<p>Our College</a> Visits section may be helpful, but the experiences of others are never a substitute for your own.</p>
<p>One mistake I've seen made is visiting reach schools while not checking out safeties. Having a safety that you'd love to attend is critical, and it's more important to check out schools that fit that description vs. visiting schools where one has only a slim chance of admission.</p>
<p>try to visit different types of schools to get a feel for what you might like. if you cant visit all of your choices there are many different options. 1) look up schools online these virtual tours are very helpful There are also Q&A on these sites that provide you with the same info as you would get at an info session at a school. 2) When you get your acceptances then visit the schools this way you know that you what your options are and go from there</p>
<p>roger dooley is sooo right. It is very important to pick a safety that is a great fit. that is the true definition of a safety school.</p>
<p>I didn't visit my reaches, just in case I don't get in. I'd rather not be heartbroken after completely falling in love, rather than now, just in lust with the school.</p>
<p>As far as researching though, I relied on collegeboard.com for the stats. Though I basically had to apply to mostly public schools based on my financial factors. But have your daughter come up with a list of factors that are very important to her, and use collegeboard, or any other site's college search engine, where you can plug in certain factors to come up with a potential list of schools.</p>
<p>DS did a lot of legwork online before visiting schools. He didn't get much out of campus tours, so when he did visit, he took off for classes and talking to profs and other students. </p>
<p>One resource he found very helpful were the people who were involved in some of the same ECs that he was -- they were from all over the country, they shared common interests and were pretty compatible academically. Got lots of good inside scoop, names of other people to talk to, and they shared notes about visits and/or actually attending the school.</p>
<p>Another (related) resource -- if you are working with a mentor or doing an internship in a field you're interested in, talk to the mentor/colleagues. We have friends who worked in labs and talked to the PhD students and researchers there about where they went to school and if it made sense to go public/private, which schools were good about undergrad research opportunities, etc.</p>
<p>Read the catalogs. Make sure a school can keep you interested and challenged for all four years. You're going to grow a lot in that time, and you may find yourself taking a different path than the one you planned. Make sure the school is flexible in what it offers.</p>
<p>DS focused less on reach/match/safety and more on specific programs he wanted, so he knew by the time he made his list he'd be happy at any of them. Check with some of the school-specific threads here; there are folks at some schools who are happy to talk about specific programs with prospectives. DS did this via email with success, too.</p>
<p>We did visits, but good legwork will save you (and your parents) a lot of time and aggravation. My younger son is a soph and he is less focused on what he wants out of a college; we will probably visit some local flagships/privates/LACs to see what appeals to him before we start doing serious research or travel.</p>
<p>xaerial, Yes, I did mean that. </p>
<p>I visited mainly match schools though I did visit two Ivies. One of them, for the program I applied to, highly recommended coming to the open house on a specific date. My father and I drove up, through hell, and I have to say it was definitely worth seeing it.</p>
<p>Also, if your daughter is applying to a specific program, visit on the open house. Don't visit before on a general visit. Make sure that your one visit is enough until your need to go back (to decide, if you must). But really, I do believe that types of schools are important. I'm in the NE and before I decided where I was applying, I scoped out a few colleges from MUN visits. I saw Rutgers and hated it. Then, I saw Yale on another visit (and recently Harvard). But, I think the most significant visits for me was visiting my grandfather's alum #1 which is a very small LAC. Then, I visited a large urban school, which is his #2 alum. I already liked it but the visit did confirm that. Then, from there, I continued visiting very urban schools.</p>
<p>I feel that pinning down the "type" of school that interested me the most was important. My only suggestion would not to pin it down to the point where it's ONLY lacs. For me, I applied to six colleges. Some dramatically different. I wanted to ensure that, if I changed my mind and decided I did not want to be on an urban campus, I would have that option. I reccomend applying to one diametrically different campus just in case of that sudden switch during deciding time.</p>
<p>asdfjkl1,
I forgot that DS also had run the gamut in his list -- tiny to ginormous, East Coast, West Coast, and in-between. He didn't care for rural, but he knew that from doing his Web research and from attending a program at a small school. He wants that small feel, but found it in other places. Public transit became an important factor to him, as he is not in any hurry to get his license (???), and in any event, our EFC doesn't include a vehicle. :)</p>
<p>I agree that what you think you want in September may be quite different in April -- so having some variety is a good thing.</p>
<p>4th house- thank you for your reply-by signing in do you mean on the school's website, registering your info to receive info?</p>
<p>I second the opinion of 4th house: visiting really helped my son with his "Why do you want to attend" essays. He was able to mention professors he talked to and what he found out about the school. Of course, he did some poking around on his visits and didn't just go to the info session on all of them.</p>
<p>Thank you, asdfjkl1, and actually everyone who has responded, for all of your advice. It is very helpful!
