One of my biggest regrets in applying for Colleges was that out of the 13 I applied for, 10 were backup schools. I completely panicked and did not think I was going to get into any college anywhere! If I could do it over again I would apply to far more reaches.
Also… visiting the campus before you get into a college really isn’t something I’d recommend. It feels like I waste of money, especially if you don’t get into that college. All of the places I applied too (UCLA, UCSB, UCB, Wash U, Rice, Tufts, College of William and Mary, Baylor, SMU, Texas A&M, UT Austin and some more that I can’t remember) didn’t ask me if I visited their campus. If I were you, I’d visit campus AFTER I get selected into that college, and then make my decision.
As I see it, the main reason to visit is for the student to decide if the school feels right. A secondary reason is to demonstrate interest, if that school is one that considers demonstrated interest. For my kid, visiting a variety of schools helped her realize that she didn’t want to go to a huge university and preferred to concentrate on LAC’s and mid sized universities.
I disagree with the original post. I do think that visiting a school is important IF you are not too far away. I am heavily involved in a campus recruitment club on campus and was recently hired as a tour guide, and the comments I get from parents are fantastic. I suggest to everyone that the best time to go is during open house, or a solo campus tour. There are 2 reasons for this: Open houses recruit student volunteers, these are students at the school who feel positively enough about the school that they want you to go. The number of volunteers alone is a good thing to look at. During open house you can see the campus at it’s most dead point. At my school, open houses are on Sundays or as most college kids know either
a. a study day
b. a laundry day
c. a recovering from a hangover day
d. all of the above.
If a student feel uncomfortable about a dead campus then that is not the place for you. Tours are given m-f at my school twice a day. 11 and 3. These are the busiest hours on campus as they are our common hour. on days when common hour is at 12 there is common hour chaos where vendors from the community come and give away free food, “toys” or they brings crafts for you to do. On campus organizations do their tabling, sometimes one of the cultural organizations will do a stroll show etc. Common hour is the 1 hour a day where no one on campus has class, this is good because prospective students can see clubs going on, how the student body interacts with one another etc. All things that a new student should be able to feel comfortable with.
I also think that students should go to overnight visits if available as this is an unsupervised typically unregulated experience and this will be the true test as to whether or not a student “belongs”
Completely agree with the two posters who think it is important to visit campuses first if at all possible. If the school isn’t a great fit – wouldn’t that be better to know BEFORE you waste time applying?
I don’t mean to bring up an old thread, but I agree with the above few posters that visiting is essential. If not for the visit, how else are you supposed to decide if it is a good fit. The internet? When I visited I found that schools that I thought might be a good fit after reading College Confidential turned out not to be and some hidden surprises of schools that fit me well. For instance, after vising schools, I found that the LAC environment that I originally thought would fit me felt too small and I opted for a medium sized school. Even among those, there were several differences among schools that had different vibes and personalities. The best way I have found to answer the Why ____ prompts is by learning about the school while visiting and asking questions. Some schools also track interest on whether you visit or not. Indeed some of the schools I was waitlisted from turned out to be ones I didn’t visit despite being an academic fit
I’d be very surprised if it was a common policy to defer or wait list students who didn’t visit the premises.
As for strategy, in the past I’ve seen some families making mega-sweeps, visiting literally dozens of schools on a tight schedule. That was expensive, time consuming and often ended up with the student more confused than when he/she started.
What might be a better idea is to tour a few representative colleges and then making it a point to later visit the ones at which you are accepted before making a decision.
I visited prior to and after applying. I didn’t get into the schools I visited beforehand, unfortunately, but visiting after I knew my options allowed me to really experience the atmosphere.
The best strategy depends on how you are approaching admissions. If you are applying to a significant number of “reach” schools, it may be better to wait to visit until you know if you are admitted, to avoid significant disappointment if you fall in love with a particular reach school. For many students, reach schools don’t care about demonstrated interest, so it doesn’t matter if you visit or not.
If you are hoping for merit scholarships, then by default you are applying to schools you feel confident you will gain admission to. And these might well be schools that look at demonstrated interest, because they know in these days of kids applying to 15-20 schools, many don’t bother to visit “safety” schools. It makes sense to whittle down this list by visiting, to determine schools you would be happy attending, before applying. Merit scholarship decisions may not come out until well after acceptances, and in some cases not until after attending a scholarship competition weekend. Best to know if you love the school before investing that much time.
For use, merit money was definitely a goal, so we tried to visit all schools of interest before applying, thereby eliminating a number of schools that didn’t seem to be a good fit after visiting. Better to spend the money up front to visit than to try to visit a bunch of schools in March/April of senior year, when there’s so much else going on.
In a lot of cases, I would suggest the opposite. I’m applying to 4 reach schools (Cornell, Northwestern, Carnegie Mellon, and MIT… don’t worry, I have some awesome matches and safeties as well), all of which consider demonstrated interest. I was able to visit before starting my applications, which really helped with the school-specific supplement essays (and interviews). I talked with a lot of people and really learned about the schools. In some cases, new considerations came up, which prompted me to go back to the other schools that I had looked at. I didn’t just learn about the schools I toured, I learned more about ALL of the schools that I applied to. Also, there were a couple of schools that I didn’t like (I won’t name them) when I toured, which would have been reaches. I recommend to tour if you can, as long as you can look past the prestige allure.
Does the college factor “interest” into the decision (check on the Common Data set) If so, visiting is a great way to show interest. But college know not everyone can com, so they may have an alumni interview or local info sessions. Large colleges don’t track if you visit.
