My D will be starting HS ( class of 2022) and I’m trying to get her to start thinking about colleges. When did you start tours?
Every kid is unique, but I think most incoming HS freshman are still forming so it might be a bit early. For my son who’s 13 and will also be starting HS/CO2022, it would be way too early to start looking. I think between now and Jr year, he’ll have matured (I hope) and changed so much that the things that would be important to him now - look! they have an ice cream machine in the dining hall!!! - would be very different than what he wants and needs for college when he’s closer to a young adult rather than just being young.
With his older brother who will be starting college this fall, I started serious talks about college and tours in the summer before his junior year.
We toured a big, D1 state school the summer after freshman year. I just picked one that would make a nice day trip. That trip let us know that a big state school was not going to work. D was then able to focus on small LACs. We spaced other visits out over vacations in sophomore and junior year.
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Based our prefs (avoid summer visits) & circumstances (D far away at boarding school), we did a mini tour during spring break of soph year. It was primarily a fun adventure trip that included 3 college visits.
D made good observations which helped me figure out other schools to add to her list for consideration. We made a few other visits during other breaks. She applied mostly to schools she had never visited, but the visits were valuable in narrowing her preferences, defining her “must gaves” and “don’t wants.”
1 did not "tour" any college. He had seen many colleges. He was too busy to tour and skeptical it was worth his time. He knew his main criteria and we could agree on a list of colleges to apply to -- without the visits. After admission, however, he visited two of them (Williams and Chicago). On admitted students day he made up his mind to attend Chicago.
2 made one long tour with us over 10-days ranging from the Midwest to New England in June after her junior year. She was only interested in art schools and programs. The tours were informative. She only applied to stand-alone art schools, with one exception (Carnegie-Mellon). She made the decision after she was admitted to 5 colleges and very happy with her education. (General advice re art programs: it's good to make visits while a lot of recent student art is on display, which would be during the school year.)
We did a couple spring of soph year, just to give them idea. Local, varied in size. It was helpful. D1 in particular, had the reaction that “I like this school, BUT… I think I can do better”. And it gave her incentive to get her grades up a notch for junior year and study for her standardized tests.
Once we’d visited those, we got a Fiske Guide to Colleges and spent time with it. D1 LOVES to shop, and she saw it as a type of shopping. I think she read the whole thing to cover, marking schools as she went. D2 HATES to shop. She asked me to go through and flag some schools that might work for her, then we talked through those schools. Started with about 30, and pared down to about 20 from that discussion. We visited most over the next 18 months. Weaving many into other trips visiting family, when driving to & from fairly distant summer camp, etc. A couple of trips just to see schools. Since I knew she hadn’t perused Fiske as carefully as her sister, I copied the Fiske pages for the colleges we were going to on a given trip, and gave them to her to read on the way to campus that day in the car. Worked pretty well for us.
I think showing a kid a college or two, so that they truly have an idea what all the hubbub is about, after freshman year is not a bad idea. I don’t know if I would do the info session or just do a tour at that stage, but exposing the kid is not a bad idea.
We live a plane ride away from most of the Us our kids were thinking of potentially attending. We visit the continental US most years. From about the time S was a HS freshman (and D 2 years younger), when we went to any city, we’d try to swing by Us that we thought might be of interest to the kids—mostly just get a view of the campus and area. It was generally summer, so no schools were in session.
Even just driving by the area gave the kids a better idea of how rural or urban a campus could be and the difference between a mostly self-contained campus vs one where there were buildings scattered throughout the city. It also helped them to realize how high the snow can go in say, Rochester NY.
We drove through campuses around Denver, Rochester, SF area, and LA over a number of years. We did attend a few tours as well. Our S also took a course at a local urban U as a rising JR. He was very underwhelmed. We feel these experiences were valuable to our kids and us. Ultimately, both ended up at the same OOS private U, which we had driven past but never toured; both were very happy there.
