<p>^ This is fine if you make enough money to visit these schools. For me, my family could only visit schools that were within driving distance of an hour; there was no such thing as flying cross-country to visit schools in other states. I’d also rather ‘burn’ time on an application than burn MONEY on a visit.</p>
<p>I visited some schools before applying, but only ones that were close to my home. Then again, I mostly applied to schools that were close to my home. And when I applied to graduate school, I only visited ONE school before being admitted (also close to my college). I was admitted and visited my top choice later, and it turns that my off-campus assessment of it was pretty accurate.</p>
<p>Sometimes I suppose that it can be informative, but that doesn’t mean that I support the idea of doing it. That is, however, coming from a working-class background where insisting on a week-long college tour before even applying is absurd at best, selfish at worst.</p>
<p>Most college students in this country attend a college within 250 miles of their homes. Consequently, for most students, it would be reasonable to visit potential safety schools before applying.</p>
<p>Heck, for most students I know, their safety was within a 2-hour drive of their home.</p>
<p>It’s only on CC where most students seem to be considering colleges a long plane ride from home.</p>
<p>My definition of a safety college is one that </p>
<p>1) is pretty much certain to admit the applicant, based on its known behavior in acting on recent admission applications,</p>
<p>2) has a strong program in an area the applicant is interested in,</p>
<p>3) is affordable based on its known behavior in acting on financial aid applications,</p>
<p>and</p>
<p>4) is likeable to the applicant. </p>
<p>All four criteria are important. Number 4 is important.</p>
<p>overwhelmed, if she is “pretty unenthusiastic about them” they are not good safeties. I don’t mean to lecture, but I’d agree with the posters above who would say that your daughter is missing a key element of the college list formulation, i.e., identifying a sure bet that she IS enthusiastic about.</p>
<p>These are generally harder to find than the reaches and matches, but they are out there. Sometimes it’s exactly a visit that does push the safety into the feasible category. The reason (in my opinion) that most safeties have high admit rates are that they have a “fatal flaw.” In otherwords, something not to like.</p>
<p>Could be a different thing for different people, e.g. size, gender balance, location, environment, but sometimes actually going there, talking to students, walking around campus will reveal that it’s actually not so bad, or if you’re lucky actually pretty good. Then you can all sleep soundly from December to April.</p>