<p>We have looked at a total of 7 campuses so far and were planning to look at about 10 more -yesterday when we were trying to plan another trip - D said I think I'll be happy at 3 that we already looked at- But she wants to look at a few more that her friends have liked- Just curiopus how many you looked at and if it is really worth looking at 20 campuses- it gets so repetitive.. I do believe it is very important but don't want to push her to where she won't go visit anymore. Maybe we will take a break until summer</p>
<p>Junior year?
Me: 0
Son: 0
Daughter: 2 (in one trip, accompanying a friend who was a high school senior)</p>
<p>Daughter: 3, but she had visited 3 others previously.</p>
<p>Son: 2, and that was all he would tolerate.</p>
<p>I have juniors who are twins. We have visited 8 so far, leveraging three day weekends such as presidents day. Currently we are on spring break in Boston where we plan on 6 more. Then there are 2 day trips to OH and MN that will being the total to 18.
How else could they possibly plan any ED strategies if we waited til senior year?</p>
<p>Just one, but I visited 5 or so as a sophomore.</p>
<p>Me:0
DS: 0
DD: 0</p>
<p>With the internet these days kids spend hours pouring over their sites. </p>
<p>Now when our children got ACCEPTED that was when we took them to their TOP PICKS.
DS went to 1, which was his number 1 choice. DD will be going to two, but we will take her to her number 2 first since I am sure we will be writing a check at number 1 that day.</p>
<p>I do agree in the end a classroom looks like a classroom. 20 campus tours seems a bit over the top. Is she really interested in all of these colleges? If she is forget about touring any this summer because she will need all of summer to do 20 applications by December.</p>
<p>I have to ask besides the campus feel, what do you feel is the most important reason to do campus tours that you would not get via the web site.</p>
<p>counselor wants her to see them- I think it’s a little much- thanks for the info</p>
<p>I think it was fourteen, excluding a couple of drive-bys. A few of these were in spring of sophomore year. Many of the visits were tied in with the travel team’s schedule. We did look at large / medium / small, urban / rural, public / private before zeroing in.</p>
<p>Junior year with each boy we took 2 trips. The first just to get the big/small/rural/urban figured out and the second to targeted campuses. We probaly looked at about 10 with each kid…a few of those were drive through/drive bys - basically colleges that had sounded good on the web but upon arriving the boys decided no for some reason or another.</p>
<p>11, including a couple nearby that were just to do the large/small, urban/suburban differentiation.</p>
<p>We did one big trip to DC/ VA where we saw 5, another small one where we saw 2, and then a couple more state schools, so a total of about 9.</p>
<p>We started looking in Sophomore year. We had the feeling that when we spoke about choices, and colleges, it was mystifying to our daughter, for whom this seemed like an alien discussion. So, we started making a few trips and she started to understand what her choices could be. </p>
<p>There were schools she loved that she knew would be a reach. There were schools we left after spending 15 minutes in the reception center. There were big schools, small schools. But these trips also helped her think about what she wanted to study, and get an idea of what that experience would be like.</p>
<p>Ironically, after visiting visiting 12 schools, with the 13th as a “throw away”, she fell in love! It became her first choice, she got in and will be attending in the fall. </p>
<p>The visits were so much more about the “vibe” and the “fit” than we anticipated. She ended up at a big urban university, where initially she thought she wanted small LACs.</p>
<p>Wow, our counselors both in NC and VA were very laid back about campus visits. However, the hs had many IS colleges come to the school and sell their school to the kids. I think they started coming in late spring and early fall. It was basically every Friday that kids were allowed to go to the assembly.</p>
<p>I like this because the kids all got to ask personal questions to the admissions officer. They were also handed their “non official” transcript to look at and this allowed them the ability to see how they were racking and stacking according to the school. It also allowed them to talk to the admissions people about their transcript if they felt it was competitive or how to make it competitive. </p>
