To the OP. This seems like a reasonable plan to me. But the visit to SAIC will probably consume a day by itself if you visit the Art Institute and take in some other sights of Chicago. If your kid(s) become seriously interested in attending an art school, they will want to visit quite a few others as time goes on.
Our older one did not want to make ANY pre-application visits to colleges. He had seen quite a few because his high school debate team often went to tournaments, e.g., Northwestern, Harvard, and because he went to summer debate camps at UMich and MSU. His first visit to the college he attended (UChicago) occurred after he was admitted.
The younger one was only interested in art schools. We made one grand tour in which we visited 11 colleges in 10 days! She took a friend, who was not art-school oriented but was interested in theater. She ended up attending Indiana University. Wouldn’t you know it, she’s now an architect?!
Your colleges are reasonably well concentrated. Starting in Michigan, our grand tour took us to: Oberlin, Carnegie Mellon, Pratt, NYU, Cooper Union, RISD, BU, Colby, Bennington, Ithaca College, plus a couple of days on the coast of Maine.
@mackinaw - Our kids have spent a fair amount of time in Chicago already - there’s no great need to do Chicago sightseeing. That said, that’s the place where one spouse may break off with the younger two and do something else while the other accompanies D16 at the SAIC. (Perhaps we’d just do the art museum tour itself. D16 likes art but doesn’t love art museums. I could spend hours at a good art museum. Unfortunately, younger sibs are more like D16 than me on this point.)
Most likely, D16 will not go to an art school, but she wants to see one to have a feel for them. If she decides that she really is interested in that path, we’d likely check out several / many more. Basically, that’s the plan for most of these school types. If she decides she likes big state flagships, we might tour Illinois, Wisconsin, Mizzou and / or others at a later date, and so on. (She’s seen Mizzou already, but fairly casually - not on a formal tour.)
To those who’ve cautioned about test scores and the like, especially for some of the more selective schools on the list. I realize that, depending on where her overall academic profile (test scores, GPA, extracurriculars, etc) stands down the line, some of these schools may be reaches or worse. But at least part of the reason to check these schools out, and to include some pretty selective ones, is to motivate both her and her siblings. i.e. “Wow - Northwestern (or Michigan) is really cool, but I know I’ve gotta really work to get into a school like that.” FWIW, D16 did her Duke TIP summer program at Rice and really liked it - it’s more or less her target/ideal school at the moment, but then, it’s also basically the only college she’s really familiar with.
I would frame it more as a family trip to Chicago – with a few stops along the way to stop in and explore different types of schools – and then have a great time in Chicago, with Navy Pier, museums etc. There is no compelling reason to get a feel for specific schools until a student’s portfolio is more settled, in terms of grades, test scores etc. The most you typically get from a student – who will likely change between 10th and 12th grade – is strong visceral reactions – “I hate rural” “I love urban” “this is too small” etc.
Within that context, I wouldn’t go to both Michigan and Indiana since they are each variations of a theme. IU seems geographically more “en route” so I would visit there for the vibe and skip Michigan. Bloomington will also likely be more pleasant weather-wise. There should still be tours going on during break, and its such a big school, likely grad students etc still on campus that there is a feel for the place. Valpo would then be on the way to Chicago, so that could make sense to stop and see what a smaller, D1, religious school feels like.
We did visit schools with our then-10th grader over his spring break, but that was because he was interested in continuing his sport in college and it mattered whether he saw himself as a LAC/D3 kind of kid or not. And even then, it was a 2 day trip to a few schools that were within a few hours drive, to get a feel for campuses, not necessarily those specific schools. He would have been bored out of his mind if we shaped our whole spring break around college visits. Even as a junior, who was then deep into the recruiting process, he was frustrated and tired after an very productive spring break college visit trip.
@MWDadOf3 A couple more thoughts. My daughter participated in the summer pre-college art program at SAIC after her sophomore and junior years. These helped her to develop her portfolio, and to assess her artistic talent in comparison with other art-oriented high schoolers. If D16 has some interest in studying art whether in a stand-alone art school or in college generally, or in developing a portfolio, she might consider such a program. Many art colleges have them, including CMU and RISD (which is where my daughter earned her BFA). I just checked but it doesn’t appear that the Kansas City Institute of Art (KCIA) has such a program, but it’s a very good school.
D did her first official college tour/info session as a soph (though she saw her older brother’s college she never came on his tour/sess). But we tagged it onto a family trip to NYC (Barnard). Later that year we did another. Very low key until junior year when we really began to look at a lot of different schools. Seeing a school when it’s otherwise convenient in vacation or other plans was a good way to do it for us, at that stage.
We did a long weekend of touring when my kids were in 9th and 10th but the 10th grader was totally into the process and had been asking to see one of the schools for months. We planned on 3 schools in 3 cities each about 2 hours apart. School 1 was his favorite. It was a great experience for all of us to figure out the process. School 2 was more of his sister’s choice which we thought was not at all the school for him (ironically he is probably going there!). We never made it to school 3…we had enough after 2. We also did fun activities in each of the 2 cities we did visit. I think a few early visits can be helpful but even in 1-2 years they can change a lot. The core curriculum that was a big turn off as a 10th grader is now a big part of why my son is choosing the college he is. We’ve probably visited at least 30 schools between the 2 kids who have similar interests but different priorities. We tag a few on to vacations here and there but still more than 3-4 even in a week gets overwhelming and makes it hard to remember what you like/dislike because they start to blur together.
