<p>But what if, let's say, someone doesn't have an extra $2000 on hand to go fly out to various schools?</p>
<p>Most college websites have video tours, photos and lots of information available for free.</p>
<p>I think the point is to see if the school is a good fit outside of academics. I was lucky enough to be able to drive to most of my schools, but yeah, I just looked at pictures of the ones that were too expensive or far away to visit.</p>
<p>DS and I did a couple of college visit weekends. See if the schools you are looking at are close enough to each other that you can fly into one city, rent a car and drive to visit several schools, and then fly back out. Check places like expedia.com for cheap airfare, and maybe your folks have some airline miles they would let you use? We waited until he had narrowed his choices down to a manageable number, and then visited the schools that were in his top 5-6 schools. Also, for his biggest “reach” school he went ahead and applied, and we told him IF he got in we would make a visit before he had to decide on a school. That way, not wasting money to go see a school where he might not even be admitted. Maybe a good idea to try to visit your safeties/matches first, if possible? I will say, we went to one school thinking it was just a safety and left with it at the top of his list. Visiting gives you an entirely different perspective…</p>
<p>It is a very expensive mistake to make if you pick a school that does not fit well, especially if you are picking one that provide merit aid. Because if you transfer later, you lose that “freshman aid” package that is nearly always better than anything you will get later on as a transfer student. And colleges do not feel the same in person as they do on paper. Some people luck out and it works out that they choose a college they never visited. Some of them are really sorry… </p>
<p>We tried to work in college visits with other trips when we could. And we stay in inexpensive hotels or with friends/family. Booked flights well ahead of time, and flew cheaper airlines (eg, Southwest) when we could. But we felt it was worth the cost to avoid making a mistake. It worked for first kid (she loved her school, which was five states away). Both kids rejected several schools that looked fine on paper once they stepped onto campus.</p>
<p>There is value in visiting schools of different types, even if they aren’t necessarily ones to which you will likely apply. You might find a few schools close by you can visit with little expense. Try, for example, visiting one large and one small, possibly one DI and and one DIII, or one urban and one farther from a city. These don’t have to be your reach or target schools, just ones near you. By doing this, you may refine the type of school that interests you and rule out places that won’t be a good fit. By sitting through a few admissions presentations you can learn a lot about college life and the admissions process that isn’t always apparent from college web sites.</p>