<p>We're taking a road trip from NYC to Toronto this summer. Trip is not specifically to visit schools, but in order to break up the trip, we will pass by some schools on son's radar. He is a rising junior, so we know this is very premature. However, we have the time so why not.</p>
<p>What should we look to accomplish? Should we arrange formal tours? Any other advice for rising juniors visiting campuses?</p>
<p>It’s not too early. If your student is like many on this forum, there is limited time during the school year where it’s possible to visit colleges without missing classes or EC’s. Just know that unless you are visiting large colleges with students taking summer classes, it’s difficult for your child to envision what the college is like. </p>
<p>Yes, call ahead and sign up for the tour and the admissions talk. I personally found that visiting the colleges the summer before Junior year really helped get my kids thinking about college and got them involved in the process.</p>
<p>“He is a rising junior, so we know this is very premature”.</p>
<p>This is - THE TIME - that you should be visiting schools with your Son… Junior year is a hard year for a lot of students and is the most important year for their transcripts and recommendations when they summit college applications… You both should be looking at schools that they might want to attend now, so they understand why they are working so hard in their Junior year, when so many friends are just hanging out…</p>
<p>Yes do formal tours, but more importantly visit some schools that are likely a good fit for him and a couple of schools that specialize in his areas of interest…</p>
<p>— it appears that Kathiep and I agree and she types faster…</p>
<p>I actually have to disagree with it being okay to go this early. When I visited the school I was wanting to go to during high school it was way before graduation. By the time I was considering colleges against I could hardly remember anything about it! Especially when you visit so many colleges so close together everything starts to run together.</p>
<p>But it sounds like this is perfect timing with your trip, so it probably won’t hurt. You can always go back later to the schools there was a lot of interest in.</p>
<p>My advice: document these visits. Take pictures, take video (if they allow this, of course). Explore the school on your own, if you can, and ask if you can visit specific parts of the school that might be interesting. Like if you’re going into biology, see if you can visit the building where all of these classes and labs are. The tours I went on didn’t really go into that much detail so we had to request specifically to look at different parts of the school.</p>
<p>I don’t worry about motivating him for junior year. He’s a straight A honors student, literally. He has never had a B. Keeping that streak is motivation enough for him. We do plan on visiting some good fits, including Cornell, Binghamton, and RIT (he thinks he’ll go for engineering). Also Lehigh, which may be a safety-type school for him but we’re going rafting near there. Next year, if he ends up seriously considering any of these, we will visit again with a more critical eye.</p>
<p>I realize this may be more difficult and unpopular, however here goes.
If you can, let your son go on tours and spend the day on campus by himself. We visited a ton of good schools on vacation with my son who was very motivated and receptive to the tours. I don’t believe he made any progress in deciding. It wasn’t until March of his senior year that he went to schools by himself and formed his own opinions.<br>
This was hard to accept as I was very interested in the schools also, but I believe kids get more of a sense of the reality of going away this way.</p>
<p>I took my son on a trip in November on his junior year. My objective of the trip was to give him a feel for different types of schools. My categories were:</p>
<p>Large vs small
Urban vs rural
State vs private</p>
<p>He ended up realizing he really wanted a large school in an urban environment but that it had to have a campus feel (e.g., no to BU but yes to Northeastern)</p>
<p>It’s not to early at all. You could use your time to visit each of these schools so your S can get a feel for each place. That way you can decide which ones he would like to revisit and which ones he might want to cross off the list.</p>
<p>“He is a rising junior, so we know this is very premature”.</p>
<p>I agree. It’s not too early. It is great to get a flavor various attributes. If any of the schools end up making his top list, he’ll need another visit later. But that is ok. </p>
<p>It’s a bit like looking at open houses when you are not under pressure to buy. You can listen and learn with low stress. </p>
<p>Our college visits before daughter’s junior year were very helpful! It was before I knew about CC. At those visits I learned merit scholarships n/a at the top schools… only FA.</p>
<p>If he is interested in engineering, I would also suggest RPI, but that would porbably be out of your way going from NYC to Toronto, via Binghamton.</p>
<p>Not too early at all!!! I wish we had started earlier. We had planned on fall of Jr year but S2s EC takes every weekend so we got stuck. Also, many schools will have ‘Open House’ for STEM, or engineering programs during the year. You generally do not have time to see everything during that day as it is very specific to that field. We are finding second trips necessary. Some may not feel this is necessary. My son wanted to see the regular ‘dog & pony’ show as well.
