College visits vs. reach/match/safety

Parents Forum
1

<p>I'm sure there are many among you that have high-school-aged kids that are going on college visits with these kids, especially if they are serious about undergraduate education. But there are those parents who prefer to visit more of the kids' reaches (preferrably reachable reaches) vs. more of their matches/safeties, and there are those parents who prefer to visit the non-reaches over reaches.</p>

<p>What kind of parents are/were you (as far as planning college visits with your kids is concerned)?</p>

2

<p>My junior kiddo doesn’t want to tour any colleges. He doesn’t care what the campus looks like, where it is located, what the dorms/kids/food are like, or the size of the school. If it has his program and is a good match for his profile, it’s on his list. We DID make him tour our state flagship and one out-of-state school where my parents live when we were visiting over Thanksgiving. That was enough for him. Phenomenal waste of time he says. Websites are more than sufficient. Guess we’re done.</p>

3

<p>IMO I would plan college visits with the kids’ college lists as a starting point.</p>

4

<p>With my oldest, we visited about 50/50 reaches vs. matches/safeties. But honestly in part that’s because it wasn’t terribly clear to me whether a school was a reach or a match in some cases. My son had very high math SATs, but relatively low verbal SATs. He went to a very well known private high school and took very hard classes, but his GPA wasn’t anything to write home about. So personally I thought we were visiting reaches, but they were borderline matches. We weren’t visiting top 20 type schools. He ended up attending the very first school we visited which was high match. </p>

<p>With my second son, I feel I have learned a lot from the first one. We are looking at considerably more safety/match schools. I really only have one or two reaches on the list to go visit. The remainder are solid possibilities for him. I think that’s a better use of our time. I wish I had done a better job with the older son, but honestly his profile was trickier to work with. The younger son will likely have overall lower SAT scores, but not a huge disparity between math and verbal. And his grades are better but with a less rigorous courseload. I think I am a lot clearer on schools that are fits. And he also is very open to large schools which are a bit easier to predict (I think).</p>

<p>Personally I think the visits are very worthwhile. </p>

5

<p>My son had seen a few colleges when visiting a city (drive bys, no tours), and spent time on 2 campuses thru TIP program. He did visit top choices after accepted. </p>

<p>He was very nonchalant about what to bring to campus. He packed his favorite t-shirts and such. He left all the bedding for mom to do. Night before our flight across country, we are eating dinner with my close g/f and her 2 HS twins. Whatever they said to son, a light bulb went off. So, my g/f gathers all her BB&B coupons, we arrive at that wonderful store shortly before it closed, and he picked out all his linens, beddings, & accessories. The 2nd suitcase, packed with all those things, got undone, and his selections put in. (Mom returned her choices 2 weeks later.) Honestly, it was the night before our flight, and he realized he would be spending the next 4 years away.</p>

<p>Boys are something else.</p>

6

<p>For our first college visits…we took the kidlets to see urban, suburban, private, public, large and small colleges. We wanted them to see the types of colleges out there.</p>

<p>Other visits were to schools they were interested on applying to</p>

<p>DS really had all reach schools (music performance…there are no sure things when auditions are involved). </p>

<p>DD visited schools she thought she was interested in applying to. In the end, she applied to one reach and four safeties. Her top three choices were all safety schools for her.</p>

7

<p>Visiting colleges was helpful for D as much for giving her an idea of what she didn’t want as they were for what she did like. BU convinced her that a truly urban campus was not really in her comfort zone. Ditto for a trip to UIUC that provided the perspective that “cornfields can be isolating.” (I grew up in the middle of cornfields, so I was sort of taken aback by that.) D was surprisingly turned off by schools that seemed like kids were having “too much fun.” In retrospect, I’m glad we visited all the campuses that we did. It really helped her understand the reasons for reactions that weren’t always “logical.”</p>

8

<p>I think ChoatieMom’s son has the right attitude. The most critical info to make college decisions is at your finger tips on every school on your list. </p>

<p>Before you get on airplanes and hopscotch across the country ask yourself: how much money will I spend on this escapade? Especially for reaches. If you can afford doing that, then great, go for it. If some or all of your choices are within driving distance then visiting is great because it will tell the university that your student is interested in them, just realize it’s not the only way to express interest. We visited the possible choices that were within driving distance.</p>

<p>Keep in mind that universities track how much attention you give them. For some universities this can make a difference between an acceptance and being waitlisted or rejected. Realize if you don’t visit then your student might need to look at other ways to let that university know that he or she is interested. This can matter to some schools but not all.</p>

