<p>Hey everybody! Happy holidays!</p>
<p>Just out of curiosity, do any of you know what top schools (preferably liberal arts) are impartial to campus visits?</p>
<p>You can tell whether a college considers student interest by searching Google for “<college name=”"> Common Data Set". There is a grid in there that tells you what importance the college places on various components for admission. However, there are other ways to express interest besides visiting campus. These include:</college></p>
<ul>
<li>Sign up on the website for the college to have information sent to you.</li>
<li>If the college is represented at a college fair in your area, go and introduce yourself to the representative and sign in at their table as someone who is interested in their school.</li>
<li>If they offer phone or alumni or Skype interviews, see if you can do one of those.</li>
<li>Email the regional admissions officer for your area with any questions you have about the school. Let them know you are unable to visit before applying, but are interested in learning more about the school, then ask any specific questions you have.</li>
</ul>
<p>I would not drop a school from your possible list just because you think they will be put off if you don’t visit.</p>
<p>All that said, my advice is to not make a final decision on where to attend without a visit to the campus first. And it is a real scramble to try to visit several colleges after acceptance; LACs often notify later in March, and you have to reply by May 1. So you have to scramble to visit in about a 5 week period. Flights are expensive then due to the short notice. So there is something to be said for doing some visits earlier if you can.</p>
<p>It would be highly advantageous to visit your SAFETIES, at least one of them, because that’s where you will be going if you don’t get into any of the others. That won’t happen to you, I know, because you will choose your matches wisely, but it happened to my D who decided that she really didn’t want to go to her safeties because the cost to excellence ratio really wasn’t right. So she’s spending a year on injured reserve, not a bad thing, mind you, but something she wasn’t counting on, and applying to schools again.</p>
<p>Almost all colleges consider visits important as they want to see how interested you are in that college and by visiting that shows your interest.
They want this as normally the more interested you are in a school the more likely you are to go there and they would love to have to only take one kid for each spot. </p>
<p>Applying early decisions shows your interest to the max since they know you are gonna go.
So in that case they wouldn’t care if you visited or not but since it is binding most would visit before applying early.</p>
<p>^^yes, swimmer, in an ideal world we’d all be able to visit each campus, but colleges realize that isn’t possible or even desirable. some schools are dead serious when they say that your interest doesn’t matter to admissions decisions. I’m thinking of many large state unis. But many elite and near-elite LACs will tell you the same thing. </p>
<p>However, if they think you’re using them for a safety school (when you really want to go to ivies) and they don’t want to pooch their yield, they may turn you down for not showing enough interest. D had that happen at TWO of her safeties last year. “Why haven’t you called,” they asked. “Geez,” I replied, “wasn’t visiting enough,” especially when you list interest as “not considered”? Apparently not at those schools. How’s an applicant to know?</p>
<p>It’s a messed up game, and it is hard to tell what colleges want from whom.</p>
<p>Guys it’s okay I’ve visited most of my schools haha. I was just curious because I wanted to add maybe a few LAC safeties/matches just for fun (like Holy Cross or possibly Vassar). Thank you all so much for all the input! No arguing on my page haha! ;)</p>
<p>sorry, swimmer, I didn’t start off in the right tone of voice. My apologies.</p>
<p>
This is just not true. Most public Us don’t consider interest at all. Many privates don’t either. For instance, one college named by the OP was Vassar. Vassar does not consider student’s interest (section C7). [C</a>. First-time, First-year (Freshman) Admission - Institutional Research - Vassar College](<a href=“Institutional Research – Vassar College”>Institutional Research – Vassar College) However, Holy Cross does. <a href=“http://offices.holycross.edu/sites/all/modules/tinytinymce/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/filemanager/files/planningbudget/CDS20122013Publish.pdf[/url]”>http://offices.holycross.edu/sites/all/modules/tinytinymce/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/filemanager/files/planningbudget/CDS20122013Publish.pdf</a></p>
<p>I will say that, like jkeil, I always sort of wonder if colleges mean it when they say interest does not matter. One thing to think about is that many colleges want a “why college x” essay – if you haven’t really put in some research, your essay will be lousy. Visiting is a great way to have more material, especially if you sit in on a class or meet with a prof. But even if you can’t visit, making sure you have their mailings to review and have touched base with them at an in-town event gives you more to talk about than just platitudes. Even for the colleges that didn’t care about interest per their CDS, my D still went through the steps with them… just in case. And to give herself more info for the application and decision process.</p>
<p>i have to bump</p>
<p>Why must you bump, se</p>
<p>
It would be a simple thing for a college to update its CDS to move student interest to Considered. Why would the college post misleading info about what is used for admission?</p>
<p>just speculating here, Erin’s Dad, and not trying to defend what I said or intparent said, but one reason I can think of that colleges say interest doesn’t matter is because their admissions office didn’t want to be swamped by phone calls or email (or maybe the policy was made before there was email). Maybe the policy was a way of holding down personnel costs. Or maybe a college can have one policy but an individual admissions officer would have liked to have had more info if it was available. For instance, maybe she would have liked to have accepted a more qualified applicant if she had known that the applicant was truly interested in the school and not simply going to screw up the AO’s yield if the AO accepted her and the applicant went off to an ivy. Just thinking.</p>
<p>Erin’s Dad, admissions officers are human. If they had personal contact with a student (interview, met them at a visit in their city, etc.) and they liked the student, that is going to be a boost for the student even if it is not supposed to matter. And if I were in their shoes, a student who applied who had no contact at all that I was aware of with the school (not on mailing list, never visited, didn’t stop by at a college fair in their area or if I came to their high school) – it just seems like I would feel like they might not be serious about my school, and thus accepting them is a (possibly small, but still…) risk to my yield.</p>
<p>Reading this makes me thing CC participants don’t live in the same world as my IRL friends and I. I don’t know anyone who has taken their kids on formal, organized college tours. My ds has visited many campuses, but we don’t tell admissions beforehand, we just park, walk the campus, etc.</p>
<p>There are many ways to “show interest” other than a formal campus visit. Go to a local college fair and ask the school’s rep informed questions. For example, do not ask the Boston College rep how their engineering school is. (There is none). </p>
<p>Also click on emails sent by your preferred colleges. Some schools send these out with read receipts. If you just delete the email, they know and it shows no interest.</p>
<p>If the applicant’s stats are in the 90th plus percentile of admitted students and he/she has shown no interest, they may be deferred or waitlisted. The school figures they are being used as a safety.</p>
<p>Etc.</p>
<p>TomSrOfBoston- Interesting. As I am applying to Boston College but will be unable to make a formal visit, I would like to hear your input on how I should express my interest?</p>