I agree it can be hard to squeeze in visits in April. We’re only doing 2. S is taking a top 15 RD school off of his list because we don’t have time to visit (and he already has good choices that are closer). Wishing we had visited earlier, but at the time I only wanted S to visit likely schools. In hindsight, maybe not the best choice for us, but S will be fine.
If said it on other threads and I’ll say it again here, it’s very hard to write the “why us” essay without having been to campus. My daughter’s first choice, on paper and from internet research, she ended up hating when we got to campus. IMO there is no substitute for an on campus visit if you can do financially swing it. Summer visits are better than no visits at all, especially since so many schools have summer sessions so there are students still on campus.
@kirstenm44 “Honestly, colleges do not look at/consider interest/visits that much,”
Actually, colleges will tell you exactly how much they consider interest in section C7 of their Common Data Set.
My older son refused to do any more visits after the first four. As far as he was concerned all dorms look the same. He could find out what he needed to about the department (CS) on line. Since his essay was pretty much along the lines of “I’m a computer nerd! Take me or leave me!” and his “Why __ college? was always about the CS department” I don’t think visits would have mattered much. It was like pulling teeth to get essays out of him, there was no way he was going to carefully craft his essays for each college.
My younger son was quite different. Interestingly, I think his best “Why ___ college?” was for U of Chicago which he hadn’t visited. It was pretty funny and they commented on it, in a card they sent in after his EA acceptance.
Neither of my kids liked being tied down by ED or SCEA. In fact my older son told his Harvard interviewer he hadn’t applied SCEA because it wasn’t his first choice. Take that Harvard!
Visiting can trim up the application list. If she visited 6 and eliminated 3 and is now contemplating adding 7 more to the list perhaps that 7 can become a more manageable number.
We gained a lot by doing college visits with my D. At her top choice college, we were able to get an office call with the Dean of Admissions who explained in detail their board process on how they evaluate applicants. He is a member of the board and he encouraged my D to meet with her regional admission rep who was another member of the board. Although they don’t officially consider “demonstrated interest”, I believe meeting personally with two members of the admission board that evaluated her application could only be a positive. She was admitted ED and is happy junior there today. Of course, visiting reinforced her and our family decision for her to apply there ED.
Although not a big deal for us, several colleges waived application fees for those that visited their campus. She was also able to sit-in on two classes at her top choice college, see and meet actual students, we ate in their dining hall, and were shown an actual dorm room, not a model prepared by an interior decorator as some colleges showed us.
Most importantly, my D was able to visualize what it would be like attending and living at each college we visited. With the large investment required by many to pay for a college education, I can’t imagine making such a commitment, especially ED, without at least visiting the campus. Our strategy was to arrive the day before the formal college prospective student presentation and tour and do our own walk around of the campuses on our own first.
Not all dorm and dorm rooms are alike. At one college, getting into a dorm was like entering a prison where you had to scan an ID card to enter, and then have a human at a booth look at your college ID and buzz you into the corridor, and then unlock the dorm room again with a student ID card. Once in the room, the windows were small as was the room, so it felt like being in a prison cell.
At one public college she visited, the facilities she saw were often not properly maintained and run down and that left an important, albeit negative impression, too.
“Honestly, colleges do not look at/consider interest/visits that much, if they do it is at the very bottom of the list. I would say that if you have the grades/essay/all around good student/extra curricular then it does not matter if you show interest, you will get in and they will not accept someone who showed more interest over you and not accept you. I think they might give a second look and reconsider those who may not be strong applicants on their own, but showed interest, but that’s it.”
That is wayyyyy overstating it. If you live close to certain colleges your application may be tossed if you don’t visit. For example we live spitting distance from Northwestern. The admissions office has made it clear to our HS guidance office: Visit or they’ll assume you are not going to go there and your application will be disregarded. Michigan which is a few hours drive expects our hs kids to visit in person to demonstrate interest.
We did not visit any schools that were a plane trip away. We did day trips, and one multi-day car trip to several mid-Atlantic schools. My kids did attend local events put on by the far away schools and took advantage of interviews offered locally. Yes, there were admissions from schools that went unvisited. And there were rejections from schools that were visited. Visiting is only one piece of the whole puzzle. That said, I can’t imagine applying ED to a school my kid hadn’t seen.
“Honestly, colleges do not look at/consider interest/visits that much, if they do it is at the very bottom of the list. I would say that if you have the grades/essay/all around good student/extra curricular then it does not matter if you show interest, you will get in and they will not accept someone who showed more interest over you and not accept you.”