Another Q. I realize the answer to this will likely be, to a large extent, “it depends/varies…”, but feedback would be appreciated anyways:
What’s a typical amount of time to allocate at a given college/university, assuming you at least start with the official tour?
I assume there’s maybe 30-60 minutes with an admissions officer, 60-90 minutes of being shown around the university, then perhaps an hour that we’d want to spend on our own, walking around and hopefully eating in the cafeteria. Then, perhaps a little bit of time checking out the area and specifically any nearby “college town”. So maybe ~2 hours if we’re rushing (doing mostly the official stuff only) or don’t really like the place, up to 4 hours or more if we’re really leisurely and D16 is enjoying it/really checking things out?
Info sessions usually take an hour, in our experience. Tour 60-90, yes. I’d skip the info session if anything…they often repeat info you can find on the web site or have long Q&A where other parents and students ask questions that they could have found the answers to on the web site…
I would agree to skipping the info sessions and focusing on the tours. We avoided high reach schools completely, and except to visit older sibling’s while he was there. The info sessions are going to be packed with wall to wall juniors and their parents during spring break. I would plan on waiting to see where she is accepted and then plan on doing a marathon spring break tour senior year if she is accepted to high reaches/places already not visited she is considering attending. Also, we found that some colleges have special “accepted students” info sessions and tours where you can avoid the crowds, and they often tailor your tour to fit the accepted students’ interests.
I think the time you spend on each campus will expand to fill what’s available. If you have a full day devoted to one stop you’ll find a way to fill up the time, both in the self contained college towns and in urban environments.
I actually really liked the info sessions. To me they revealed a lot about the “personality” of the college – the way they presented themselves in organization, who represented the college, who represented the student body, how they responded to questions from parents and students. The school that my son eventually chose followed a format that was unique among the colleges we visited (14). It was effective and persuasive. At another, a panel member was rude and dismissive to a parent who asked what I thought was a reasonable question.
Tours are good, but vary in depth and quality. We were interested in seeing the residence halls which didn’t always happen. The tours may not include areas of special interest to your family (in our case the art studios) so plan a little extra time if you have specific concerns.
The dining hall lunch is a must. After that, if you have juniors or seniors you may be able to set up an on campus interview. Our son found these enormously insightful. Then, there are the special attributes of the college town or area – maybe there’s a museum, main street, musical or theater performance, sports event or nature walk. All of this can enhance the experience.
The main issue to me is that the WHOLE family is doing the vacation. ALL of the kids need their spring vacation time and it should not be spent in a car so you can visit a bunch of college campuses. It is different in summer when the kids get down time that is relaxing. This doesn’t sound like any fun. A parent child trip leaving the others at home could be better (although not for the solo parent left with the younger kids). The family members need a vacation far more than the sophomore needs to get a jump on visiting OOS campuses. Spend time seeing several of the instate public and private schools to get ideas about size of school, city et al.
Did the tour, as outlined in post #9 (all 6 schools on that list) in this thread.
I think it was a success, all around. Daughter in 10th, Son in 9th got to see a lot of different kinds of choices, get a feel for the landscape. Even daughter in 5th enjoyed the trip (albeit perhaps a bit more driving than she would have liked, I think), and fired off questions on various tours/sessions. Some good meals along the way (including in college cafeterias), and a lot to talk/think about.
Thanks for the update. It’s a great learning tool for other parents in the same situation.
For other parents who may be reading - would like to say that with 3 kids in college and a multitude of visits - have never had a cafeteria meal and don’t feel like we missed anything by not doing that.
Also, I hope that your 5th grader was asking you the questions and not the admissions officers or tour guides. With so many schools having large groups for the sessions & tours , I believe the focus should be on the prospective HS students and not the younger siblings.
Fifth grader asked a few questions to tour leaders and the like. Yeah, I realize, not ideal, but not too disruptive, either, I think.
Re: Cafeteria food. Ate in what I think were fairly standard student cafeterias at Michigan and Valparaiso. Michigan’s cafeteria was particularly outstanding. All sorts of upscale stations - stir fry (cook to order), sushi, pasta, pizza, and probably some others I didn’t explore. Valpo’s was also quite good (but not quite so elaborate). Would have tried cafeterias at more places, but either timing didn’t work, cafeterias were closed in general, or not so welcoming to non-students, or whatnot…
My kids got the most out of visits where they sat in on a class. That makes it a longer visit, and classes aren’t always when we wanted them to be. We rarely spent less than half a day on campus. But given the cost of what we knew we would be paying, and the negative consequences of transferring, it seemed worthwhile to us.
DDs first visit to both her current top choices were tagging along on big brothers college tours. She was more interested than he was.
In fact, her Why X essay started with her impression from that visit involving a student built Rube Goldberg machine that stretched over several buildings.
Personally I would advise at this point if you want your child to get a feel for what is out there, then go to a large stage flagship and a smaller college nearby. Wait until junior year (and the next kid is a sophomore) to do the big tour.