<p>Does it make a really difference to visit the colleges in college admissions if you live close to the college? When a student starts visiting school? Is visiting after summer of 1tth grade too late? If so then one should visit during summer of 10th grade?</p>
<p>I can only speak for myself. My S is a Sophomore, and we really aren't planning on doing much of anything until Spring/Summer of his Junior year. With some exceptions. He will probably visit some schools if we're going to be in the general vicinity while on vacation this summer (which won't be many). He will probably also schedule a trip to VMI this spring, since it's his current school d'jour and he'd like to get a better feel for the place. I suggested he attend during the Rat initiation period, but they don't allow prospective students to visit during that time, which is not exactly surprising. </p>
<p>Visiting colleges close to home still makes sense, IMO. Just because it's in the area doesn't mean my S has any real idea about it's atmosphere.</p>
<p>There are multiple reasons to visit colleges. Early on, it's useful to visit to see if your child wants big or small, university or LAC, rural or urban or suburban. Later, you visit specific colleges to see how those fit your child's needs. Finally, you may visit for interviews or to persuade the admissions office your child is serious about a school.</p>
<p>IMHO, it's much better to visit while school is in session; my D and I found that summer visits just led to "oh, isn't the campus pretty?" and no real feel for the school. Or worse, the campus had a summer program for high school students, and thus wasn't much like it was during the school year.</p>
<p>During junior year, most students start to put together a list of schools that appeal to them for one reason or another. My son's list was short: MIT or CalTech, with RPI as a potential safety. His interests were very specific! But my D's list had 25 colleges on it... It seemed to include most LACs (liberal arts college) in the USNWR top-50 list that were in the northeast or northwest. She used her list to visit web sites, and we eventually visited 12 schools. A few of those were drive-bys. At Amherst, for example, she refused to get out of the car. At Bryn Mawr, the admissions office was so rude that we left without visiting. At others, we spent hours, doing the official tour, hanging out in the cafeteria, reading bulletin boards. (We also visited Harvard, where she had no intention of applying, just because she was curious about it.)</p>
<p>We started with my son in the summer before his Junior year. Ideally, I think Spring of Junior year is perfect. However, logistically, that just doesn't work for a couple of reasons 1) This is crunch time for grades and lost school time is not good 2) Colleges end early, many in May. Our school won't end until mid-June so May is the time to get the last tests and reports done before the finals in June. </p>
<p>For each student their EC's will also determine the best time. My daughter was involved in marching band as well as the fall drama and the spring musical. If you're doing any traveling, it's hard to find a chunk of time that you aren't missing something important but seeing the colleges when they're the most active.</p>
<p>As to if you should visit a college that is close, it depends on how familiar the student is with it. We have quite a few schools within a 1/2 hour of us, but if my child was interested in attending, I would do the whole college visit thing. Without the travel time, it would only take 1/2 a day. Anytime, we're making a big investment we investigate it completely.</p>
<p>We visited colleges for the first time during his spring break junior year, traveling to Pennsylvania and Ohio. The remainder of the spring we did 3 day/weekend trips to colleges in NY, Conn., and Mass. He also attended the Spring Rutgers open house. It worked fine for him.</p>
<p>Well to be honest, last year my son was doing a summer math camp. We end up going to Amherst, as it was 2 miles away where he was staying. He thought it was a pretty campus and liked it. If I have to choose MIT and Caltech will be on top of my list. Being an RPI grad student, I am quite familiar with it. But my son's interest is more varied than mine.</p>
<p>When my son was looking at colleges, our hs had no spring break and we visited in June, after hs and colleges had let out for the summer. I agree this wasn't ideal, but it was the only time, as missing a week of school was not a good option during the busy junior year.
