<p>***Sorry for posting a thread so recent to my other one!</p>
<p>Anyway, I live in California, and many of the colleges I want to go to besides the ones here are out of state. I cannot do any college visits as most of the schools are on the other side of the country. How is someone supposed to determine which school they would like to go to if they can't get a "feel" of which one is best for them?</p>
<p>I’m in the same situation. All I do is shoot high, and hope for the best, haha. Really, I guess that’s the thing with going to school so far out; you’ll never really know if you’re a good fit till it’s too late. Not implying any of the bad connotation there or anything.</p>
<p>Haha, it really sucks! I don’t want to go to a school and hate the environment!</p>
<p>Most colleges have online campus tour videos. You can read many college newspapers online, read student blogs and research clubs and activities.</p>
<p>Well, you have a computer in front of you! Cry your heart out while you use google images…</p>
<p>At some schools you can arrange for an interview with an alumni who lives near you and that might help. Some schools have representatives who travel and visit different high schools and college fairs (although admittedly the college fairs are typically zoos, if you target two or three schools you can just go to them and try to talk to their admission representative – sometimes you can get lucky and get their attention for a few minutes). And use all the other tools available – online tours, google searches, school’s website, guide books (I particularly like Fiske and Princeton Review but there are many others out there), asking around to try to find someone who goes to the school that you can talk to, etc.</p>
<p>Some schools offer free travel to visit them and have special programs for low income students during the application season. Not sure if you fall into this category or not. I would go ahead and figure out which schools sound best to you on paper and look through their admissions sites to see if they have these opportunities.</p>
<p>You can also wait to see which schools you get into, and then either decide if you can afford to visit then, or see if the schools offer any financial incentives to visit. If you are in the high end of the applicant pool, you may find that acceptances come with free visit invitations.</p>
<p>low income students</p>
<p>If I remember correctly, you’re not low income and your parents will pay about $35k per year or so towards college.</p>
<p>Is there a reason why you can’t do a big trip and visit a few colleges during one big trip (visiting several schools in a clustered location)?</p>
<p>If time is an issue, then do use the Virtual Tours that many of the better schools have on their websites.</p>
<p>I can’t do visits at the moment because school is about to start soon and we just really don’t have the time to visit. I may try to visit next year in the spring if we have time. At the moment there is no possible way.</p>
<p>I’ll likely visit some more schools once I get acceptance letters. No point in visiting a far away school just to get denied. You should apply to schools you think you’d like and possibly visit them after you get accepted. Why not spend $500 on a ticket, taxi, and motel when you’re about to pay $50,000 a year for education.</p>