My D2019 is just starting her junior year. We have already taken her on about 8 college visits, either as a tagalong with older sis or just part of a family vacation… She will have one week breaks in both Feb and April, wonderful times for visits.
Two questions: 1. Does it matter to the college, regarding demonstrated interest, whether a student visits earlier, sophomore or even freshman year?
2. What experiences do members on CC have with doing visits first 2 years of high school? Too early? Burnout? Or does it stoke interest both in academic performance and aiming for a particular school?
I think it is hard to see where to look before you at least take the PSAT’s in tenth? Or at least that would be the earliest we even thought about starting.
We just began visiting, my oldest son is a hs junior and we just began visiting schools last month. Probably won’t do too many more until we see his SAT n ACT scores this fall.
I guess you can do a drive through but not sure if I would sit for a full tour-they are often time consuming.
We chose to not visit colleges until early in each kid’s junior year. First off I didn’t want all four years of HS to feel like an exercise in “what college can I get into?” – our HS is very college oriented but I wanted my kids to really settle into HS life before thinking about the next step. Second my kids both’ changed during HS and their ideas of what they wanted in a college also changed a bit (ex. my S decided he wanted to study business and my D got involved in a small program in the HS that she loved which led her to decide she wanted to attend a LAC) so by waiting we were better able to target schools that were more likely to be good fits.
My D did come to a number of college visits for my older S. But for any overlapping school (there just a few) we revisited them when she was a junior so she could look at the college through the eyes of a potential student and not a well behaved but utterly bored sibling. I can’t answer if a visit during freshman year or so would count as demonstrated interest – it likely depends on the school – but keep in mind that your younger D likely did not register with the school during those visits.
And we visited during those breaks (try to be sure the schools you visit are in session) and we also squeezed in a couple of nearby schools over a weekend or a long weekend in the fall.
D2019 took PSAT in 9th and made 1010. Old saying was that it can go up a hundred points a year but I’m skeptical. She will get tutoring, as this was very helpful to D2017. My biggest hesitancy in looking early is that I don’t want to visit schools she falls in love with, and then realize, a year later, this ain’t gonna happen. (Did happen when I took D2017 to U of Chicago).
And when we did an open house at Bryn Mawr for D2017, younger daughter was not allowed to register, as she was a freshman. I’d expect that colleges are more impressed, if at all, with visits junior or senior years.
We did some drive bys when on vacation summer after sophomore year and junior year. Just moved DS into one of those schools last weekend! We did not do a formal tour until spring of Sophomore year at a school’s invitation. Biggest value of touring was DS realizing that there are all kinds of campuses out there. His preconceived notion of “college” was not urban and integrated with a city so we knew to focus on stand alone campuses with lots of green space. Scheduling can be tight depending upon your DC’s ECs so plan ahead but they grow up so much in those last 2 years that getting started much earlier is not really productive. We tried to use some schools as motivation but not really sure it had any impact. College is just too far in the future for most teens to focus upon. Shorter term goals like GPA and meaningful ECs are easier for them to grasp.
I agree that one of the biggest values in early touring is showing kids how many types of schools are out there, especially the ones not in cities. (We toured NYU because we were in NYC. D17 wanted to see it, then we all felt it was too diffuse). Then both loved BMC and Haverford.
Thanks to poster above for reminding me not to jump the gun. Sophs have more immediate concerns.
i think the effect visiting colleges early on has is different on each kid. For me, my parents started to take me touring second semester sophomore year and I’m extremely thankful for that because it completely changed my academic performance. I was always used to just getting by in middle school so in high school it wasn’t any different and C or 2 my freshman year but when my parents brought me on college tours and I saw what it actually took to get into these schools that all changed very quickly and I started working harder on my grades. In my younger brother’s case, visiting colleges too early caused him to want to close his mind off to the college search completely. It depends on the kid
I think that who kids are and what they want changes enough through high school that little is gained from early visits. Whether it’s falling in love with a school because it has a gaming club or thinking the sciences are your passion (before you’ve struggled through AP chem), there are just so many ways in which a young person can change. There are also kids who are just starting to feel comfortable with high school and who, as a result, really can’t think productively about being somewhere else. This isn’t to say that some won’t be motivated or that you shouldn’t plan a visit if you’re in the area, but I would discourage it as a plan. If you want your child to be exposed, you could attend events at schools near you such as sporting events, concerts, lectures, etc.
