Really just venting here but wondering if anyone else shares my frustration. I know the class of 2022 is somewhat “luckier” than the class of 2021 in that many schools are now open for tours but is anyone else really struggling with making tours work? My S22 definitely wants to go out of state, possibly quite far from home. He is working full time at a camp (M-F) this summer which doesn’t end till 7/20. Here are the issues I’m seeing:
Hotel prices are high, even in remote areas
Flights are sky high
Car rentals are high and sometimes there is no availability at all
Few, if any, tours on Saturdays
If they have them, Sat tours are only at 9am so have to fly/drive in night before and can’t tour 2 schools in a day
No one offers tours on Sundays (why?)
Limited numbers so many/most tours are already fully booked
No tours week of August 23 (only week son is off from work-seems to be move-in week)
No tour calendars published for Sept, Oct which means we can’t book flights & cars yet
I know we can apply and then tour but son is really unclear on his list at this point and really hates virtual tours (I actually enjoy them). I also have a D20 and college tours were the highlight of the college application process so this is just such a bummer! Again, I realize the class of 2021 had it even worse.
Maybe revise the college visit list for now (since he’s unclear at this point anyway) to those that you can drive to in a day or two. At the very least he can get an idea of the general college campus atmosphere, an idea of different sized colleges, and make a list of his likes & dislikes. Best case scenario, he falls in love with one of those colleges and saves you thousands in long distance college visits
You can always reserve the plane flight/rental car visits for this winter (and maybe after he gets accepted). I’m not a travel expert but I doubt if you’re going to see the cost of travel go down any time soon. Additionally, official college tours over the summer are guaranteed to to be a tough ticket (given the past year and a half).
Many admitted students and families are currently struggling with how to get their students across the country in time for the first day of classes - due to the travel costs and demand issues. Going forward, that’s something that Classes of 2022 & 2023 should consider when planning for college - hopefully these issues will resolve themselves in time, but right now it’s a big hassle for many.
I have 2 incoming college freshmen who have yet to see the inside of a building, my daughter flew to SC and we needed a car rental and hotel, it was close to $1500 all in (last minute flight the end of April).paid a local student for a tour. I have 3 older kids who hit to fo things normally, so I know what mine missed out in. I recommend taking tours during the week when everything is open, even if you need to pull your child out of school. Having done tours in normal times, and during covid with few students on campus and buildings closed, there is no comparison. Flights are expensive now, there is still a rental car shortage (we are paying $800 for a 48 hour SUV rental), wait until after summer. Look for days HS is off but it’s not a holiday at colleges.
Not having any issues, but then we planned our tours awhile ago and are driving. We are heading to two this week and have another planned for the beginning of next month. they are all nine hours away, but we are used to driving that distance, so no need to fly or rent a car. the tours during the work week are slightly aggravating, but it is their campus, so it is their rules. I have told S22 that there are two universities on his list that we are unlikely to get to at any point given distance. If manna falls from heaven and we have to figure it out, then we will. But I am not terribly worried.
Yes, we haven’t done any official tours. We saw some of University of Chicago on our own since we were visiting my parents nearby. S22 wants to apply ED to his top choice. We have very tentative plans to fly out there in September, but I don’t know if it will be worth it if the school isn’t doing tours by then.
I just wanted to second that if you can visit colleges closer to you when he returns to get a feel for size and type preference, that could help you narrow down his list. My S '21 wanted to go away and in the end strongly wanted a small school that wasn’t crowded and politically neutralish. Because of his major his initial list had a lot of large public schools on it. I also recommend the big Green Fiske Guide to get a feel for what the schools are like.
We are making reservations we can cancel or change in case rates go down. Sometimes there is less travel going on during September due to kids going back to school. Hopefully most of the pent up vacation demand will have passed. Good luck!
Some colleges request unvaccinated to wear face mask , like Dickinson. Or answer health screening survey, like Georgetown, and Georgetown is not allowing entrance into buildings.
Johns Hopkins is holding outdoors only tours, limiting guests to student plus one, and requiring face masks worn by all.
I was surprised how limited the availability for in-person tours is. We’ve done self-guided walk-throughs of schools any time we’re near one that D21 might be interested in, and did drive out to PGH to see Pitt in person, but have only done 1 formal tour (CWRU) so far. She has Rose-Hulman in a few weeks as well but we couldn’t get a tour at Purdue or Indiana U. Otherwise, everything was either full or only during the weekdays. We’re not planning to visit any schools that require special travel unless she gets admitted. If we’re in the area, we’ll check out the campus, but no flights or special college-visit-trips at this point.
I can comment on some of these from my kid’s experience as a tour guide and work in undergrad admissions.
In the summer, the tour staff works everyday but Sunday. They deserve a day off.
Tours at many schools are limited. You have to be flexible in terms of days and times.
The very vast majority of colleges do not have tours the week (or sometimes 2) before fall classes start because the admissions office shuts down for vacation that week. And the student tour guides get their time off to go home and visit their families, or otherwise get ready for the fall term.
And many don’t have tours the first week of classes, and during exams and the winter school vacation. The tour guides are first and foremost students.
We toured 28 colleges between our two kids. Almost all had two tour times Monday - Friday. And almost all had only one tour time on Saturday (morning).
I think going back to the old days might work. Apply, and once accepted pick the top three places to visit. If your kid applies early action or rollong admissions, he might get some acceptances earlier and can decide if he wants to visit those schools then.
I agree…I don’t see airline fares and associated costs going down in the near future…and that definitely puts a kink on these visits.
A total different outlook. It was such a relief not to have to do any of it. We looked at schools online and got a feel for what the schools looked like and did the applications. My S got into the school of his dreams so we only visited that one after it was a yes but if we had visited many schools and had been set on one and it was a no it would have been so disappointing. This way saved us time, money and potential heartache.
