<p>"This whole exercise is futile if the student doesn’t have offers in hand because super selective schools are choosing kids, not the other way around. "
Exactly my point. Dont waste time visiting "reach for everyone’ colleges until acceptance letters are in hand.
NO, my DS did not drop his EC’s that meant something to him - [classical music, Seismology research] when he graduated. But he did travel to Hanover, Providence and Chicago in April instead of participating in a choral concert, because visiting colleges then was more important to him.
And as I said, earlier- YMMV. And obviously it does to some posters. </p>
<p>For my child it would not be just the question of whether certain ECs meant something to HER–it would also be making sure she honored her commitment to her sports team or dance company or music ensemble. </p>
<p>The whole exercise is only “futile” if there is an expectation attached to it. Plenty of tourists visit Harvard each year because it is Harvard and they want to set foot on the campus. They are never going to study there. Families with kids applying to college want to do the same thing. It’s like going to the jewelry store and trying on $25,000 rings even though you can’t afford to spend more than $750. For some people it’s fun. The problems only start when kids get their hopes up and are then “ruined” for the types of schools they actually can get into.</p>
<p>The initial visits were often linked to other trips. We go to Philly area to visit cousins, we take a look at some schools there. We look at nearby schools. I wanted to get different types of schools in the picture. Is the school size, city or rural location an issue? What kind of school does this student seem to like? What does he not like? So the reach, match, safety did not even come into the picture until about now when we are going to be putting together a list. Like many high school kids, he doesn’t have an idea what he wants yet, so we are looking at schools that have a lot of options rather than a narrow focus. Distance not an issue with him; in fact he wants to be some distance away. Likes a campus rather than a city school. Wants school spirit, a good sports team in the mix there. More preppy than offbeat, but not ultra preppy either. </p>
<p>Mine’s a rower, so not showing up for a race in the spring because she was revisiting a school would mean not only letting down the other seniors in her boat but also damaging the college recruiting chances of any juniors or sophomores.</p>
<p>The first university D2 will be looking for is her financial safety. It will obviously be an in state public university, luckily Ohio has several to choose from. We plan on doing much of that this summer and into the fall as she is a rising junior and has yet to take any of her standardized tests. Once we have those scores then we can begin to consider matches and if the scores are good enough her reaches. I don’t mind her having a couple safeties as she may change her mind over the next couple of years. My only requirement is that it is a place she will happily attend if all other options prove unaffordable. D1 had 2 reaches, 3 matches and 2 safeties. The reaches were WL and a decline. She was accepted to the rest and received sufficient scholarships to 2 of her reaches, one of which she chose to attend. It was nerve wracking but successful, hopefully the next will go as well. </p>
<p>I’m not all that in love with Harvard’s campus so not sure how a campus visit would “ruin” it for a kid. I probably had a different vision in my head than when I stepped foot on campus. I like the part that used to be Radcliffe. Actually it might do just the opposite - the ivy league campuses are all very different in feel and fit, it might actually help a kid with ivy stars in their eyes hone in on which campus environment they can even see themselves living in for four years.</p>
<p>I had two quite different experiences with my kids. First kid had been to several academic camps and a summer program at Columbia and felt he had a good feeling for college campuses. (All dorms are the same, food is food, all I care about is academics.) I never the less dragged him off to California junior year spring break. By the end of the trip when he said everything was fine (Caltech, Berkley and Stanford) and he’d rather not do any more visits, we didn’t. It was still a good trip. He actually then was interested in visiting schools when it was a matter of choosing the schools he was accepted at and those visits were pretty eye opening.</p>
<p>Younger son was very interested in visiting school. I took him to two within an easy drive of us for one day during February break. They were both smaller than what he thought he wanted, but the bigger less rural one stayed on the list. Spring break we visited two more in Boston and also spent some time with relatives up there. Then just before Labor Day we visited three DC schools and stayed with my sister-in-law. That trip confirmed that he really did hate urban schools with no real campus, and that there was a safety he really liked. He did not visit one of his reaches until he got into it. He also revisited the other schools he got into - so he had three trips in April and one had an event in late March. Interesting he cared a lot about visits at the time, but now feels they are not nearly as valuable as he thought then.</p>