Kellid</p>
<p>Thank you, Meugenio-
She is a sophomore now. We are going back East on spring break, but she is kind of thinking of looking at some colleges in the South, Michigan, different places. We live in So. Cal. now, and while it is beautiful, she wants to get out of the "OC" and experience real life. She wants a football team, her interests right now are psychology, communications, marketing ,advertising, she's a good writer, she has good grades, has yet to take the SAT, interested in sororities, plays water polo for her high school. Many interests. Does that help?</p>
<p>The online virtual college fair College</a> Search - CollegeWeekLive, the Virtual College Fair has a new fair coming up the end of March. Check out their website in early March to see which colleges are registering. There are opportunities to talk to students and administrators online as well as check out campuses.</p>
<p>"4th house- thank you for your reply-by signing in do you mean on the school's website, registering your info to receive info?"</p>
<p>Yes, you can always sign up on-line to be put on a school's mailing list, but most schools have a sign-in sheet when you go for their tour or info session. When you sign in for that, the school has a record that you did visit and that you did take a tour and info session. It isn't going to guarantee you admission by any means, but it shows a little more interest and motivation than someone who doesn't visit.</p>
<p>Visiting is the most important thing you can do. Having gone through this process 3 times with each of my kids, I was able to see how their minds changed and evolved throughout the process.</p>
<p>Start off by making a list of those things that you do know that are important to you--possible majors, religous life, affordability, city vs. suburban/rural and so forth. Do the research from websites and books before you choose where to visit.</p>
<p>I saw my middle daughter initially say she would only consider city schools. By the time she was accepted to NYU, she knew she wanted a campus school from our visits, and ended up at Emory instead. Good Luck.</p>
<p>If the college has an independent newspaper--meaning there is no faculty advisor who "censors" the news--reading the college newspaper and searching old issues for topics of interest can help. </p>
<p>Is there a college radio or TV station? Sometimes, you can pick it up. </p>
<p>Search the website. For example, I used to search for things like "drinking" or "binge drinking." It's amazing what can be buried on a site! Look at the office for career services. How much and what sort of help is offered? Is there an internal system for rating professors? Can you access it? Many colleges post calendars of events on line. How much is going on on campus? How much does it cost to attend. Go through the list of student clubs. How many are there? Visit the web pages of the departments of interest--who is in the department, what are the courses they teach. </p>
<p>I also found it valuable to look through alumni magazines. They contain a lot of information about what's going on in many different arenas. Many of these are available on-line.</p>
<p>Also search google news for stories about the college in the local press. </p>
<p>Go to sites like flickr.com. and youtube.com. Put in the name of the school. See what you come up with. For example, if you are interested in things like chorus or a cappella groups, there's a good chance you can see performance clips on youtube.com. If your kid uses facebook, search for groups affiliated with the university. Google the college--you'll probably get hits. if you get too many, narrow by different topics. </p>
<p>I agree with the advice to visit colleges near you to see different types of schools. Go on some tours. Sometimes doing this will raise questions you may not have thought of.</p>
<p>Google Earth</p>
<p>theu.com</p>
<p>This forum ;)</p>
<p>That amalgamation should be more than enough.</p>
<p>I am an older parent, and see a lot of changes in all this. The old-fashioned etiquette, if you will, was to carefully choose maybe 4-6 schools that a student might be interested in, visit, interview, and apply. There was a thoroughness and courtesy to the whole thing. Students only applied to schools they were absolutely sure they wanted to go to, and colleges, with fewer applicants, could also pay a lot of attention to applicants.</p>
<p>I suppose the Internet is one agent of change, as are all the guide books and other books in the college guide section.</p>
<p>There seems to be almost a gambling mentality: find schools online that may meet your criteria, apply to the largest number of schools that you can manage, see what your results are, visit then, and decide.</p>
<p>While this seems practical in terms of the student's and family's time and energy, it does sort of skew the whole process, and contributes to the admissions frenzy.</p>
<p>People talk about lack of "transparency" and "predictability" on the school's end, but the same is increasingly true of students. The schools can't possibly be assured an applicant will accept the acceptance, when everyone is still in a research mode, AFTER admission.</p>
<p>I understand why people are visiting after results are in. I have gone through this with two kids, and it is stressful and tiring. But we do try to visit every school before the application goes in, try to keep schools down to 4 (6 in the case of a student applying to both colleges and conservatories), and generally not participate in the craziness of this whole thing.</p>
<p>I guess I think that it is not courteous to apply without a visit, unless money for travel is absolutely an issue. Each applicant is sort of out for themselves, and the whole system suffers. If everyone applies only to a few schools that they truly want to attend, the admissions process will become more sane and less stressful for everyone.</p>
<p>Hey, as I said, I'm in my late 50's. Things really used to a lot easier emotionally for everyone involved in college applications, despite the need for travel.</p>
<p>One other thing: starting off by visiting an area with a few different types of schools is a great suggestions. We visited Amherst MA first with both our kids: there are 5 schools in that area, all very different: big public, small liberal arts, funky experimental, single sex etc. That saved us a lot of travel later, because it helped clarify things from the start.</p>
<p>i picked schools based on, but not limited to, location, major, prestige, and what i've heard about the schools. some general research helps too.</p>
<p>check reviews!! i think the best thing to do is go to sites where colleges are reviewed by the students because that way you really get the best idea of what the school is like from the student's point of view. i found a great one campuscompare.com. there is also a lot of other great info on there.</p>