I’m currently a rising senior, and I’m starting the application process. This summer, I have a lot of things to do (summer assignments for senior year, SAT IIs to study for, colleges to research online, college app. essays to write, etc. etc. etc.), and I don’t think I’ll have time to visit colleges (save for two, none of the colleges I want to go to are really within my range––most would require a plane ride or a very long drive). So how important is visiting colleges, really? Would my chances of getting into a school drop if I don’t visit their campus? Would adding myself to their mailing list be just as good?
We took a plane ride across the country for our eldest, with brother and sister in tow.
We are very glad we did.
There is a general feeling that each student gets stepping onto a campus.
DD visited the east coast. Her sister and brother remembered the trip. DD toured a number of campuses and had no idea that the impact made, stepping onto her campus, would change her outlook: “yes I could go here”, “no absolutely not,” “maybe, depends on the program”, etc.
We have at least 3 similar name-sounding campuses in our city.
Students sometimes apply to the WRONG campus, wrong school and show up across town on move-in day on the wrong day for that campus!
I have friends at admissions offices at UCSD, SDSU, CSUSM and an MD friend who works at the local private USD. They often tell of students who get the acronyms confused and apply to the wrong campuses in town, not knowing that they’ve applied to the wrong campus until they and the parents show up to move in.
You can look on the common data set filing to see whether or not colleges you are considering take demonstrated interest into account. And even if they do, there are other ways to demonstrate interest.
That said, I knew a girl who enrolled at a UC sight unseen because it had a great reputation, and 10 minutes after showing up to move into the dorms she realized she had made a mistake. A few hours driving to visit would have saved her a lot!
It sounds like you’re thinking of trying to visit during the summer. I strongly suggest burning a day or two of HS and visiting while school is in session. It’s really the students that make the school, not they’re pretty grounds or impressive buildings or the library where the architect forgot to include the weight of the books (you’re going to hear that story several times). Schools really do tend to attract a type of student, and do you want to find out if it’s right for you.
I think it is likely more important to visit the ones that are more likely. Some people can’t visit. My daughter didn’t get a chance to visit her opposite coast school but it was not an issue. You can get a lot of idea online. And some visit reports have students turned off for very superficial reasons on visits. But I guess if that is going to turn you off for a visit maybe it will if you attend. You can get a lot of info online.
There is always the option of transferring if you end up hating your school. Some people are too busy or don’t have money to visit colleges hundreds of miles away. Really with the internet now, you can just research the college.
Due to money and time constraints, we won’t be visiting colleges before applications. We did a tour of colleges in California last fall, but that was before my D decided on Engineering and most of the schools we toured don’t have it. The plan is to visit her favorite two or three schools AFTER she has been accepted and see the aid packages.
One other thing I’d add, something I suggest for everyone, is to start by visiting different types of colleges in their area. This would ideally be done in the spring of 11th grade, but the start of 12th isn’t a bad time either. Many kids have little direct experience with large U’s or (for that matter) the participatory style many LACs use. Even if the schools around you aren’t exactly the ones you are thinking of attending, it can be valuable to see what it feels like to spend a few hours on a large urban campus, a large campus in a college-community type setting, a LAC, a school where everyone lives on/near campus, a school with a sizeable proportion of commuters, etc.
IMO visiting colleges is pretty important because you get a vibe or a sense of the school’s personality just by visiting. Also something I learned was that a college can seem very different on paper than in person. For instance, when I started off, I thought I really wanted a small liberal arts college. But after visiting some, I decided that many of them were too small and seclueded, but may be a great experience for someone else. It’s for that reason that I recommend students get to know the colleges they are considering. On the other hand, you don’t have to visit until accepted (be careful of colleges that prefer you to “demonstrate interest”) and if you don’t have any college preference, feel free to simply apply to the ones that interest you
If you can’t visit schools, you can’t visit schools. I’m of the mind that if you have the means, by all means do the visits, but if you don’t, you’ll be OK. I couldn’t afford to visit any schools, as all of them were several thousand miles away and we just didn’t have the money, but it all turned out well. I’d consider myself a pretty flexible person in terms of adjusting to new places, plus even at a teenager I knew pretty well what I liked, with a focus on “school must be in major East Coast city.” I went to the place with the best program for my major that offered me the most money, and ended up perfectly happy on campus. I think if you visit some schools local to you, and focus on visiting different types/sizes, etc. you’ll get a sense of what you like and don’t like, and then can apply that knowledge to schools you can’t visit. I had been on a few college campuses in Georgia, and I definitely was able to extrapolate that to make decisions, re: applying to schools elsewhere. In my experience, most schools don’t care if you don’t visit before you apply.