Fwiw, we did a massive spring break road trip and saw a lot of kids interacting on campus. Very informative. This summer, the campuses we’ve visited have been empty and basically architecture tours. I wonder if a long weekend campus tour in September/October would be worth the wait. At least you would see students. We are not waiting due to time constraints and busy senior year schedule, but I do think fall could be a more productive time to visit if you are able.
Having done some summer tours (both with guide and self-guided) we found them of limited use. With no students around and limited (or no) access to buildings (classrooms, dorms etc) you couldn’t really get a feel for the schools - just a general sense of size/spread and style of architecture.
We’ve done some guided and self-guided tours in the past month and a half. Without students, it’s really hard to tell much. But I felt it was helpful for us to see the actual physical surroundings in the neighborhoods around the schools (which don’t get put into the school’s online tours). Expensive, yes, with flights and rental cars and hotels; these are counting as our “vacations” this year which is pretty deflating. But several schools got put into the “No” pile after our trips, so I guess something came out of them. I have one weekend trip over Labor Day planned, I’d like to do another one in October, and over Thanksgiving. Some schools we’re just not going to be able to get to before applications are due, so visits will have to be delayed until acceptances come out.
We were able to do 5-6 official tours in our state and neighboring states prior to the shut down, and D21 didn’t not find them useful at all beyond getting to see the campus. In her opinion, the tour spiel was basically the same everywhere. Even during the school year (and pre-Covid), many of the campuses we hit had limited students milling around because they were in class. None of schools allowed us into the dorms - they must have stopped doing that because when I toured with my older daughter, we went into the dorms every time.
She eventually asked if we could stop the official tours and just go on our own, which I was fine with. The exception was when we lucked out in getting an unofficial tour with a classmate of hers (two years above her). She took us into any building we wanted to go in (still no dorm, she lived off campus) and gave so much valuable information and perspective that we just weren’t getting from the official tours. D ended up choosing that school. If you can wrangle a personal tour with a current student (especially one with hometown ties), I would highly recommend it!
I too think summer tours of many schools are pretty useless. A campus without many students or staff on it is not very attractive, despite the beauty of the structures or natural environment. With so few days off in the fall school year, sometimes you have to tour in the summer. But when you combine an empty summer campus with no in person tours, it’s a complete waste of time. We’ve got a college trip planned in a few weeks where we will tour 6 colleges. I flat refused to schedule a visit for S22 if the school was not holding in person tours.
That’s a little extreme. My D22 and I toured a bit this summer and I did think it was helpful and definitely not a waste of time. We live in Chapel Hill and I can tell you for sure there have been plenty of families touring UNC and Duke this summer and they seem to be getting something out of it. I was chatting with on of the moms from Florida at one of our local bubble tea shops recently and she commented on how beautiful it was.
I definitely think that we will get more out of touring when students are back on campus, but our visit to Richmond earlier this summer when campus was completely locked down was helpful to check the vibe of the city (which is hugely important to my D22). It was enough of a hit that she said she would like to come back and tour it in the fall and she also just liked the city and wants to bring her sibling next time.
On the other hand we have been to visit an empty campus in the summer before (not this summer) and it got completely crossed off the list and she is not interested in hearing any more about it at all now.
I have an older high school Class of 2019 kid and we have been doing college tours since my D22 was in middle school or maybe earlier. I think over the years we’ve done 9 or 10 college tours if I counted right, some schools more than once. I really don’t think that seeing the students on campus is that much more informative. I mean it’s kinda helpful, but probably not as helpful as talking to a professor in the student’s intended major or to an admissions counselor.
We have done virtual tours during the past year or so and then walked around on campus on our own and found that fairly helpful too. My D22 has had her older sib’s friends tour her around their campuses, too.
I definitely think that a virtual tour combined with walking around campus on your own is more helpful than either on their own, but an official tour and a chat with an admissions officer and professor is probably the most helpful.
We are the oddball and found ANY opportunity to get on to a campus a worthwhile use of time.
S22 has already been dragged around to college tours when D19 was looking at schools. Many of her tours were in the summer (Summer 2018) as she had to identify what schools she would develop a portfolio for. Lots of visits to Pennsylvania, Ohio, WV, and NJ schools. S22 now has definite opinions about certain schools (for example, no to Juanita, maybe to Ursinus) simply based on those tours for his sister.
We have two on-campus interviews planned where S22 has already visited the campus. He could do the interviews virtually, but both are within driving distance and he feels more comfortable with an in-person interview. His first interview is next week and we haven’t scheduled the other interview yet as he has to have applied to the school first.
I did many tours with my daughter 2 years ago and it did help cross off schools to apply to. The tours over the summer did not have many kids on campus but it did give us some sense of whether the school would be a fit. Our fall tours were not much better- going during a fall break, the campuses seemed almost quieter than the schools we visited during the summer.
My son (2022) doesn’t want any tours. We have been doing lots of virtual visits which have been pretty good, particularly the more focused tours (ie Engineering school virtual info sessions) where there is an enabled chat. We are in CA and the thought of flying 6 hours to the east coast for some tours just doesn’t make sense for us. We will tour those he gets accepted to.
This is what I was getting at. For example, we’ve been to Emory 2x in the summer with our older kids. Both times, it seemed dead to them, even with a tour guide. They did not apply. I think Emory would be a great fit for S22, so I do not want him to see it until it can put on its best showing, with students on campus and a live tour.
to college tours when D19 was looking at schools. Many of her tours were in the summer (Summer 2018) as she had to identify what schools she would develop a portfolio for. Lots of visits to Pennsylvania, Ohio, WV, and NJ schools. S22 now has definite opinions about certain schools (for example, no to Juanita, maybe to Ursinus) simply based on those tours for his sister.