Very much depends on the college. Certain schools are so assured that they are every student’s top choice that they don’t care if a student shows interest. But there is a growing list of USNWR top 20-30 schools that aren’t CHYMPS and are getting tired of being treated as a “safety” or “alternate” to a student’s true top choice, so are starting to seriously consider demonstrated interest.
WashU St Louis is a good example. They are very direct about wanting to see demonstrated interest. Apparently they feel in the past students would apply to their top choice school and then flip in an app to WashU because it was still in the top 20 but was less selective than their top choice. WashU didn’t like their time being wasted and is trying to narrow their pool by focusing admissions efforts on students who showed they were actually interested, not just checked a box to send another copy of the Common App to them. At our HS, I have definitely seen multiple top stat kids denied at WashU SL and the prevailing thought was that they didn’t show any interest. It’s not just based on stats for some schools…
This is part of the research applicants should be doing on all the schools they apply to. Very important to know if this is a school that likes to be shown the love. That said, a physical visit isn’t the only way to demonstrate interest.
I don’t get it. Most very strong applicants get rejected from their top choices anyway. Why do colleges refuse to avails themselves of the opportunity to get stronger applicants? Wouldn’t this result in artificially lowering the average students’ level?
“I don’t get it. Most very strong applicants get rejected from their top choices anyway. Why do colleges refuse to avails themselves of the opportunity to get stronger applicants? Wouldn’t this result in artificially lowering the average students’ level?”
I see both sides of this. Agree with your point, but also understand colleges ranked #10-20 not wanting to have a significant portion of their incoming class composed of students who are devastated they didn’t get in to ___ and who are reluctantly biding their time there at this crappy #10-20 for a few years so they can try to transfer to a “top college”. It only takes a few minutes reading on this board to see how many students are dead set on only one or a small set of prestige based colleges and who are whiny and miserable to be anywhere else, no matter how fantastic that anywhere else is.
I understand it’s controversial, but this is one way I see ED as a good thing. Students who apply ED have already mentally made the choice that this one place is The One, so the college knows they won’t be getting a sulky, disappointed kid who is counting the days until they can escape.
It can be hard for schools to tell if they’re #1 or #9 on a kid’s list, so when they start to think about yield they have to divine intent from subtle things (eg was the essay customized for my school, or was it just generic Journey Of Self-Discovery boilerplate?) A campus visit, especially from OOS, is a sign that time and effort were invested and maybe this isn’t just a random stats match safety throw-in at the end of the common app.
It depends on the school. Some LACs say they consider level of interest, but if a student is borderline, a visit and interview might be the thing that tips them into the admit pile. I’m convinced that if my son had visited and interviewed at a particular school that really emphasizes putting together a balanced entering class, he would have been admitted rather than wait-listed. So investigate as much as you can to find out what “level of interest” really means at each school you’re applying to.
Colleges use much more complicated processes to assess likelihood of attendance than simply noting whether or not the student has visited. Many work with enrollment management consulting firms that have helped them develop complex algorithms and formulas to factor in all sorts of data and factors to assess likelihood of attendance, not just demonstrated interest. These numbers can also be used to help schools calculate how much to offer in merit aid to attract a student.
As to the “demonstrated interest” piece, it also goes beyond visits. For example, they can get a lot of information about students from data mining. They can see whether a student has been opening emalil they send, or clicking on links in that email. They can track whether a student has logged into their online portal, and how frequently the student has logged in. They can also look at factors such as whether the student scheduled a local interview with a rep or alumnus, or attended an local informational event.
So that visit, or not, is just one piece of a larger puzzle. I don’t think it really should come down to whether the student wants to visit for their own benefit or not. The colleges are not basing waitlist decisions on a single factor.
I think to make the decision on whether to further visit schools, you need to 1. investigate whether the school cares. The common data set tells you whether the count in demonstrated interest. Also, we received an admissions advice packet from Carnegie Mellon last fall that said in not so many words, it really is to your advantage to visit campus and interview while here. So we did (didn’t get in, but we did visit!). 2. Evaluate where the school is on your list. Is it somewhere your student really thinks they want to go? Then visit and make sure they are right. If it is a safety school, maybe don’t visit until the spring when you find out if the school is really in play as an option. We didn’t visit our safety schools before application. We knew they would only come into play if he didn’t get into anything higher on the list. Then, after all results were in, we discussed whether they were in play and whether we needed to visit. We ended up not.