Our school has since changed its schedule to having a week of in the spring, and my daughter and I visited 6 colleges in 6 days during her junior year spring break. I think this was ideal. We also visited one college closer to home on a day off from school in the fall of her junior year. I actually did the same thing with my son (to a different college though)</p>
<p>We started winter of Sophmore year with Barnard's college planning weekend with note book in hand. We did the colleges close to home first just so ghe could get a feel for what she wanted/ did not want. Looked at other colleges (daytrips) srping sophmore year, the Mass. schools and others which she was seriously considering spring and summer of junior year. Daughters original list was somewhere around 20 schools, by the time she applied it was down to 7.</p>
<p>Having been through overkill on the visits, I can only offer these observations.</p>
<p>My daughter wanted to apply early, she wanted to go far away, and she was highly reluctant to consider any school she had not seen. Yes, yes I know she is spoiled, she was also naive (as you will see in a sec, she would give you different advice now). Also Mom and Dad were reluctant to send their baby off 1000 miles from home without setting eyes on the place, we also were concerned because after her first trip (2 schools) she totally rejected a whole category of schools that we considered a perfect fit for her. She had no idea of what would be involved in visiting 6 places scattered over 300 miles in an area of the country 1000 miles from our home. We organized a driving trip, in the summer of course, by the end we parents had learned a lot about these schools, and she was saying "When my kids are applying to college, we aren't going to visit anywhere until after they are accepted, no visits at all!" She is attending the last college she visited, which has some of the characteristics of the group that we liked and she rejected early on.</p>
<p>Based on that story, these are my observations:</p>
<p>Sophomore year is not too early to begin making the "do I like big or small, urban or rural" visits. Based on our experience, the kid only needs to see one school of each to make some snap judgments (which is what a lot of these decisions will be anyway), and there is no reason not to make at least the first one a local school, or, better yet a drop in while on a vacation (non-summer). My reasoning for this is they are fresh and enthusiastic on that first 1-2 visits, and it is downhill fast after that. If you just go to a local school because it is close, they may get an unfavorable impression of a whole category of schools that they should consider carefully because of money, etc. If possible, taking them to a real match - money, location and selectivity wise - is best, if possible. Also they need college search in small doses, with time, honestly, to reflect on what they've seen, on what they want. S/he may not appear to be thinking about it at all, but if they care at all about what type of school they attend, they truly are mulling it over. An overnight, even as a sophomore with a sibling or close friend would be a great way to test the waters, get your child to be talking/thinking.</p>
<p>Spring junior year is the best time to look hard, also one of the hardest times to get away because of all the testing, etc, that goes on. Junior year is rough, one reason to try to get them to do some small looking sophomore year. IF there is a school they are really interested in, a summer program at that school may not help them get in, but may help them decide if that place is right. Early fall senior year is OK for those last visits, but if they stay with frosh, the freshman don't know much more about the school than you do</p>
<p>Some kids may not need to do anymore visiting after the first 1-2 visits until they are accepted, this is one of those kid specific things. If you get any hint your kid is one of these, stop the visits - he may go to an open house senior fall anyway, and encourage meeting with admit reps if they come to his school.</p>
<p>This sounds like a lot of visiting, but I think long weekends with no more than 2-3 schools per trip, spread over 18 months/2 years is the ideal way to do it (maybe visit no more than 6 places altogether) - if your child is a "visitor". Quite frankly, the schools begin to run together, and most people can't work this out anyway unless they live in the NE, and everything is relatively close - just ask Robyrm what a visiting blitz can be like ;).</p>
<p>ANother thing to consider is, many of the LACs my daughter was interested in encourage on-campus interviews. She was fortunate to have arranged an interview in her spring of junior year when visiting the school which eventually became her ED choice. The interview was arranged because the distance from home would make it difficult to return. But if she had not been accepted ED or had not had that particular school as her ED choice, she would have needed to have returned to the other choices for interviews somehow during her senior year. The other schools are between one and five hours from our home. This would have been difficult and I am glad we didn't end up having to do this.</p>
<p>During Fall of her freshman year in high school, I'd gotten the Barrons guide to colleges and, based on the material in the front of the book, asked D about a dozen questions about what she thought her preferences might be. Based mostly on academic competitiveness, I went through the book and came up with about 70 schools that matched on that criteria, figuring it was better to start with a wide focus and then narrow down...didn't want to overlook anything if I could help it.</p>