We did all but one rising senior year, but the one we did after sophomore (rising junior year) was the most important. We visited our state engineering flagship. After touring, I asked if he could see himself there? He said yes. I let him know that there was no pressure from there in then. Even if he got a few Bs (he never did) or had a bad SAT day (fortunately he didn’t), he’d be accepted there. It let him study without fear. Having a known in the bank is a nice way to start.
I think we first did a visit to a big state university when my child was a HS freshman. The timing was great as his HS was on break but it was also the first or second week of college classes. It was my alma mater so we snuck into a big lecture hall and attended a 100 level class. It was great to feel the energy of a new quarter and a great experience to see what a college class is like, the good and bad. We didn’t do the tour/info session of the school until he was a sophomore.
We started at the end of Freshman year. It’s a great way to refine a college list. As the list narrows, it offers the opportunity to go back for a second or third visit, sit in on a class, etc.
Martin Luther King day of sophomore year. It was a great choice - kids were all just getting back to classes, the tours weren’t too full, we had typical wintry weather, the tour guides were all enthusiastic about the start of classes. Our second tour was of a school that had very good facilities and spirit (St. Johns of Maryland), but that I knew he wouldn’t be a good fit for. It was good to have a place like this early on the visiting list, so he could discover for himself that a school might have great buildings and a great surrounding town but if the program itself isn’t right for you then you should look elsewhere…
We didn’t see another until April, which was about the right break time. Our third tour was my secret favorite, and he absolutely loved the place.
We didn’t want college concerns to taint the high school experience and waited until spring of junior year. I guess it might vary with the kid. We always started with a particular (Amherst, MA) area that had a large state U., traditional LAC and an alternative type LAC to establish what preferences might be. (None of the schools we looked at that day were necessarily meant to be on the list, they were just examples) Then we thought about location, meaning urban versus rural or suburban. Then we visited in earnest late spring of junior year, some summer, and fall of senior. My kids did not apply to schools they did not visit beforehand: this kept the list down, because they applied only to schools they knew were a fit after visits. In one case, my daughter got sick the day of the planned visit and she wrote to apologize and say she wished she had made it: she visited when accepted.
With D16 we started touring spring break of junior year.
S19 is a rising senior and hasn’t been on a single tour yet. It’s like pulling teeth with him. We will start visiting later this summer.
We started tours Spring semester junior year for D17. S19 tagged along on 2 of those tours (when he was a freshman). S19’s first tour was during Spring Break junior year as well. Students do not have to visit all of the schools to which they apply. They can always visit once accepted. Of course, there are schools that track demonstrated interest, so that is something to keep in mind.
me29034 my oldest (son) dragged his heels so one day I told him that it was fine by me if he didn’t go to college: he could work instead. He was a top student with excellent EC’s etc. but I meant it.
I went out, and when I came back he had made a color-coded schedule of schools to visit!
We waited until Spring of junior year with S17, which was too late in hindsight given he played football and wrestled so August - March was pretty much off limits for visits senior year! Luckily he wanted to be closer to home so we were able to day trip every where he was interested in.
My D21 tagged along, so I guess technically she’s already started touring! But officially, we’ll probably start spring of sophomore year with her - she wants to look farther out, and we travel a lot with her cheer team so will sneak visits in as we go.
My D’s high school assigned visiting 1 college during the summer after Freshman and Sophomore years. We live in a large city so it’s an easy assignment and let’s the kids start thinking about college. During Fall of Junior year they take trips to a couple of local schools - you can choose which visits. Then we started visiting in earnest Spring of Junior year knowing what type of school and realistically could attend.
Started prior to Junior year but this was really too early for S17. He was not that interested and felt out of place. By spring break Junior year he was much more ready for visits. We had to start early because school had strict 3 day limit for school visits during year and we were looking OOS and he had commitments most of the summer away from home. Best visits were just prior to senior year and during first semester Senior year.