<p>I think it also varies on where you are from. In NJ, you can visit Rutgers, TCNJ Seton Hall, Montclair, Rider, and Princeton in a few short hours. In VA to visit GMU, JMU, Tech, VCU and UVA that is a weekend trip because of the distance between all of them. GMU to JMU is 2 hrs, and then 2 hrs to Tech. There alone the whole day is just driving. Whereas Rutgers to Seton Hall to TCNJ to Montclair might be 45 minutes a part from each.</p>
<p>I do agree visiting is about the vibe and the fit. Our DD’s 2 top choices are actually identical in looks and location, so it will be the vibe that makes her decision.</p>
<p>For those who went to 10+ did your kids apply to all 10? Or did they throw away some, but added more that they had not seen?</p>
<p>I think also for our DS1, road tripping would not have been possible to see all of them since he applied everywhere from Colorado to Florida to NY.</p>
<p>son did 4… mainly to see different types of campuses…one lac in city, one rural lac, one urban type campus research univ, one top 10 state U.</p>
<p>If you do visit, I’d suggest making every attempt to include interviews while there! Otherwise, you may end up running around locally (sometimes an hour from home in each direction) to have some interviews during senior year. S2 ended up only doing one local interview during his senior year. All of the others were done while we visited campuses. This eliminated so much added running around and stress during senior year.</p>
<p>I think it is ideal to do one school per day. Attend the info session, do an interview, take a tour, and eat meal in one of their dining halls. We have done 2 schools per day and this is possible when they are close together, but it is sometimes a bit rushed. Also, take pictures at the schools to remember what you saw. It is hard to remember a dorm room in school A vs. School B. It all begins to blur together after a few schools.</p>
<p>B&P-
After visiting 11, our son applied to 6, only 3 of which he had visited. The other 3 were reaches-for-everyone that are far enough away that we decided to visit only if he were accepted. It turned out that he didn’t need to apply to any safeties because he had an early acceptance to an excellent option</p>
<p>We live in Texas so unless you want to go ‘in state’, visits take time and money.</p>
<p>D is a junior, so we took a trip to DC to combine family vacation with American (large by D’s reckoning!), UMW, Va (perfect, by D!), and Goucher (small). We then drove to Austin to St Edwards - the only in state to be considered!</p>
<p>We plan on one more to Philadelphia and NJ, but will visit several since they are so close. Plus her school only allows 2 days absences for school visits and it’s difficult to ‘see’ the schools if there are no students on campus.</p>
<p>bullet, in our case the kids did not apply “everywhere” they visited. S1 applied to 5 colleges and S2 to 6 out of the 10+ they visited. The visits helped focus and narrow the list. It also kept senior fall, which is a hugely “busy” time of year for seniors, empty of visits. Senior spring is also very busy and a time for kids to emotionally “wrap up” high school complete with all the senior activities, last athletic seasons and all that and I knew that the kids would not want nor could they squeeze in a bunch of visits and I didn’t want to deny them that senior experience so we took care of “business” junior year.</p>
<p>12</p>
<p>PA 6, wound up applying to only 1</p>
<p>OH 1, applied</p>
<p>MN 3, applied to 2</p>
<p>CO 2, applied to none</p>
<p>Wow glow, seems you did alot of driving or flying since CO is not next door to PA or MN.</p>
<p>Mom, your school actually allows excused absences for school visits? What yr do they allow it…JR, SR or either, but only 2. I.E. 1 in JR and 1 in SR, or 2 in JR, none in SR, etc.</p>
<p>I also can understand doing many visits if the child is being recruited. For example, you just can’t apply for UP or Princeton, they must accept you for the application process, and you do interview. Or like our DD’s best friend who is state Tennis champ so she had a lot of colleges recruiting her to play for them. Obviously you want to see 1st hand the athletic facilities. My Sister took her DS to about 6 or 7, but he was a recruited athlete for 2 different sports (baseball and basketball), so it was not only the school and the facilities he wanted/needed to see, but the feel of the teams. The irony is in the end he chose the one with the best scholarship and not the campus.</p>