<p>My personal belief is the time spent touring is better spent on extra study time for the SAT and ACT Tests, including second attempts at both tests.</p>

9

<p>I think it depends on what the student is looking for. For D, the “college experience” is an important factor for determining her consideration set. She’s going into a fairly common field and her test scores are what they are. We’ve done two dedicated “campus tour” trips and visited schools on the way to and from her summer programs. Being on the campus when classes, even summer terms, were in session and students and faculty were available and willing to talk was extremely helpful in giving her a sense of how she personally felt about the campus vibe. </p>

10

<p>We visited several different schools within driving distance that ran the gamut from safety to reach, urban to rural, private to public, etc… We wanted DD to have a feel of different campuses, college “feel”, academics, etc. This helped her know what she really was looking for in a school. After that, she started compiling “the list”. We did not visit any schools that required overnight visits due to finances. (We did make sure to visit the “xyz in your town” style events, which did help.) We figured if she decided to apply to a long-distance reach, we’d cross that bridge (visit) when we got there.</p>

<p>Well…we got there. :slight_smile: </p>

11

<p>It is hard to find a safety your kid REALLY likes sometimes. But the search can be quite profitable if successful – my D1 decided she liked her safety best, got good merit money, and I figure saved me about $60K total over 4 years. I feel like you have to visit more safeties and matches usually to find the best fits – it is easy to find reaches you like!</p>

12

<p>We visited colleges last summer out of convenience (tacked onto a trip to pick up a child at camp). It was enough to show us the difference between a small LAC and a large state school. Now we know we are focused on large state schools. At this point, I don’t feel it is necessary to visit every school S applies to. We can visit the ones he is accepted to when the time comes. But in terms of applying, I am much more focused on safeties than reaches or even matches (because I feel “match” is so uncertain these days.) S doesn’t care about “prestige” so all is fine.</p>

13

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<p>What was the point of applying to the reach and fourth safety if they were less desirable than three safeties that were her top three choices?</p>

14

<p>We made extensive visits. Some schools were crossed off from the visit before applying. And we visited every school my sons applied to - reach, match, and safety. Some stops convinced sons to apply. A couple were made as accepted students. A couple made for son who had auditions. A couple were made as parts of visits to friends and family. The farthest were went was 8 hours from home but my brother and sister lived 2 hours on the way back, so no big deal.</p>

15

<p>What do you do if your child has no clue what they want to major in, no clue where they want to go, what type of school, etc? How does one begin? Just by visiting local colleges? Or a few different types of colleges (large, medium, small, state, private, etc.) within, say, a 2-3 hour drive? My son says even if he visits a college, he’s not really going to get a feel for what life is like day in and day out. He’s got a point, but I say you have to start somewhere.</p>

<p>I keep trying to figure out what my son might want to major in based on what his interests and strengths are, but he’s adamant that I don’t box him in. That’s fine, but we’re still stuck with the question of, “what schools will you be applying to?” And, it’s hard to figure out what will be affordable to us, so it’s not as simple as saying, “Only apply to what’s affordable.” </p>

<p>He and dh both agree it’s a waste of time and money to go across the country to visit schools (not that we would have the money to do that) because you’re there for such a short time. In his mind, that’s not going to give him enough information.</p>

<p>He also thinks you can’t get a good feel from the website. I really don’t know what to think.</p>

16

<p>We visited several colleges in October of senior year. S wanted to go to a school on the west side of the country (not in Hawaii, where we live). And had never really seen any kind of college, since his 12th birthday, except our state flagship (more like a dinghy; no, it’s not really that bad, but was to him). He had a list, but didn’t really know what was out there. So I thought it would be good to visit a few different kinds of schools.</p>

<p>Obviously we had to put it into one trip, since just getting to the mainland was a huge expense. So I figured out how many days and airports we could afford, and went from there. He was very focused on Seattle, and we were both curious about DigiPen, so had to go there. Hit UW because why not? Wanted to see Mudd and Pomona (the whole consortium really, just to see how close the schools were, what the relationships are - a novel concept). I talked him into visiting USC just to see what it was like, because it had a great program but he was not intending to apply because of LA. Turned out he really liked it and it became his first choice (reachy but not too… still, he didn’t get in). He loved Mudd but decided it was too much of a reach (more like a no way in he**), and struck it from his list. Struck Pomona for other reasons.</p>

