<p>There is a difference between visiting colleges and actively engaging in the process.</p>
<p>Fall of junior year can be too early for many kids to give the active engagement that you might want.</p>
<p>It depends on the kid.</p>
<p>If it is too early for your child’s active engagement, so be it. She will come around when she is ready.</p>
<p>In the mean time, as many have said here, it is not too early to visit colleges.</p>
<p>I think one of the things students --and parents, for that matter–often overlook is extracurriculars. My kid’s whole world revolved around one EC. When kid arrived at college, kid was shocked to learn that kid would have to audition for that EC. It worked out well, but all too often it doesn’t.</p>
<p>At some colleges, everyone who wants to be in the marching band can be. At others, you have to be a superstar musician to make it. At some schools, anyone can join the newspaper staff; at others, you have to be a journalism major. </p>
<p>A lot of my kid’s friends were stunned when they just couldn’t do what they had planned to do. A friend who was an amazing dancer tried out for the dance troupe at UMichigan. She showed up for auditions and discovered that 70 girls were vying for 7 places in the dance troupe she had assumed she could join. She didn’t make it. Believe me, she was very good. Unfortunately, the selection committee thought at least 7 girls were better. Another friend who was a bit plump enjoyed acting in community theatre. She chose a LAC; it’s not especially well known for drama. She learned that the college drama club held auditions for membership freshman year. If you didn’t make the group, you weren’t going to do any acting. She tried out and didn’t get in. She was really disappointed. Ironically, at my own kid’s alma mater, which is FAR better known for acting, you usually audition for a particular show. So, one less than perfect audition early in your college career isn’t going to stop you from acting in a different production.</p>
<p>Bottom line: If you want to do some EC in college, find out how easy it is to do it and try to make a realistic assessment of whether you can do what you want to do.</p>
<p>How, you ask does that relate to the original question? Ask your kid if there’s any EC (s)he would like to do in college. Then ask them to figure out where they can do it. I think kids find that process can be a point of access to the college admissions process.</p>
<p>Post #5 has a good list of what concerned my younger son. He also did not want Greek life to be part of the school, and he wanted a place where a kid with hair past his shoulders could feel comfortable. Ironically since spending a summer in Jordan he’s decided that he’s better off with a more conservative look. He also wanted a place with a traditional campus. GW and NYU were eliminated on principal. He also felt strongly that his college had to be bigger than his high school - which eliminated most LACs. There was a poster here who mostly liked LACs, but was okay with Carnegie Mellon because if you stood in the middle of campus you couldn’t see the city.</p>
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<p>When my son was considering colleges, he spent a fair amount of time on the individual schools’ websites reading course descriptions and going over the list of clubs. The more things he could identify as interesting or fun, the greater his enthusiasm was for the school. Humor especially attracted his interest: MIT’s pranks, William’s quirky clubs and Brown’s self-mocking tone (one of their cafeterias was called “the Ratty” because of its poor food at the time and now that’s become the official nickname).</p>
<p>The ball really gets rolling once you do some visits which you can easily start by going to the colleges close to you.</p>
<p>In my house I did the research and sent husband and son to do the visits. When they would come back, I always asked the same question. “Is it on the list or off and why?”</p>
<p>That helped to decide the next group to go see and little by little the list reduced from 20 to 7, then the final 2 choices to the final choice.</p>
<p>It does help if your daughter has a major in mind but you can also focus on variables of rural, suburban or urban, size and distance from home. Once you lock on to a couple of those it becomes easier.</p>
<p>I also agree the process is very overwhelming so do not overly chat about schools. Be concise and focused with questions and only discuss things for short periods of time.</p>
<p>S did most visits senior year in the fall. D, a soph, is already wanting to do visits. </p>
<p>I’ve followed their lead in terms of interest.</p>
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<p>Actually, it can be more important for the undecided student to go to a school that is reasonably strong in all of the possible majors – otherwise, a school that is otherwise the perfect fit may be one that the student will try to transfer away from after deciding in sophomore year that s/he wants to major in something that the school does not offer or has a limited department in.</p>
<p>It is hard for us parents to let kids take the lead on this.If she wants to go she will figure it out and probably ask you for help.Using the advice in these threads is valuable. Ultimately with the constraints your family sets it will work out.Keep an open mind and try to listen, really listen to what she is saying.She has to live with her choice.She his herring more than she lets on.</p>
<p>Fall of junior year is early…but you can start with broad strokes like someone mentioned: big/small, urban/rural. You’ve got a start so she might have started to form some vague opinions about cities, about size. In the early spring I gave each of the boys the assignment to come up with a list: If you could go to any college in the country where would you go. This produced an interesting list to start working from. From there we talked about cost, about selectivity, about their grades/scores etc. (which you’ll have by late spring junior year). We did our college visits between April of junior year and beginning of senior year. Apps were all done by end of October even for the regular decision schools just because I don’t want that stuff dragging through the entire senior year (and neither did any of my kids). They just wanted to have a “fun” senior year. My kids liked the Insiders Guide to Colleges.</p>
<p>It was very important for DD to visit schools while they were in session. That way, she could observe their interaction (or lack thereof), visit classes, see how they were dressed (and envision whether she thought she would fit in), and ask them about their music tastes. We visited the closest schools when her high school had a day off but the college was in session, but learned that Fridays are not particularly representative!</p>
<p>It took actual visits before she recognized that large universities were too impersonal for her, and that small rural schools were not her cuppa. </p>
<p>As the list becomes honed down further, if you study the schools’ web sites you start to see what they emphasize and what they leave out. For example, DD wanted to be able to get academic support like writing feedback from the get-go, not after she was in academic trouble. One school did not mention that type of resource at all.</p>
<p>As to ECs: DD is a self-described choir nerd but has no interest in being a music major. She got a music scholarship from a school not known for its music program. Of course she sings in a choir which is a condition of the scholarship. She was also persuaded to sing in an additional choir which is a better choir but has to wait until she is at least a junior to sing in the best choir. So she is busy but not challenged which is okay.</p>