Many LACS will not let you interview until the end of your junior year, so you may want to factor that into your plans. We had 3 that we visited during a break in junior year that we had to revisit fall of senior year for interviews. I would also guess that, in terms of demonstrated interest, most adcoms suspect that when an underclassman tours, it’s the parents who are interested, not the student.
I think it depends a lot on the kid and on your family circumstances. My rising junior has done 4 college visits now (in her sophomore year), the first to a state U, and 3 over her spring break combined with some family visits.
If you don’t live near the schools you want to tour you just have to squeeze it in whenever you can. I didn’t want to travel a long way just to see a dead campus on summer or xmas break, so really the only available time we have is spring break, and there aren’t too many of those, especially considering that one of my kid’s EC’s consumes part of her spring break.
She had been thinking about 2 schools in particular and we were able to visit those as well as one other along the way. I wanted her to see those schools so she wouldn’t drift through the next year and a half thinking she had her top choices picked out and then realize late that they weren’t what she expected.
The problem with visiting so early is that by the time applications come around, the school may be just a dim hazy memory.
I should point out that she had briefly visited one of the schools when she was in 7th grade and we were passing by the area around xmas and took a quick look with her older sister (no tour, school was on break). The campus was deserted, it was freezing cold, and neither kid was impressed (“Can we go now?”). When we were looking for a third school to tour over spring break, she suggested it somewhat to my surprise, and came away from the proper tour/info session/walk around campus on a nice day feeling completely different about the school.
As far as burnout goes, when I read the itineraries some people are posting on here, I don’t see how they can do it. Both of us were feeling pretty done with visiting colleges by the time we were wrapping up our third visit. I don’t see how we could possibly have endured another 5-7 visits as some people do over spring break.
My D who is about to start sophomore year has already seen 3 on her list. It has motivated her to stay focused on her grades, sports and overall school involvement. Most of the information we have received during the visits, has really been aimed (IMO) towards freshman and sophomores. It is much easier for them to make changes that will impact a potential acceptance (especially in a lower acceptance school) than it is for a junior and senior.
Junior year is much preferable, IMO. Kids change and mature a lot. What they liked six months ago isn’t the same now. My D did 99% of her visits in junior year. My S19 though will probably have to start some towards the end of soph year because of sports. However, I will be extremely choosy about which colleges to visit. Much better to visit match and safety schools than a bunch of reaches that are either impossible to get into, or will never make the final cut.
@laurrodes summed it up nicely: ‘It depends on the kid.’ Thanks to all who have posted so far. Seems for some kids it works as a motivator to visit soph or even freshman year. But maybe steer toward safety schools or school that happen to be in vacation area or on the way. @Lindagaf says ‘Kids change and mature a lot.’ Yes, and sometimes their 4.75 freshman year is not repeated the next year and then dumb dad has taken kid to visit Chicago and NW and has to say, we need to look at some other schools. And D17 did and found a dream school that is a high match and a another school she likes as low match/safety. Beginning senior year tomorrow and is DONE looking at any other schools. Will apply to others but done, at least until April.
And I hope I’m not the only parent who likes the tours more than my kids. But consider the opposite, the kids who would love to tour but parents cannot or will not take them.
