I hear that visiting a college may affect chances of being admitted because visiting shows particular interest in the school. I really don’t know why people visit colleges… you can see pictures of the surrounding area on google maps and see pictures of the campus on google images.
I want to ask does visiting actually affects chances for admission at top tier universities, and to what extent.
In particular, which of the following top tier universities track your visiting history and/or will take into account visiting when making the admission decision:
Harvard
Yale
Princeton
MIT
Stanford
Caltech
UC Berkeley
Carnegie Mellon
UPenn
UChicago
NYU
Columbia
Harvey Mudd
Cornell
Look at the Common Data Set, section C, of each college. (Google it!) If they consider interest, they will mark it there. If it’s “not considered,” visiting will have no effect.
When I was applying to colleges, I didn’t really hear of visiting giving an applicant any edge in the process. Interviewing, on the contrary, is quite a different story. Rather than fretting about visiting all these schools to give yourself a .001% increase in the probability of admission, do some research and try to schedule an interview, an element in the application process that does 1.) matter, and 2.) separate yourself from the vast body of identical GPAs and SATs.
Some schools count demonstrated interest, others do not. Agree with @bodangles that you should check the common data set for each school.
If you live far away and visiting is not possible, there are other ways to show interest in a school. Some ideas include: signing up on the school’s mailing list, if the school is at a college fair near you consider going and stopping by and signing in at the booth and speaking with the representative, if the school sends someone to your HS go to the meeting, contact admissions and request an interview by a local alumni, if you have any questions about the school that cannot be answered from the webpage you can contact your admission rep. etc.
I agree with everyone above that you can find all of these answers on the specific schools’ websites and their common data sets. I’ll make a big generalization that a lot (though not all) of the top schools don’t track demonstrated interest-- especially at a school like Harvard where they just assume they’re your first choice!
In regards to the “point” of college visits, I think that visiting a campus can be valuable to most students. Sure you can do the virtual tour that many schools post on their website, but you can find so much more (including the not so flattering stuff that schools don’t put on their websites) by actually physically walking around campus. I would be tentative to attend any school without visiting it! However, a lot of people can’t necessarily afford to visit all of their schools, and in that case yes, there are many helpful online tools. I think it all depends on the person!
Not a single one of the schools you listed will care one way or another. The schools that do care? Those that are desparate for top performing applicants. The lesser known schools, the ones at the school College Night where few people stop by – those reps WANT to engage you and will look favorably on your inquiries to them.
It probably won’t make a difference; however, I disagree with the notion that Google Maps can replace an in-person visit. While they are a huge help if you aren’t able to travel, visiting is really the only way to gauge the “vibe” of a school. Schools have different atmospheres to them – some more studious, some more casual, some very pre-professional, etc. Even looking at websites and reading student feedback won’t give you as complete a picture as actually going there.
Also, it can be difficult to find pictures of building interiors. And actually going there in-person can sometimes change your mind as to what you really want – I thought I was interested in rural, liberal arts schools until I visited one. It doesn’t happen to everyone, obviously, but I think it’s good to see a few campuses if you have the opportunity.
ANY college that has an acceptance rate below 20% does not need more students who WANT to go there.
As T2684 said- it is the lower ranked colleges that want you to “show them he love” and NONE of the colleges on your list need love- they wont care if you visit or not.
I believe it does matter at Harvey Mudd. If you live within driving distance and you don’t visit, they make note of it. That’s what was stated when we toured last summer. I think Carnegie Mellon cares as well. The rest of the list does not care as far as I know.
@SpringAwake15 : What I don’t understand is why people spend lots of time visiting schools, most of which they probably wont get into, before getting the decisions. Visiting doesn’t make sense to me unless you visit the schools which you know you have been made an offer to…
"How do you know these are reach schools for me? "
they are reaches for EVERYONE.
Any college that has less than a 20% admissions rate is these days considered to be a reach.
unless you’re Malia Obama or a heavily recruited athlete, every one of those schools is a reach. Your not understanding that is very scary. Your great SAT and SAT2s doesn’t make a single one of those schools a shoo-in. Maybe NYU. That’s it.
@alwadiya, visiting can help you narrow down where you want to apply to. Depending on where you live, traveling to a school can cost less than the $70+ price of an application, making it a cost-efficient decision. You can also get a general idea from visiting – if you like urban campuses, if you enjoy a smaller school, etc.
Some years ago, paper mills had a real pungency, a foul smell that would dominate the atmosphere for three or four counties. Google street view won’t help you there.
Or maybe it’s a deeply urban campus … you don’t hear the sirens in street view.
The same can be said for the oasis like feel of a campus such as New Mexico Tech, the sound of Westminster Chimes at a LAC, or a thousand other good things.
We visited a couple campuses on Lake Superior, for example, and for each, the feel of the place was much different than the look of the place. Doubly so for something like Alabama Huntsville.