We’re also going to visit a number of schools in summer, when some of them don’t even have information sessions. What should we do to demonstrate interest? Stop by the admissions office to say hi? Or just mention the visit in a “why us?” essay?
@yucca10 - not sure I’d count on any random person you talk to in the admissions office during the summer to make a record of your visit. It stinks to play the game, but part of the game for demonstrating interest is getting them to create a file for your kid and then track the contacts in the file so when your kid applies there’s a track record of repeated contacts. If I were visiting at a time when there were no scheduled info sessions, a few weeks before the visit I’d have my kid email (create written record) the admissions office to explain when you’re visiting and ask if anybody would be around to speak to. That way, even if nobody is around, there will be a note somewhere in some file that your child inquired then visited.
Most people are going to tell you what they did and why it was the right thing, but the reality is that for each school/kid combination, it’s going to differ. In a perfect world, you’d have the time, money, and energy to visit every school you were considering, but few of us live in that world. And there is the issue – as evidenced by SO many threads on this site – that there is a bit of serendipity involved in visits. Sometimes it’s the weather, sometimes the tour guide, maybe it’s an exam week, or the day of a big game, or whatever, but it’s hard to know from a few hours what a full 4 year experience will be. So it’s helpful to look at each school on its own.
I recall at one point that Stanford had a message to the effect of “your application is sufficient indication of your interest”. In other words, don’t call us, we’ll call you. Many larger schools admit by stats or don’t have the staff to interact with applicants. So if that’s the universe that interests you, not visiting will probably not have an impact on the decision.
On the other hand, many LACs make a case for admitting people, not stats, and the best way to give them a sense of who you are – given the limitations of the common app – is to show up on campus and interview there with someone who is seeing hundreds of applicants. And of course, if you are not that far away and you don’t have a compelling reason for not visiting, especially if they are flexible with visits, they are likely to think that you’re not particularly interested. If you can visit and talk to students – even the ones who are working there over the summer --, you also have the ability to tailor the “why xyz” essay to something that struck you on campus. And while schools that are not nearby will understand why you can’t visit, they are more likely to think you’re serious if you make the trip. So the benefit is that they can get a sense of who you are as a person AND you can be bettered armed to make a good case for you on an application. Of course, if you can’t visit, you can make a point of seeing the rep when they come to your school (or town), etc.
While I would not advocate applying ED to school I hadn’t visited when it was in session, I do think that summer visits can offer a good chance to talk to the students and faculty who are on campus. We found that on summer visits, it was impossible to assess vibe and that fewer people were around but those who were were very relaxed and available. So not altogether bad! But if you are considering a binding application (ED), the school will know that you’re serious without a visit but how will you know that you like them without one.
You will have a chance to visit the real contenders in the spring, and it’s possible to see quite a few. And at that point, with a decision and affordability info in hand, you can really focus.
OP, one of the things you may want to do is talk to you D about why she doesn’t want to see more schools. It could be that she is feeling overwhelmed with current obligations (and junior grades, AP and IB tests, etc. are pretty stressful, to say nothing of plays, sports, etc.) But she wouldn’t be alone in feeling like she’s not quite ready to leave high school and home, and you might be able to provide her with good support on that. It can feel that working on plans for 18 months in the future is a bit premature, and helping her with the timeline (and understanding that working on it now is’t leaving home and high school now) might be what she needs.
In my opinion senior spring was much too busy to squeeze in college visits. If anything getting those out of the way before October of senior year also helps kids narrow down the application lists. Things that sound ok and look OK can be vastly different than what the kiddo experiences on the actual campus.
For me I couldn’t imagine being shipped somewhere to live and work for 4 years without at least a visit and I wouldn’t do that to the kids either. It is a huge huge investment. So for us it was all about whittling down a lust of 15 or so to under 10 taking into consideration location and travel complexity, strength of potential majors, size, cost and if the kids could envision themself there for four years.
I don’t know how much visiting really changes getting in–I was more interested in using it to help my kids decide where they were interested in applying and/or attending. In fact, my D got into Tulane (which supposedly really cares about visiting) without ever setting foot in Louisiana.
I would say that many kids are really burned out by April and totally uninterested in visiting any more schools. Also, it becomes really high pressured ("you’ve got to decide! Where are you going! constantly). I would see if you could fit in at least a few schools before spring senior year.