For our academically minded first child, we waited until summer after her junior year. Late, I know. But i really wanted to know where “she was” before making recommendations. We then went on a targeted blitz of about 8-9 colleges in a short span. All were match or safety schools. Her top choice was a “match” school so that was nice. For our socially minded second child, we are starting the visits this year (junior year). Her first visit is in one month. I am trying to encourage excitement about academics, college and her future. So we are visiting (what I hope) are match and safety schools in locations she might like. I agree that it depends on the kid.
My twin D17’s enjoyed starting looking in the Spring of their Sophomore year; we kept it to a couple of schools every few months through the Spring of their Junior Year - so around 12-15 schools with usually 2 schools at a time over a 2-3 day period that included taking in the vibe of the area.
They also spread out ACT and SAT II testing the same way with first ACT in early Fall of Junior Year (each scored 34) and first SAT II in Spring Of Sophomore Year - one D17 took 4 of them, the other D17 only two with 750-800’s each on 2 tests. Both the AP tests and SAT II’s definitely helped them better understand what they enjoyed and what they excelled at.
The net result was that they heard for themselves what many of the top schools expected from them and they took ownership in their Junior Year, they now both understand what they want from their college experience and have refined thier list of target schools, have each interviewed at 5-6 schools this summer, and are now feeling really good going into the Fall application season with each taking one last run, a year later, at a superscore 35 on the ACT.
^^^^ ‘You absolutely should have them register everywhere even at schools that SAY they do not track interest.’
Yes. I bet many schools (especially LACS) that say they do not, do so to keep persistent callers and emailers and suck-ups at bay. But a visit can only help, unless someone is totally obnoxious.
Haverford, which does consider interest per its CDS, does not allow preregistering for its info sessions and tours. That at first seemed unusual, laidback. Then I wondered maybe that’s a way to not have to track the families that register, then never show. BTW, both my daughters loved that school.
@“Erin’s Dad” That’s interesting because I’m so skeptical of what schools publish in their CDS about showing interest! If you’re truly interested, would you “show interest” without being told it’s important? And, if they tell you that it’s important, isn’t it easy to make sure to check those interest boxes even if you’re not sure you’re interested?
If schools really want to get the best-fit students and to protect yield, they would not TELL us to show interest, they would just track it and see who is interested. We are definitely showing interest at every single safety and match for sure just in case…no matter what the schools’ CDSs say.
D went on her first college tour on a vacation with me when she was in 7th grade. We did the “big tour” after her freshman year, then in her sophomore year, she went on an organized tour of several more, plus she stayed at several of the in-state colleges as part of her debate club circuit. She was not burned out, kept detailed notes about them all, and had a firm ranking when she applied a year early when she decided to graduate HS in 3 years. Good think we toured early! But D was unusual in several ways: she knew exactly what she wanted to do with her life, she knew exactly the kind of school she wanted, the schools are only found in one part of the country, these schools are known for supporting interest of younger students, and we weren’t looking at any that use the “showing interest” metric. D also took a PSAT in 9th grade as part of her district’s free PSAT for all program.
In the end, D applied to several schools she’d never even seen, plus several from her tours, and got into all of them. For us this plan worked. If you have an interested, dedicated student, I would go for it. Even if they change their minds later on, seeing examples of the many kinds of schools out there won’t hurt. D knew right away that a huge school was not for her, for example, and that never changed.
Looked at 3 colleges in late summer after D17’s sophomore year… mostly just to get her feet on a campus… she really did not even want to hear the word “college” at that point… I think the whole concept was intimidating to her. After the first visit, she asked to do a couple more. It was really very helpful, got her to start thinking about different kinds of schools/campuses. We have now visited 16 schools (I never thought I’d do that) and we have just 2 to go, this fall. Would have preferred to see more of those schools when classes were in session, like those we visited during her spring break. But we had to do a number of visits this summer, because she is at boarding school, and Saturdays (has classes and sports) are not an option for us. Her school’s college counselor recommended checking in at the Admissions office and filling out a card, even if you just drive through and do a self-guided casual tour. For the schools that track interest, getting on their radar is a good thing.
