I heard it is extremely significant now a days for admissions.
It depends upon the college. For some, it does not matter at all; for others it matters.
Google the Common Data Set for your target colleges and see what each says in section C7 under “Level of applicant’s interest.”
At schools ranked about 20-50 if your stats put you in the top 5% of applicants (35+/1550+) showing interest may be more important that in your stats are average. It would show that you don’t consider the school a safety.
It depends on the school and each school may consider different things as expression of interest.
Generally speaking, it matters less at public universities, especially larger ones, where numbers (GPA/test scores) are most significant. UCLA gets over a 100,000 applications, so a careful holistic review of all of them would be a herculean effort, and possibly open up questions of bias. It matters more at LACs and other private universities. They want to know you’ve visited and thought enough of the place to apply, especially if it’s an ED application. For example, if an applicant lives 3-4 hours from an LAC and has not visited, the school might conclude that they are not a top choice for the applicant. I know Wake Forest and Wash U in St. Louis really put a lot of weight on “interest.” Other schools too. Of course, a school in PA would understand if it got an application from an Oregon student with modest financial resources. It is good advice to check the admissions website and/or the common data set to see what a school says about it.
I’ll add that a student can show interest just by signing up on a school’s admissions website. Also, admission reps often travel in the late spring and summer. If a student signs up, they may receive info about a school’s visits to their region. One of mine visited a top STEM school. It was about their 3rd or 4th choice. They interviewed well, and we were considering a revisit to interview, but school was about 5 hours away. Because we filled out the form on the visit, we got a card from the school, saying it was interviewing in our area. We signed up and only had to drive about 20 minutes for the interview, which was nice.
Schools will often send a rep to regional college fairs or have traveling joint presentations with other schools. Signing up for these also is a way of showing interest.
You can look up the CDS of each school to see if it is considered or important. Note that one may sign up for all the newsletter, campus visit, summer programs, and yet exhibits lack of interest in the essay. Even large public universities usually do not put much weight in “expression of interest”, if at all, one may blow the application in the essay such as referring to a program that does not exist at that school. The adcom can feel how much you are interested at that school from your application.
“Showing interest” is not just about visiting the school campus. As many point out, requiring this sort of “interest” would be impossible for low-income students and perhaps impracticable for an entire swath of other kids who may not have time or ability to visit.
However, if you are going to apply to a college, and possibly spend four years of your life there, you should be able to do one of a few other things to show “interest” and it says something negative about you if you don’t. You can sign up for information from school website. You can visit with an AO either at a school visit or a regional college fair. You can email an AO or the admissions office generally to ask a question or two. You can email an AO or admissions office generally to ask about whether there will be a visit at your high school or at a regional college fair. You can ask for an alumni interview. You can explain in an essay in the application why the school is on your list (if such option exists). If you are going to bother to submit the application you can at least do one of the above, and none of them cost money.
On the common app some schools have a section on connections with drop downs so you can fill out all the ways you love them. Like attending school presentation, visit, alumni connections etc. check out the school forms on the commin app to see what each wants to see.
For a top college, the very competitive schools, it’s so much more than registering online or visiting. Lol, that’s like having a date and friending on FB, then expecting the other to accept your proposal. How does it show you know them and why you’d be a good match, why they should choose you over all the others?
And the main essay isn’t the place to show “interest.” That’s where you show the qualities and attributes they like, wrapped in a nice narrative.
Many schools either have an obvious Why Us? question and/or will look for the same in how you answer other questions. If you don’t know why you’re a match, how you match, what they want to see, how do you know what to show? If you are so “interested,” you should know.
So yes, if you’re close enough, visit. But also get a solid read on what match is.
No matter what the CDS shows, every category is important, for a top holistic college. Don’t blow this one, it’s important.