<p>Barbara Brotman had a good column today on college visits:</p>
<p>spring</a> break college tours - chicagotribune.com</p>
<p>Both her daughters picked the schools they thought were the best fit, and both of them ended up transferring. Her conclusion?</p>
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But if I were doing it all over, it would be with a shorter itinerary and a lighter heart not because it doesn't matter, but because it matters in ways you can't know in advance.
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<p>Great article, and oh, so true.</p>
<p>Timely. I don’t think S will be doing any next week (our break).</p>
<p>I’m getting ready for college tours with child #3. My record is 1 and 1. Even though my oldest stuck it out at his urban school, he says he’s ready for a rural lifestyle.</p>
<p>The only sure thing you can count on is good bonding. I’ve loved touring schools with my kids.</p>
<p>Cute article. I agree that many 18 yr olds don’t know what they want. And I agree that some of it is chance (roommate match, etc) but that said, I think college visits are very helpful, if a person can manage them time and cost-wise. While I do think many will grow/bloom where they are planted, I also think its appropriate to check out the gardens, the soil, the temperature, and the gardeners, if at all possible, before starting the planting season.</p>
<p>The author implies what I have always thought about college visits…they basically serve to reinforce your pre-conceived thoughts/wants/likes about a school type. No real ‘soul searching’ happens on/after these visits. Another reason to not take all that many. Really, after seeing one cute little LAC in a rural town do I really need to see 3 more?</p>
<p>But Jym, we can’t control the weather!</p>
<p>We only toured three or four school (apiece) with both girls. I agree money & time are huge factors & did I say MONEY?</p>
<p>Plus where is Lewis & Clark University or is she getting her schools mixed up?</p>
<p>Due to our Canadian origins, the whole idea seemed foreign to us. We parents said we were game, but D, who likes to be different from her peers, sometimes, was insistent that she thought the whole idea was stupid. She’d use internet resources, word of mouth, etc. to decide where to apply, then visit any that accepted her. Was scornful at home about schoolmates who went on tour and “fell in love” with campuses that sounded like reaches for their statistics and/or family budgets.</p>
<p>At this point D has visited both her instate EA campuses. If any of her RD applications are accepted (they’re all reaches, really, due to high selectivity) we’ll be planning April travel.</p>
<p>Having recently completed my first college tour, I feel that it’s very reminiscent of searching for a new home. “If we could take the academics from one school, mixed with the athletic facility of another, and plunk it down on the campus of a third, we’d have the perfect school.” Also, visiting a college where one is unlikely to get accepted (or to afford) is very similar to touring homes way out of your price range. (frankly depressing)</p>
<p>I liked it. Especially considering she had two transfers. </p>
<p>We did things a little differently… We visited schools that were convenient to where we were at the time. S after a camp he attended and D mostly through her a travel team (although she did take a road trip to a few with her Dad). Mostly the itinerary could be done in any part of the country: Big, Small, Urban, Rural and something in-between. Then no matter what you THINK you want in October when narrowing down the list of Likely, Match and Reaches, throw in at least one that fit the bill of what you don’t think you want. Kids grow a lot throughout senior year. </p>
<p>And honestly, after three kids, I am kind of torn on too many visits before admission decisions. Admittedly, what I’ve saved in multiple trips over the course of the past year or so criss-crossing the country to do college visits will be easily spent on the visits she makes to schools in April to make a final decision. But that she has been accepted allows the question of “is this me?” to be far more relevant and real.</p>
<p>For all those embarking…</p>
<p>Visit different size/type colleges, listen & observe. Have your kid sit in on a class if possible. Visit the student union. Keep your mouth shut when viewing a dorm room, even if it’s fairly disgusting.</p>
<p>And yes, only take college tours where you are reasonably sure you can afford it.</p>
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<p>Agree! (except in trying to get them to look past the tour guide’s mullet).</p>
<p>And stay at the back of the pack when doing college tours. I can’t tell you how many times a parent took over the Q&A when it’s the kids who should be asking the questions. I found the more I made note that I was staying in the back of the pack since it wasn’t me going to college, the more other parents did the same. It’s not like you shouldn’t ask questions, but it is also true that the more the forget about you, the more likely they are to get to know other kids on the tours and find their confidence in asking good questions.</p>
