campus visits work. Get feedback from your child immediately after each visit, what they liked, didn’t like, etc. “Too much concrete” was the phrase my D used after one visit. I thought it was odd, but she was able to convey that she envisioned a campus with more green open spaces between the buildings. It has nothing to do with academics, but for my D, it continued to be important throughout her college visits. And keep notes of each college visit, they will start to blend together after awhile.
Good luck to you. This is a great opportunity for bonding as you hit the road and tour different college campuses.
What you could do to make things easier would be to list her activities in common app form (on a spreadsheet not in the actual app) now so that she can just plug them in later. That is the real time consuming thing is trying to go back and calculate hours per day / days per week / weeks per year and whatnot after the fact.
Theoretically you can start your Common Application essays early. They tend to have the same set of choices year after year. That said, neither of my kids were prepared to write anything until fall of senior year. At the very least they can start reading books with examples of essays. I like Harry Bauld’s book - http://www.amazon.com/Writing-College-Application-Anniversary-Edition/dp/0062123998 . One piece of advice - write several essays - see what actually works. An essay my son didn’t like for his main essay ended up being perfect for his “What was your favorite extra-curricular activity”. He ended up talking about a volunteer project he’d worked on that would not normally have been on his radar for that question, but it ended up being a great essay, though not quite right as an answer to any of the main questions.