<p>Initial cuts were on the basis of geography--her preferences were 1) New England, 2) other East Coast, 3) Midwest--and size...I struck off all the schools smaller than 1,000 and schools in the 1000-1500 range were weighted down.</p>
<p>During the Spring break of her freshman year, we were taking a family vacation to St. Louis and Chicago and as part of that we saw a single school, Northwestern. It was pretty much an intellectual exercise that wasn't completely "real" to her (and she complained about the cold at 40 degrees, LOL!) but it served as a baseline for when we looked at other East Coast schools during sophomore year and New England schools junior year.</p>
<p>If there's anything I would wish to have done differently it would be to have been more open, more understanding about LAC's earlier in the process. That said, the process seems to have more or less worked. I do wish she had had her final SAT scores two months earlier and that the essays had been well developed by October instead of December.</p>
<p>Our daughter is considering schools all across the country so we realistically couldn't wait until senior year to start visits. She also wants to apply early admission (NOT ED) to several of the schools on her list so she is anxious to have her choices made by the start of senior year. For a variety of reasons, it will be difficult for us to fit in a lot of long distance visits next summer.</p>
<p>We bought several of the collegiate choice admissions tour video's towards the end of sophomore year - that gave daughter a chance to see what college campuses would be like and helped her start narrowing down what she might like. I think it was also good preparation for actual college tours.</p>
<p>On a family trip to the East coast, we did several college visits to schools pretty much picked at random based on things she thought she would like. OF the schools she visited one school stood out in her mind and so we have concentrated on looking for other schools that are similar in terms of feel and size. On a weekend family trip this past fall we visited several schools that did not fit that type just to check that she wouldn't find something she preferred in terms of size, etc. </p>
<p>Next weekend we are going to Oregon with one of her best friends to look at 4 schools - two are possible matches for her, two are possible matches for her friend - so she will have another chance to think about what she wants.</p>
<p>Over spring break, we are planning a multi-state trip to visit several schools that are tops on her list plus a few others. We will also be returning to the school we visited last summer that she really liked for another quick look. She is hoping to do overnights in the dorms at at least two of the schools, something I don't think she would have wanted to do any sooner than this.
We haven't yet visited any schools with in driving distance and probably won't until this summer or early next fall.</p>
<p>This schedule seems to have worked well for my daughter who tends to take a long time to process information and make decisions. Of course, the final test will come next year when we see if she doesn't suddenly change her mind. :) We are lucky, however, in that she does have a very clear picture of the type of school she is looking for and there aren't too many schools that fit so we have been able to focus our energies pretty effectively.</p>
<p>Incidentally, my son (a freshman) came along on a few of the campus visits we've made and is already thinking about what he wants in a college. Scary to think that as soon as I get the D. shipped off to college, I'll be starting another go round with him.</p>
<p>as a former adcom, we always recommended to begin visiting by the spring of Junior year.<br>
We also always encouraged summer visitation, if that is the only time you are able to plan distant trips. You will at least get the basic adm. overview from the counselors & see the campus environment - see if it matches up with the viewbook/website pictures ;-), find out how long it takes to drive there, etc. The campus is slower true, but there are some students working around campus, particularly to give tours.</p>
<p>I mentioned this in another thread, but you all should read Accept My Kid, Please by Hank Herman. It is hilarious and you will all be able to relate. He talks about how excited he (the dad) was as they would drive to look at the colleges. The kid was asleep in the backseat and only arose for McDonald's.<br>
First college trip with D was January junior year- since she was a boarder away from home we needed to start a little early. Next was a midwest sweep of three schools (Oberlin, Cleveland Institute/Case and IU). Tufts, BU, New England Conservatory was July before senior year. Rice was June before senior year. She got to go back to everyplace but Oberlin to audition. Oberlin, which she didn't like anyway, came to her school for auditions.<br>
With Wild Child, we did our first real visit in October. He is also away at school, so we took advantage of a parent's weekend at his school and a Monday day-off to visit Cornell. He was able to meet with the coach, so that worked well. We will do about three schools during spring break. He has a pretty good idea what he wants, but he needs to see what schools are interested in him as an athlete, which won't happen until this summer. Neither of my kids are thrilled with a lot of parent involvement in this process, but realize it is a necessary evil, since we pay for it!</p>
<p>I would do it earlier if I could do it over.</p>
<p>We went in September of senior year, in part because it was hard to get D to focus on selections prior to that time. Now I see that we could have done some local generic visits much earlier in time to assist her in <em>getting</em> focused.</p>
<p>However, fall was a great time to go to New England, and missed school work was easier to make up as it was the very beginning of the semester. So maybe fall of Jr year would be a good time?</p>
