<p>I’m a student. Total over the last 2 years i’ve seen about 27. The bulk being during spring break and over the summer.</p>
<p>None during the school year but several the summer before junior year, maybe 4, and several the summer after junior year, maybe 6.</p>
<p>27? Wow! How did your parents find the time to take off to visit 27 campuses? How many did you eventually apply to?</p>
<p>Our HS officially allowed only 2 days for these visits, but most students go to school in state. I had a conversation with the principal, told him that our son was looking at several schools that are a significant distance from home and that the 2 days would be consumed by a visit to a single school. He knew that son wasn’t unduly reaching and said that such visits were fine, just let him know in advance.</p>
<p>The 6 in PA and 1 in OH wre a driving 10 day trip. The 3 in MN and 2 in CO were during an EC taking place there. Now that I think about it, there were actually more, but oh, well.</p>
<p>Our kids’ school allows kids to take time off to do college visits. They have a form that the kids “run around” to the teachers who sign-off and the absence is considered excused. Mine are kids who don’t “like” to miss school so generally we scheduled the junior visits on day off days to make long weekends in 4-5 day chunks.</p>
<p>I think it is a pretty neat idea to have that, because let’s be honest, parents are still going to take the kids, the difference is they will say the kid was sick!</p>
<p>^^yes and it’s always interesting for the kids because generally when they take the form to the teachers the teachers will take a moment and ‘wax poetic’ about “their” college years or when they see the name of the college or colleges the kids are visiting will have some anecdotal story to tell. I’m not big on “lying” or “blue flu” and my kids know that, so as a parent I appreciate that it’s an open/honest system that works for everyone.</p>
<p>As some indicate above, I felt after doing the college trip scene with two kids now in college that we probably overdid it.</p>
<p>Get a feel for city v. country v. suburban, big v. middle v. small, and leave it at that except if the school is close by. You can get a great feel these days for a school online, message boards, you tube, guides, etc.</p>
<p>Wasted a lot of time and money, and yes we are a very very close loving family and love to spend time together, but I would rather spend in at a resort than hearing the 20th college tour.</p>
<p>AND the rubber hits the road after the kids are accepted, you go back ANYWAY before making a final decision.</p>
<p>(Only caveat is that if the school is reasonably close, they like to see you have visited it or they think you are not interested.)</p>
<p>I think it is also about the child. Some kids are so excited they want to see every college, some don’t care either way. Our children were the type that didn’t care either way. They were the true decision makers. We even would ask would you like to go and see? They always said no because it didn’t fit into their schedule.</p>
<p>When they got accepted that was when they said Let’s Go. Again the rubber meeting the road, because now it was reality to them that they were going somewhere.</p>
<p>Next weekend we are off to see JMU and VaTech, but that is all we will be seeing. I am sure by the end of the day my checkbook will be coming out and we will be going into one of the bursars offices to make a deposit.</p>
<p>I guess that is also the positive side, they are not mucked up with too many decisions and that removes the I don’t know what I should do situation.</p>
<p>D visited two during the summer before senior year for admissions interviews and programs, one large university and one LAC. (She ended up applying to the LAC, but not the large university.) She did a summer program at a third, and visited several other large universities for academic competitions and programs open to the public during the course of high school. She had no intention of applying ED anywhere.</p>
<p>Once she had offers in hand, she visited four of these during accepted students days.</p>
<p>We did insist on building a list from the bottom up, and she had already seen the campuses of her two “safeties” before she applied, and knew students from her high school who had enrolled at these schools. One of these remained on her short list of four at the end of the process. (Hint: It is important to choose a safety that your student would actually be happy to attend.) Both safeties had a rolling admissions process that made her senior year far less stressful than otherwise would have been the case.</p>
<p>My junior year I saw one-Union, money was too big of an issue to see more. I applied there and was accepted with great financial aid</p>
<p>This year, I’ve visited one more-Bama(they paid for the visit) and will be visiting another-Smith(they are also paying for the visit). I’ve been accepted at both, with large scholarships at both</p>
<p>So, in all, I will see 3 schools</p>
<p>I agree put only schools that your child would be happy to attend on the safeties otherwise it is a waste of your application fee.</p>