How far away is it? If far, it may be worth waiting until you are admitted.
It is helpful in making your decision. With both of my kids, they eliminated one college after visiting and before applying.
As much as I would love to visit the colleges I’ve applied to, it’s definitely out of the budget. I don’t think it’s very important, especially if financially, it’s not plausible.
@JustOneDad There are quite a few schools that do just that. Certain schools like the College of William and Mary specifically state that they don’t track interest and that touring campus, doing interviews, and admissions contact is optional and you won’t be penalized if you don’t do these things. However, other schools do track interest and it can be a main determinant of whether they admit you.
For instance, out of the schools I was waitlisted at, I am almost certain the reason for it was because I did not visit campus prior to applying. I was pretty confident I would get in, my stats alone were above the 75th percentile of each school, but I did not visit due to distance limitations. So despite getting into more selective schools, the schools I was waitlisted at likely use it to protect their “yield” rate and to avoid being used as a safety.
We’ve visited the Ivies quite a bit and there was no tracking done on us. Moreover, there were instances in which we didn’t visit and it didn’t harm the results.
The ivies I imagine are a special case. I happen to live near one and it happens to be a popular tourist destination in addition to being directed at prospective college students. One time when I visited, there was literally a bus of people from abroad who got off to take a tour. The tours were far more focused on the history of the college than any particular experiences from the student perspective
In any case, you’re right that it doesn’t always effect results. There are also many ways to express interest: designating them as first choice when you send PSAT scores, contacting the admissions office, doing an interview, writing an excellent essay, subscribing to their mailing list early on, showing knowledge about the school, ect. However, out of the ones that do, Tulane happens to be well known for wailtisting students who are unlikely to enroll. As well as several smaller liberal arts colleges on the list. They had free applications and no supplements, so I imagine that using interest would be more useful to them in narrowing down their prospective applicants
@hungryteenager - that’s why I said it “may” be better to wait, especially if applying to schools that don’t track demonstrated interest. My kids visited every school they applied to, but they were seeking merit aid, so they were applying to schools where they were well above average stats, these were schools that tracked interest, and I wanted to know before applying if they liked the school. Since some of the merit award decisions weren’t sent out until April, it would have been near impossible to visit all the schools before May 1.
Other kids shotgun to 10, 15, 20 schools where they have very slim odds of acceptance. The schools may not have any geographic cohesiveness - they’re just hoping to get into a “name”. For those students, it makes sense to wait until you find out if you get in unless you have tons of money and time to spend on visits.
I’m not sure, though, where you got your information on the schools tracking demonstrated interest. When I look at the common data set for MIT and Cornell, they say they do not track interest. For Northwestern it’s considered. Only for Carnegie Mellon was it listed as important. Which is what I would expect. Schools of Ivy or near Ivy caliber know you’re likely to attend if you get in. They also know huge numbers will visit and apply who will never get in. I know Duke explicitly states on their web site the do not track interest, to try and keep down the number of people contacting them hoping to up their odds of admission. The schools that do track interest are schools that want to make sure they’re not just a safety school you applied to because the Common App makes it easy. Seeing that a high-stats student never registered at the web site, never visited (especially if they live close), never attended an online open house or in any other way made themselves known to the school is a red flag that the school is a backup to that student and the student will likely not come if they get any better offers.
Well, an adcom Cornell’s Engineering college told me on the tour to make sure that I registered and signed in, because they did track that. Because of how Cornell handles admissions, some areas may not track demonstrated interest. Somebody from MIT, though I forget who, said that it could be a factor.
I agree that it can be a waste of time and money if the school doesn’t track. One can learn a lot about the school from datat and pretty pictures online. I attended an institution on the other side of the country from were I grew up, and I didn’t see it until the first day of registration. However, for my children, I’ve driven all over the country. We’ve been trapped in snow storms, missed plane flights, bought train tickets, rented cars, motels- it’s a lot! Had I been working at the time, it would have been impossible.
However, if you can afford it, some schools track. They will let you know if you ask. Wash U in St. Louis counts demonstrated interest. Kenyon stresses how important it is to visit and the Dean herself blogged that it indicates a serious applicant. But, a lot of the schools the OP mentioned (big UC schools for instance) with the exception of Wash U and perhaps Tufts, don’t track. I would visit your reaches and one safety, and anyone admitting to tracking.
Some schools like BU track but don’t use it in their admissions decisions- they use it in their housing. I worked for BU 20 years ago. If someone shows a ton of interest, showing up to every event, they placed them in the best rooms. This may have changed I don’t know- but I suspect if BU did it, other schools might too.
Showing demonstrated interest is essential whether you visit campus or not. It is especially important for schools where you think you are a shoe-in. If your stats easily qualify you for a school but you have not demonstrated any interest or explained why you want to go there - the school may think they are a safety and deny you for the sake of their own stats, ie yield. You don’t have to physically visit a school to learn about it, connect with students and faculty, know what interesting research is going on, figure out some of the clubs you think you might want to explore, etc. So while a school might not track your physical visit, your application will reveal whether you have invested yourself in getting to know the school or not, if you have a real sense of why you think it is a good fit. Your application will be much better if you know why you are applying.
Yes, I agree that visiting the campus shows interest, BUT being well-prepared at the interview is just as good.
It is a warning sign though, if you are filling out the Common App and one of the added questions is “Did you take a tour of our campus?” In one case, my son did a drive thru tour with us, but felt it wasn’t enough to say “yes” he did a tour. Coincidentally or not, he was deferred.