<p>My older son said he only cared about the departments. I have to say the Computer Science school at Carnegie Mellon completely blew me away and I was not surprised when my oldest turned down Harvard to attend. </p>
<p>For younger son, the visits made him more conflicted. He doesn’t love the school he’s at, but he is a bloom where you are planted kid. He does wish he’d understood more about the details of how the departments really operate going in. But there have been some very positive experiences from the school too which are also things he learned about on visits, not through the website (though it was there if you went looking.)</p>
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Good point, ek. But in all seriousness, weather can be an improtant factor. I made a point of scheduling the NE visits inthe dead of winter and the southern (SE, TX and SW) in the hot seasons (and in the summer) so they could see what it was <em>really</em> like most of the time. Sprng breaks are great times to see campuses, but the temperature is usually lovely and the flowers are in bloom. Campuses may really be hot and humid or freezing and snowy (or grey and damp) for many months of the academic year. Younger s came along on visits with older s and was clear he did NOT want to go to school in cold weather.</p>
<p>I’m glad we did the grand spring break tour last year. When my son saw what a city school was like - and he was convinced he would love it - he decided he did not like city schools. Several schools I thought he would love and he didn’t, and now he’s going to a school I threw in because we were in the area visiting another school he ended up disliking most of all.</p>
<p>I’m taking my daughter to see a few schools this spring break because we’ll be in the area so we’re extending the vacation a few days. We’re going see a city school, a big public U with tons of school spirit, a small lac in the middle of nowhere, a medium lac in a more suburban area. She’s never stepped foot on a college campus so this will at least give her a spring board.</p>
<p>One thing I know - kids change A LOT over high school. What seems way too big and scary when they’re 16 may feel different at 18. One thing we know very well from our small hs days - I am wary of small schools and getting sick of them by jr & sr year. </p>
<p>I don’t know if you should or shouldn’t visit before applying. If you don’t visit I feel like you need to apply to way more to factor in acceptances, money if required and location and feel. There can be a very short window to go visit everything I don’t know if I could handle that stress.</p>
<p>Gosh, yes. Thinking back at the micromanager I was with D1, I cringe at times. I set up elaborate visits to remote outposts in the East and South, spending thousands to make sure that my daughter, the chosen one in my eyes but just another smart kid in everyone else’s 
, would be able to make EXACTLY the right decision after logically analyzing each visit.</p>
<p>Yeah, right. First week of April, she decides she wants to apply to adjacent OOS flagship Iowa, which was not even on the radar except that wife & I are alums, and within a week the deal is done. Made me crazy.</p>
<p>oops, eyeamom, I was probably one of those parents near the front of tours some (not all) of the time. But true confessions, I LOVE touring colleges. We visited about 13 with each kid and when I am in cities or college towns if I have the chance I tour or at least do a drive by/drive through of some colleges. I really enjoy it.</p>
<p>jym - I didn’t make the comment, but I agree with it. The worst is the parents who make it all about them and reliving their past college experiences. I’m a stick to the back kind of parent as well.</p>
<p>Oops, apologies. Credit should go to modadunn. But I agree, the kids should (should) be the ones asking questions, though sometimes a parent question can be helpful or spark an interesting follow-up from the tour guide. The most miserable tours were the ones where (apologies to anyone I insult with what I am about to say) the ones where a parent was an alum of the school and felt it necessary to verbally stroll down memory lane, pointing out how things changed or recanted memories of what he/she did at certain locations on the tour. I am sure he/she thought it was fascinating. Not so for the rest of us.</p>
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<p>Oh so true! However, I rather enjoyed our tour of one NE elite where the group of parents and I hung in the back and had our own side tour from a parental alum. He was hysterically funny, although we did end up falling slightly behind the rest of the pack. I left that school thinking parent weekends would be a blast! Alas, S choose differently and we’ve made it to exactly one parents weekend and that was freshman year! Hoping next fall isn’t nearly as crazy since it will be his last. 
And therein lies the truth: All this angst and then, it just simply flies by. <cue sunrise,=“” sunset=“”></cue></p>