<p>I was incredibly impressed with our DD she only put 1 safety on, because she said if I can’t get in here, then really I would rather go to a CC for a yr and re-apply. Fortunately she got 5 out of her 5 so it was moot. It was hard to accept that she would go to a CC because that was never a thought by us, but when we got over that shock it proved to us she had her head on right. She knew she could go to other safeties, but felt it was a waste of money and she would leave within a yr anyway (transfer out to a different school).</p>
<p>I think sometimes parents get more wrapped up in the process than the kids do. We were very hands off. We would ask if the application was done, if they wanted us to proof read, but that was it. We decided that we would be there as a safety net if they wanted us, but realized sooner or later it was their life to live and we would have to cut the apron strings. Actually our DD is famous for saying to me “MOM/DAD, seriously I am 18 and will be going to college next yr, you need to accept that I am an adult. You are not going to be there holding my hand come September!” Hurts to hear that they are grown up, but also makes you feel good that they are!</p>
<p>wow- thanks -many different views- our school gives 5 excused visits - can be anything i think b/w college visits to OT- D was interested and seems interested talking to this cousnelor- I am going to lay low for awhile and get her to bring it up I guess</p>
<p>We visited one school during summer after freshman year which got S a little interested in looking at colleges. We did a driving trip from starting in Vermont and ending in PA, our home state during August before junior year. Before that trip, H and I researched the several college guides and gave list of about 25 schools that we thought S would be interested in. S picked out 4 colleges to visit and we added another because it was on the route home. During spring break of junior year, we visited 3 more. In August before senior year, he returned to the 4 closest and interviewed. He applied to the 4 that he interviewed and 2 more reaches. He was accepted at the 4 that he interviewed (1 reach, 2 match, 1 safety), was waitlisted at one of the superreaches that he did not interview, and is waiting on the other super reach.</p>
<p>S would say that he hated the visits but might reluctantly admit that they were necessary. We are going to try to plan another visit to his top two choices at his request but it is difficult with IB commitments and varsity sport. Having 8 snow days this year certainly complicated things.</p>
<p>Looking online is helpful but it is hard to get a true feel for the campus unless you can talk with students. Probably visits give an incomplete picture also. And I know that my teenager can make some pretty irrational decisions based on inconsequential pet peeves.</p>
<p>We tied visits to other events - on route to camp, sporting events, etc and overall visited 7 schools, 3 which made the final list that she applied to. We used the visits to narrow down other choices and figured we’d visit after we heard one way or the other. Now she’s in at her #1 which was one of the original visits (which she saw the first time in the pouring rain after driving for 4 hours from an event pick-up and still fell in love) so we won’t be visiting any others. </p>
<p>We have excused absences for college visits but my daughter hates to miss school and always had sports schedules that didn’t work well with visiting. Cost was an issue too, and while now we know we could have left a few off the applied list it was still cheaper to research online, get the background, apply and then wait and see decisions before deciding to visit. We cancelled 2 flights to visit schools due to weather and school conflicts and now we don’t need to visit and I’m happier we didn’t spend the money to visit since if they were still in the running we’d likely be visiting again.</p>
<p>I agree that visiting after getting the “yes” is important so it’s hard to know where to spend the time and effort. My daughter did a lot of research on college websites and usually crossed a school off if the website irritated her or they didn’t have a virtual tour. I thought that may be a harsh way to just nix a school but in the process I’ve found college websites usually match the personality of the college and the ease of dealing the the various departments.</p>
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<p>Our DD was the same, if she didn’t like their website when trying to navigate it, she was turned off by the school. For our DD the website came down to 3 things she wanted to know about…1. THE PROGRAM —she can tell you everything about her intended major for each school. 2. RESIDENT LIFE — knows the dorms and the food programs (actually removed Clemson because of Resident Life) 3. LOCATION —type of college town, she wanted small suburban and not urban.</p>
<p>starting the summer before Junior year and ending the summer before Senior with twins we visited 11 officially and 1 unofficially.</p>
<p>Off topic, but did the twins want to go to the same school, or were they on opposite spectrums…I always wonder about twins when they go to college if they have the feeling that I want to be separate or if they have similar minds that they both want the same thing.</p>
<p>We took our trips in the Spring of Junior year because our son’s major sports season was Fall. It was great that he had made his visits and compiled his list by the time school started in the Fall.</p>