<p>well i already loved pomona, but visiting made me crazy about it. you could tell the students adored the school and studied hard.</p>
<p>Nice thread. My D embarks on college tours this summer and I am a bit wary of first impressions and turnoffs (especially smaller school and inactivity in summer) based on weather, mood, how much sleep she had the night before. I am almost inclined to pick it on paper so she doesn't fall in love with an expensive reach school or get turned off by one I think may be perfect match.. Last year son could not visit all that he was accepted to, so picked best one on paper. BTW, is complaining about the cold.
Any stories on people who totally missed mark by buying sight unseen?</p>
<p>My D was thinking about Wheaton but lost interest after we visited.</p>
<p>DS wanted to go to Oberlin. We visited earlier in the year informally and the campus looked so appealing. At audition, after looking around at the students and faculty, we both gave it a thumbs down. Just don't think he would have fit in....even with music as a common denominator.</p>
<p>Had toured Rice during the summer and liked it. Attended Owl Days (session for admitted students) and felt they made no effort to make a personal connection to attendees. They offered to cover airfare, but we drove. You also had to pay a fee to attend. $35. for S and $10. for parent. We were only staying for the day portion because S didn't want to miss more school. So he got a $45. lunch. (I had to buy my own.) Is is usual to pay for these admitted student days? To be fair, S did like some aspects of Rice, but the overall good vibe was not there for him.</p>
<p>So is it an important factor? I myself do not have the option, but choose to enroll where I am accepted.</p>
<p>I was really impressed with Williams, even though it was freezing raining (is that the right phrase? lol) during our tour and it took forever and a day to get up there. I also liked Amherst more thanI thought I would (I hadn't even planned on visiting, but it was on the way to Williams) and found it was actually quite similar to Brown, which was previously my top school. I didn't go on any other Ivy League visits, but I thought that Brown used their prestige and the open curriculum as a huge crutch and basically didn't even seem to care if you visited or not. There was next to no literature, the tour didn't even go inside any buildings, and the tour guides speech was so rehearsed I thought I was in a movie. It wasn't that it was a bad experience, it's just that it wasn't anywhere near as awesome as the tours and info sessions at the other schools. My visit to Wesleyan confirmed that it is pretty much the perfect blend of ecletic people and good academics, but unfortunately, I doubt my parents will pay for it and we are in no circumstances to get financial aid. Same goes for Williams and Amherst. So I presume Brown will still be the place for me to apply ED.</p>
<p>Trips really helped my d.</p>
<p>Unlike some who have posted, she liked GW's "city vibe". She loved the architecture of Georgetown, but was a little turned off by the very pre-professional style of dressing. Didn't see as many folks who were "her kind of people". </p>
<p>She and I were both prepared to love Wesleyan. On paper it was great match - good size right kinds of studies, a focus on the eclectic and social conscious. But when we actually toured it was just kind of a blah. Not bad, but nothing all that interesting. We were very funny afterwards - both of us trying to be super polite and not expressing our disappointment, until one of us finally said "Well, it just didn't do it for me". And then all the little details came out. That said, she probably could have gone to Wesleyan and have been happy, but it just wasn't a WOW.</p>
<p>Amherst was the first school we visited, and d. loved the academics and the campus, but realized it was too remote - that helped her to start focusing on more urban settings. </p>
<p>We're off to CA next week to visit Scripps, where she's accepted, but which we haven't visited. Hope it's a good experience, 'cause its the current school of choice!</p>
<p>I find it too expensive and time consuming to tour the country to look at schools that D might or might not get into given the tough year that this year's seniors are reporting. We will apply and tour the ones that she is accepted to and she can decide then. I am amazed that parents are spending so much for the application process!</p>
<p>We traveled from California last spring to see 5 schools: Williams, Skidmore, Colgate (the anticipated highlight and the college around which the trip was planned), Cornell and Hamilton (only because it was there). DD fell in love with Hamilton applied ED1 and will matriculate in the fall.</p>
<p>My S was very sold on Wake Forest until he visited. Just kept saying he felt the campus was "cramped". Ironcially he liked Davidson much better than he expected but he is hung up on the size of the school and feels it is just too small overall. He really loved the size and layout at Vanderbilt. This would probably be his first choice but COA is a concern.</p>
<p>I really think it is money well spent. My daughter's list after visits was significantly different than her list before. She had fallen in love with one school on paper and was certain that she would end up there ......until the visit. She didn't even apply.