If you’ve been accepted, and you’re trying to narrow down your choices, go ahead and visit if you want. Of course, it isn’t the most economical decision, so keep that in mind.
While it can look and sound great on paper, sometimes you have to experience the place yourself to decide if it’s a right fit for you. Sometimes it is, sometimes it is not.
You should do that at least before you commit to the school you’ve admitted. You are going to spend the next 4 years there. My D did not visit every school she applied but most of them. At least, she got a sample of different campuses in size and setting (e.g. urban or country) that would. I now a girl moved to California from Michigan to attend graduate school at Berkeley, she does not like the area so much that she withdrew from school and moved back within 3 months. So there is a risk if you just go by fame instead of fit.
I feel visiting is very important because you can see if the school fits you. If you can visit before applying definitely go to admit d students days. You want to step foot on the campus before You send in a deposit.
If you can’t visit, then you just can’t. But there are a lot of drawbacks to waiting until you are accepted to visit.
(1) You might be applying to schools that really aren’t a good fit for you. So you are wasting app time, and not even putting in apps to places that may be better for you.
(2) Time to visit is limited if you are applying to schools that send admissions in late March and want a decision by May 1. All you have is April, when students and parents are busy and flights are expensive on such short notice. It is a high stress experience to try to cram more than a couple of visits in that month, and some students realize only then that they don’t really like the ones they do go to.
(3) Every year we see students drop schools from their list in April that might have been the best fit, but the logistics of visiting are too much.
(4) It is a lot harder to write those “Why College X?” essays if you have never been to campus.
(5) The Net Price Calculators and the Common Data Set give you the tools to make a decent approximation of cost, so waiting for the FA packages isn’t a reason not to visit.
Now… I do suggest you visit mostly matches and safeties. It is usually harder to find ones that are a good fit. I also recommend going to accepted student visits to your top 2-3 choices once acceptances are in.
I’ll echo:
If you can, you should. If you can’t then at least try to visit different types of colleges (as mikemac said in #8). You should get a feel for the different types of schools and where you might fit in.
At least try to visit your top choices once you’ve been accepted.
I strongly agree with @intparent—if at all possible, visit the schools before you apply. March and April are so busy, and many students are simply exhausted (plus still dealing with the pressure of “finishing strong”). My son had visited all the schools he eventually applied to by the end of the summer before his senior year. Some schools he was originally considering got eliminated, and others rose or fell in his rankings, often quite dramatically, because of the visits. In April he was swamped with work and just wanted the whole college admissions ordeal to be over; though he’d planned to visit his top three choices again, he ended up committing beforehand, only afterwards visiting just the school he’d chosen. April is a very stressful—and often very expensive—time. Keep in mind, too, that the admitted students events are exciting and designed to make students want to attend—the atmosphere is quite different than during the regular academic year or summer. So if you only visit at those events in April, getting a realistic sense of what being a student at any given school might be like may be quite difficult.
The vast majority of applicants benefit substantially by visiting while school is in session, and before March of senior year. There is simply no substitute for sitting in classes that you will be taking, and eating in the cafeteria, etc. Would you buy a car without driving it?
My oldest just did the accepted visit at her top choice, but she had visited all before applying. D2 had a lot of great choices, and we travelled to 3 accepted visits in April. Good thing we did – although her initial visits were important to help her apply to the right schools to start with and prepare a strong application, she changed her mind from her initial preferences after accepted visits – distant 3rd school rise to the top, and she is very happy there now. 24 hours on campus was quite revealing at her final choices. But without pre-application visits, don’t even know if she would have applied to or gotten into her final choices.
The campus visit before application did help my D to write the why this school essay and also expressed interest to one reach school. That is probably why she was accepted even by RD.