<p>We went to Stanford and he really didn’t feel any love, so that (reach) was off the list. Had a day to kill and found UCSC, that one he loved and added to the list. Seeing the different campuses and talking with the people was very important to his final decisions about where to apply. Of the 8 schools we visited, 4 were removed from his list, 2 were added, and 2 stayed on the list. He applied to the 4, and UH as a “super-safety” (due to a cousin’s experience, she was denied at several of her faves, couldn’t afford one admit, changed her mind about going to the east coast, and ended up having to apply to UH late and missing out on merit aid).</p>

<p>I’m glad we visited DigiPen, because our visit helped him to decide against it in the final decision. I’m sorry we visited UCSC because he liked it and got in with merit aid, but we still couldn’t afford it. On the other hand, at least he knew that was a possibility going in, and I’m glad we visited UW because it was also a financial reach (OOS public) and the visit confirmed that it was not worth even trying for. I’m glad we visited USC, I think, because he might have gotten in, and at least he tried (he agrees). Glad he got to see Pomona, CMC and Mudd. And I’m very glad we visited DU, a safety, because that’s where he’s going and I think having seen it, and remembering the good points, is helping him to be enthusiastic and not feel too down about USC.</p>

<p>I think the most important things are to (if you can) visit the schools that you have questions about, or aren’t too familiar with. If you’ve never been to a LAC, an urban campus, or a heavy STEM school, check out one or two. Visit safeties so you’ll be sure that you’ll be ok going there; keep looking until you find a couple. Visit reaches if you’re trying to decide whether to apply. If you’re not stuck with only one trip, maybe save the schools that you’re SURE you want to apply to, especially the reaches, for a post-admission visit (that way no need to go if you don’t get in, and you can avoid unrequited love). </p>

<p>Some people suggest saving the visits for April; but for my S, they really helped him to decide where to apply, so I’m glad we went when we did (earlier would have been better, but airfares jump in summer).</p>

17

<p>For my two daughters, a sophomore in college and a sophomore in high school, we have visited dozens of schools in the last four years. This ranges from an official visit, which takes a lot more time, to a quick drive through. For the most part, we have visited matches. This spring break we did diverge from this plan and visited several reaches and various types of colleges. This helped my younger daughter eliminate small colleges from her list. We now know she wants a large research university or two of the larger Ivy schools. Visiting reaches has also motivated my daughter to study for her SAT/ACT over the summer. </p>

<p>Overall my daughter has found that visiting the college gave her more information than the website could offer. She talked to students and professors. She also attended class in a few of her visits. There are also small bits of information we have heard in presentations that you’ll never see posted on an official university website. There were a couple of colleges on her list that looks good on their websites that she has removed from her list. In the and I think this will trim her application list to no more than 6 schools. </p>

18

<p>Sweetbeat, what is DU?</p>

19

<p>We didn’t have an academic safety that was also a financial safety. S was not interested in any of the schools with guaranteed big scholarships for stats, and those would have left us with well over $10K per year to pay anyway, which we couldn’t do at that time. Merit schools were unaffordable. So we didn’t visit any true academic safeties, just reaches (most of which were in the matches stats but selectivity makes them reachy category), namely Columbia, Yale, Brown, Amherst, Williams, Princeton, U of C, Northwestern, Tufts. He had seen Cornell when we were in that area, and already knew Bowdoin well. (Of these, he eliminated Columbia, Princeton, Northwestern, Cornell, Tufts, and Amherst, and applied to other schools we couldn’t visit.) This was obviously a high-wire act, but we were between a rock and a hard place. It worked out, but added to my grey hairs. It would NOT have worked out if he were not a realistic candidate at the deep-pockets schools.</p>

20

<p>For us, too, the college visits convinced D that she could be happy in any one of several schools. Sure, she loved Stanford and Princeton, but she also loved Rice and Vandy and Tufts and Rochester (and several more as well). No safety schools there, but she definitely has a sense of what she finds appealing in a campus environment. </p>

<p>Did she get any huge insights to any particular campus based on three or four hours? No. But she learned something about herself. She doesn’t like huge universities. She wants a definite campus feel rather than a truly urban setting. She likes it when she sees students working together in groups or overhears discussion of “interesting” things (rather than sports or hook ups). She has a soft sport for quirky campus traditions. At a couple of the places she visited, she looked around and saw people she knew would fit in with. That was important to her. </p>

<p>And the school she is now most excited about is one that she might never have considered seriously without a spur-of-the-moment visit planned primarily because it was half-way between our home and some schools that she thought she would like but didn’t. </p>