<p>We had to fly across the country, so we had to do a blitz. What we decided to do was to visit the schools she liked best based on guidebooks that were within a reasonable drive of one another (between Albany & Philly.) We had about a week plus travel days. There were some in Maine we just skipped due to logistics, figuring she could re-visit there if admitted.</p>
<p>An early visit can help determine ED choice if there are neck & neck favorites. Otherwise, inferences can be made about many schools when visiting only a few-- either you like snowy & remote or you don't; either you like the feel of 2000 kids or you like the feel of 10,000. Either you like frats or not, etc.</p>
<p>As one who went to my college sight-unseen in Sept., I think it is important to remember that college is all about the <em>people</em> who surround you. Thus a great deal can be learned just going to an event in your hometown if it is thrown by the college & attended by students & alumni, or emailing or phoning current students. You can get a feel for the group and whether you see yourself in it or outside it. My D dinged one school, that I thought she would like, based on a prospie event where she did not "see herself" among the couple of dozen students & alumni (so she never visited the school.) I thought this was a very legitimate reason to ding it. </p>
<p>I made my own college selection based on really bonding with a student I met while skiing on vacation. Based on 15 chairlift rides, she seemed to be a person who was a lot like me in energy, likes, dreams... and she <em>loved</em> that school. I figured, by the transitive property, that I would too... and I did.</p>
<p>WARNING: A campus visit can be misleading if you wind up staying with the only pessimist at a joyful school or the abberant partier at a studious school. A bad tour guide can really sink an otherwise great school too. For us weather had nothing to do with it because she really liked two schools where weather was freezing and pouring when we were there.</p>
<p>I don't think there's any such thing as "too early", as long as you don't go to a lot of special effort and you have realistic expectations. (Berkeley got axed based on my impression of the town when we visited friends there when son was 3). We visited a few colleges that happened to be in places we were visiting anyway, starting when my son was in middle school. It was totally low-key. The schools were interesting in their own right (for instance, Stanford on a trip to San Francisco, Cambridge on a vacation in England), and it primed my son to start thinking about college. He attended a lot of summer programs at various campuses, also starting in middle school. Most of these were schools we knew he would not be interested in attending, but it gave him a chance to think about big/small, urban/rural campuses,and nice/dumpy dorms (dropping off his dirty clothes at the on-campus laundry service at Davidson made a big impression on him). By the time he was actually deciding where to apply, he had been on 10 different campuses for significant periods of time.</p>
<p>We made our first trip specifically to visit schools he was interested in applying to during winter break of junior year (3 west coast schools). He followed up with some visits by himself, including dorm stays, during the fall of senior year (2 east coast schools). </p>
<p>I can certainly understand the reasoning behind only visiting places where you've already been accepted, especially if it is going to be a major financial drain. We might have been more conservative about visits if there had been a lot of reaches involved, but we were pretty sure at the outset that he would get in everywhere he applied.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>By the time he was actually deciding where to apply, he had been on 10 different campuses for significant periods of time.<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>That kind of sums up the Achilles heel of the visiting process, the child typically doesn't get enough time on campus during a regular college visit to make the kind of choice he would after "a significant period of time". As someone like SBMom who went to college virtually sight unseen, I think the answer is do the best you can, be sensitive to what your child wants, don't worry too much if finances and time dictate how much visiting is done, its OK, and don't be too disappointed when you can't get them out of the car.</p>
<p>Has any parents have experience with kids have shown an interest in visitng the west point or naval academy? How does it work?</p>
<p>SBMom, I agree that "fit" with the people is very important. Funny, but even before the final selection, Smith got a lot of attention from D: two local parties for prospects, two overnight visits, etc. I think that all us were kind of holding our breaths a little, that it seemed so great on first blush that we were waiting for disappointment to set in. But, for ex, at the local parties, D just clicked with the girls, both current students and other applicants and Wellesley was probably the next closest in that regard. In contrast, at the info session at NYU there wasn't anyone else she connected with and the Skidmore party left a "I can make this work if I have to" kind of feel.</p>
<p>parentny - the service academies have wonderful 1 week programs in the summer that would really give a student a chance to see what it's all about. Any student who is seriously considering them should probably try to do one of these programs. Much more than regular colleges, you are signing up for an entire way of life when you go to a service academy. It may be impossible to really get a handle on that in a one day visit.</p>