There is a lot you can find out online before your visits so when you are there you can spend time asking questions that are NOT readily available.
My geography really stinks, but I’ll second RIT as a great school for engineering that offers good merit aid/scholarships and may be worth checking out. It doesn’t have the atmosphere S2 is interested in so it’s off his list (much to his coach’s frustration…). Several students have attended from our IT program and have really liked it.</p>
<p>We dropped rising junior son off at a college campus yesterday for a sports camp We are hoping that he will get an idea that college is where he wants to be in two years!</p>
<p>The schools you are looking at will give him a good idea of different campuses. RIT and Binghampton have lots of brick. Cornell is a more traditional older campus. You might also drive by the University of Toronto while you are there. </p>
<p>One of our kids wanted to look at colleges very early; she would have been happy to skip high school altogether. I don’t think it is too soon.</p>
<p>It is definately not too soon. My s visited before starting Junior year and again before senior year. That 1st road trip helped keep him extremely academically motivated during his very important Junior year. He became much more involved and signed on for many AP classes his senior year when many kids were looking for study halls and early out schedules. He got to hear early on that his top choice U would be looking for top students that follow rigorous schedules and continue to challenge themselves right up through 2nd semester senior year. It is always best when the advice (seen as nagging from parents) comes directly from the colleges themselves. Worked like a charm…he starts his 1st Fall semester at his top choice U!</p>
<p>I’ll join the chorus of those saying it is not too early. We started earlier than that, BTW.</p>
<p>While it is true that the student won’t remember everything about a school they visited, they will definitely come out with an impression for some schools either strongly liking or disliking. </p>
<p>I’ll also agree that the schools on the list are very different from each other and should help a lot in determining what he wants from his experience. Remember most of his time on campus will be spent outside of the classroom. </p>
<p>I’ll add to the chorus that says visit RPI as well. You may want to do 2 schools on the way up 2 on the way back, just to help with the routing and of course to avoid potential overload.</p>
<p>And even if he is indifferent between the 4 schools (highly unlikely), you will learn that he is flexible with regards to campus environment which allows you use other factors when determining your final college choice.</p>
<p>For Engineering, RPI is in Troy (near Albany). RIT is in Rochester (toward Buffalo)</p>
<p>I like goaliedad’s suggestion of one route going up and one coming back - that way you can go west of NY and hit Lehigh one way and then go toward the east and hit RPI the other way. </p>
<p>If you could fit in Lehigh, Binghamton, Cornell, RIT, and RPI you would have covered a lot of good schools and have a great start for a rising junior.</p>
<p>I know…I know…a bit ambitious.</p>
<p>Adding RPI would not work for us this time. Maybe add that to a different trip with Albany (mom’s alma mater) and Dartmouth. I know Dartmouth is not near there, but it’s really not near anything.</p>
<p>How long should we expect to spend at each school?</p>
<p>Before you decide to visit RIT, you should look up University of Rochester. (I’m just researching schools for my engineering-type son, and coming up with alot of the same schools as you). UR seems to have a strong engineering department - according to USNWR rankings for engineering schools, that is. It also seems more balanced- male/female as well as a variety of majors. And according to CC, UR has some great merit scholarships. </p>
<p>Have a great trip, visiting colleges has been a great adventure for our family. We’re one down, one to go.</p>
<p>I would also swing by Syracuse to get the feel of a big school. Last November, I went to RPI, Syracuse, RIT & Cornell with my then-Jr daughter. We had visited Lehigh a few weeks before. All of these schools have very different feels, so you will start to get a feel as what may/not work for your son.</p>
<p>"I would also swing by Syracuse to get the feel of a big school. Last November, I went to RPI, Syracuse, RIT & Cornell with my then-Jr daughter. We had visited Lehigh a few weeks before. All of these schools have very different feels, so you will start to get a feel as what may/not work for your son. "</p>
<p>we did RPI,colgate, syracuse, UR, and Cornell. Troy to Ithaca. Our odyssey. </p>
<p>We did Lehigh on a seperate trip.</p>