I think it would be difficult to deal with the unknown until decision time. I do believe that there should be a lot of research done beforehand so that your trip is useful, but it can definitely shed some light before applications. Just our experience.</p>
<p>Most of us parents do the best we can, but if you can tour just a few of the schools prior to applying it can weed out some choices that are not fits. We toured only a few that were doable, and figured we will tour the schools that were the best choices after the acceptances. We gave our D a radius of 3-4 hrs away from home so that it is manageable for travel to and fro these colleges.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for us, we live in KANSAS!!! All of the schools that are of interest are a flight away.</p>
<p>My D spent an enormous amount of time visiting the sites of the universities and colleges online. The job was to decide whether she wanted large, medium or small. She had to decide if she wanted city, rural or suburban. She finally decided before any trips that the lacs were for her and that she wanted to be in the mid-Atlantic and New England area. OK, so that part was free of charge and actually quite interesting. She did that research in her soph. year of H.S. </p>
<p>We then visited eight lacs and they all sounded exactly alike in info session. The key for our D was the kids she saw and met. She went out of her comfort zone to talk to them. She also spent alot of time meeting kids on College Confidential who she then met on her campus visits for a behind the scenes tour and info session. Once we did the first round of visits she and my wife and I carefully checked the programs and further scrutinized the colleges online. She then did a series of overnights to get a better feel for the individual school's vibes and what classes and social life like.</p>
<p>So after all of that what first seemed like eight similar places were fleshed out pretty starkly. So when she got into four of the seven she applied to she went to admitted students day at three of the four. Hands down the visit to Wesleyan for what they call WesFest over two and one half days of going to parties, watching tons of kids having a great time playing in bands, going to plays by students, sitting and talking, going to classes made up her mind. </p>
<p>It should be noted that after the first visit to Wes she and my wife had it on the bottom of their lists. They just were unimpressed with the tour guide and the info session. But I felt that the vibe was my kid. So it stayed on the list. Moral of the story at least for us was don't rule out a potentially great match for your kid because some first or second year tour guide turned u off and the info session was boring. The key is to go when school in session and have your kid stay over night.</p>
<p>Dana's Dad</p>
<p>p.s
This all presuposes that the family lives in the rough geographic area where the schools are located and can afford the time and money to take the trips to the schools and then do a second round after your child has been accepted. Good luck to all parents going thru the process. It is a great bonding experience for family but at times one had to learn to keep one's mouth shut and not commit bodily harm to sullen D.</p>
<p>I thought I would love UVA until I visited. It had all the attributes I wanted in a school on paper (small to medium size, not too far north, good math and psychology departments), so I figured it would be perfect.</p>
<p>Nope. When I visited, the information session was unimpressive and the tour centered mostly around the secret societies on campus. But what turned me off most was my class visits. I visited one large lecture class where I couldn't understand a word the professor was saying. Then I visited a smaller class during which the air conditioner broke and the professor had to call a 15 minute recess because it was too hot in there. This further proved my first impression that all the buildings seemed to be falling apart.</p>
<p>Maybe UVA is right for someone, but not for me. That visit taught me that looking good on paper may not be good enough - it inspired more visits to the schools on my list (most of which were very helpful).</p>
<p>Yes, it did. I liked IIT and did not care for UIUC, after visiting each. I thought my opinion would be the opposite.
Visiting the US Air Force Academy convinced me that it was my first choice.</p>
<p>CMU - Looked great on paper but not so great in reality. Loved Pittsburgh, but CMU's campus was too small and the admissions presentation was read to us by a bungling young woman.</p>
<p>Smith - Daughter would have been fifth generation legacy, so maybe expected too much, plus she really wanted urban, so it shouldn't really have even been on the list. Campus was too quaint and admissions presentation stressed the "homemaking" (not their word) opportunities available in small-household housing. (Ewww...) We left without touring.</p>
<p>Northwestern - Husband attended, expected to love. Tour guide walked backwards too slowly causing forward-walking crowd to stumble over each other. He didn't even notice when one elderly woman fell. Campus was cramped, food service sparse and meager.</p>
<p>Case Western Reserve - Expected it to be dreary but found it to be exciting with great dorms, exceptional access to the city and great food service.</p>
<p>RPI - Thought it might not be urban enough and might be too nerdy. It wasn't urban enough, but seemed big enough and busy enough to be acceptable in that regard and not too nerdy. Very nice campus, great admissions presentation, only backward-walking tourguides (two very well-spoken) we encountered who could keep up a reasonable pace and not constantly quip about our telling them if they were about to walk into something.</p>
<p>NYU/BU - No campus/barely a campus with dorms not for the claustrophobic.</p>
<p>We were fortunate in that my daughter's both had a geographic area requirement, so their trips were clusters of schools within a certain area. D1 we visited 5 schools in one trip by flying to one airport and making a big loop through 2 states.
D2 we flew to one airport, saw 5 schools , a quick hop to another area for one school, then home.
Both trips were actually quite fun for me and were great bonding experiences. </p>
<p>Back to topic - D1 ruled out UNC-W on a visit. UNC-W wasn't green enough for her and the location just didn't feel right.
D2 ruled out Western Washington ,Portland State, and SDSU on visits.
Western Washington just didn't feel right, although it had been her top choice. Portland State really did turn out to be a bad fit though she tried to ignore the reviews beforehand. SDSU she didn't feel that she would fit in with the students and we had a few conversations with students concerning impacted majors that concerned us.
On the other hand she fell in love with the University of Oregon on our visit and will be attending!</p>
<p>UCLA--toured it with S1 who didn't love LA but S2 fell instantly in love. Next year when we are ready to start him on the process we will send him back to see if it still resonates.</p>