<p>I think for some kids the campus visit is as much about learning about themselves as it is learning about the school. D is a very “experiential” learner. Campus visits have been an important part of her own decision process, not just about school choice but also about program and eventual career.</p>
<p>S, on the other hand, was focused solely on his sport—team stats, playing time, coaching philosophy, etc. He could get a sense of what he wanted to know from discussions with the coaching staff and online research into the team, its competition, and facilities. He was invited for official visits and enjoyed them, but the campus was a secondary consideration for him. Honestly, if they hadn’t ben paid for, we probably would not have visited as many schools as we did (and there weren’t that many). And we certainly wouldn’t have gone to northern Minnesota in January. (My husband still shivers when he thinks about that trip!) </p>
<p>So, like people have said, YMMV. Even within the same family. </p>
<p>My applied to 2 reach schools, 4 matches (low to mid), and 1 near safety. Prior to the application, my D has visited one of the reach school during an orchestra tour with her high school that is too far away for us to visit anyway. We visited all the other schools except the safety which is 10 hours driving away. We visited than 5 schools in two short trips. Both trips are very informative and we spend one day for each school to attend the information session and campus tour. At the end, she was accepted by all the schools we visited.</p>
<p>How many kids have you shepherded through the process, again, dm2017? Is your child class of 2017, or are you?</p>
<p>I considered the visits crucial in determining where to apply - and we visited reaches, matches and safeties. What’s the point of getting in and THEN finding out you don’t / won’t like the place? That seems completely pointless. And disorganized and expensive, to then have to schlep to a bunch of campuses within a few weeks. We finished all of our visits by the end of junior year. I wouldn’t change a thing.</p>
<p>^^ ^^
well said dm2017. :-bd </p>
<p>if it is affordable to visit many colleges before applying, then by all means do so.
But it is not crucial for students to do so. Visits can be made in April , when they really matter.
As always, YMMV. </p>
<p>The other factor involved for many students is ED. If a kid wants to attend a very selective school where a good percentage of the student body is chosen out of the ED pool, it makes sense to visit before applying, rather than potentially being stuck with a binding commitment to a school sight unseen.</p>
<p>“And I’m sure your friends and extended family loved hearing all about how special your kid is and your verbose breakdown on the architecture and cafeteria food served that day and the snarky 19 y.o. bored out of her mind tour guide at Oberlin that left a bad taste in your mouth. I love my parents and would never ask them to waste any amount on time on me visiting schools I have not been accepted to.”</p>
<p>No, I really didn’t talk about it much either way with friends (except here on CC, a forum dedicated to that purpose) and I don’t have extended family. And while my kids are special to me, they aren’t special snowflakes.</p>
<p>My kids applied ED. How the heck could they have made that choice without visiting? </p>
<p>And we enjoyed this process as a family, much as I enjoyed my own college tour with mine 30 years ago. </p>
<p>But, clearly you know everything. Good luck w that. </p>
<p>Visiting college before application may help to save money as one may eliminate some schools early on. It is also crucial to let the student has some idea what size of school and what setting he/she likes. Most important, you will need more information that just what you can find on the web to write good essays about the school and how does it fits you. As we have visited most of the schools my D applied (she actually visited all), it makes the final decision easier.</p>
<p>We did the approach of - visit schools (and no, not just all mega-reaches) during junior year so that by start of senior year, they knew what they liked, in what general order, and could apply ED, which they did. But pretty much every school on their application list was one that they knew they liked / would attend / would reasonably fit in at - because we had visited.</p>
<p>At the same time, a good friend of mine had a very procrastinate-y daughter. Daughter applied to a lot of excellent schools - same caliber as my kids - got into a bunch, and then had a few weeks to visit schools literally ranging from Boston to Los Angeles. Do you have any idea how expensive that was, compared to the visits we had made with plenty of planning ahead and the ability to get good airline fares? And this was just one. I had two! I would have spent a fortune if I’d sent 2 kids to 5 cities apiece in the span of a few weeks. </p>
<p>And then she decided she didn’t like some of the schools (for whatever reasons, I really don’t know). And yeah, I get that when she turns them down, the spot goes to someone on a waitlist, but it didn’t sit well with me to occupy a spot like that and <em>THEN</em> decide after getting in you weren’t all that interested, when you could have figured that out before, not applied, and left a regular spot open for someone who really wanted it. </p>
<p>I recognize people are in different situations, but I would do it again the same way in a heartbeat - visiting beforehand and using that to winnow down the list.</p>
<p>As for the issue of people only visiting super-reach schools, that’s a different issue altogether. </p>