<p>My daughter visited a total of seven schools. One was a courtesy to a close friend and one was from my urging. The first one she visited was the one she fell in love with and will be attending.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, I asked my juniors in hs (I have over 100 or them) how many were planning on visiting schools over spring break and most had no plans to visit any schools.</p>
<p>S visited 8 schools before senior year (four of them were all in one trip, in the DC area) He wound up applying to 4 of those, plus 2 others he hadn’t seen. We’ll be visiting one of the latter next week, where he’s been admitted, so he can make a final decision.</p>
<p>We visited one (my alma mater) the summer before S’s junior year. Then it sank in that he would actually have to leave high school when he graduated, and he became hostile to the idea of visiting colleges. :(</p>
<p>Senior year, his GC talked him into applying to one college without seeing it, mainly to get him to start thinking about life after high school. I then managed to pretty much drag him to see three other colleges–he ended up applying to two of them plus my alma mater.</p>
<p>20, I think; D actually applied to 11. But sometimes the college visit was more just an excuse for a getaway together.</p>
<p>I work part time and follow a university calendar, so I had the time to do this. H hates driving but I enjoy it. And I enjoy the thrill of the hunt on Priceline.</p>
<p>We went on two visits with S1 (and he applied only to those two schools) and two visits with S2 (he applied to only the first one–turned off by his visit to the other). I would have enjoyed visiting lots of campuses, but the boys had a clear idea where they wanted to go so no interest in taking lots of tours.</p>
<p>With my oldest she saw about 30 by the end of her junior year. We live in Boston so she had seen about 10 schools about town just by doing stuff around here. During spring break of her junior year we went on a college visit trip planning on touring 10 schools in 5 days … after making some adjustments and including drive-bys we ended seeing about 20 schools on the trip. One example on the drive into Penn we saw Haveford, Bryn Mawr, amd Villonova. … and when looking at UMass and Amherst we did drive-bys of MHC and Smith. It was a full week but it was a lot of fun.</p>
<p>15 plus possibly 2 more in may</p>
<p>Between Junior year and summer before Senior year, I saw about 25…</p>
<p>Probably going to revisit at least 5 between now and May 1st</p>
<p>By the beginning of senior year, D2 visited 8 schools. She didn’t apply ED or EA and she was still considering a couple of schools at the very beginning of senior year. That semester we visited 3 schools, including the one she now attends.</p>
<p>We saw 20 on 4 different trips, to the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest and West coast. We had an amazingly fun time doing it and fit in visits to friends and relatives and saw some incredible museums and scenery, ate great local foods and soaked in each beautiful campus. We never tried to fit in more than one school in a day and eachg seemed unique. Son applied to 10 and they were very well thought out choices. I agree with some others here that it was a tremendous learning experience and a great family bonding time. I will say that I found the college guide books we used (Fiske and Insiders) to be very accurate in describing the various campus vibes, so if someone couldn’t/ didn’t want to do lots of visits, they could learn a lot from books and websites, apply and visit after acceptances. Or not visit at all, I guess. There’s no one best way to do this. But if you have the time and the inclination to see lots of campuses, OP, don’t let anyone talk you out of it. I have had plenty of people tell me we were crazy to visit 20 colleges, but they were some of the best vacations we’ve ever taken.</p>
<p>Older son
3 - spring break junior year all in CA. He said no more - he cared more about programs than campus vibe. Didn’t get in to any of them and visited 4 colleges during accepted student events as a senior. (He’d lived on several college campuses during CTY and seen one at a reunion as well.)</p>
<p>Younger son
2 - February break junior year
2 - Spring break junior year
1- weekend visit friend’s parent drove (can’t remember when, might have been the summer)
3 - early Sept senior year before his school started, but colleges were in session.
He applied to 4 of the colleges he visited and another 3 he didn’t see. He cared a lot about what campus looked like, where it was and his impressions of the student body. He wants to visit all the places he got in again.</p>
<p>My daughter made 8 or 9 visits her junior year. A few years later, we tried to streamline the schedule for my son. He visited 6 schools; 4 reaches, 1 match, 1 safety. </p>
<p>Visits are a logistical headache, but they really are the best way to get the feel for the culture on a campus. I think they’re vital for kids considering LACs or very small Us (like Tufts or Brandeis). And of course, visits can be important at schools that factor demonstrated interest into the admissions equation.</p>
<p>@bulletandpima post #39: My daughters were non-committal about attending the same school right up until the end. They each had schools to which they applied which were not on the other’s list and one was WLed at her first choice and eventually denied. They did end up going to the same campus as it was the WLed D #2 and the other’s #1 but are currently living separately.</p>
<p>bethie your trips sound fabulous! We tried to make them vacation-like as well and It was a great way to do it.</p>
<p>I live in California, and was mostly interested in East Coast schools. I also couldn’t go on any big trips during Spring Break or anything (very common for people at my school who can afford to do so) due to my dance schedule. So, my (rather odd) visit schedule looked something like this:</p>
<p>February - tagged along with a friend and her mom to UC Davis</p>
<p>March - had a day off from school, went down to Stanford with my mom</p>
<p>June - after school ended, I flew out to the East Coast myself. My aunt took me to a lot of these colleges, and family friends to me to the rest. My parents had no real interest 
I did interviews at as many as possible
I saw: Princeton, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore, Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, MIT, Brown, Wellesley, Cornell, and Smith.</p>
<p>I ended up applying to UC Davis, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Case Western, Princeton, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore, Carnegie Mellon, and Smith. </p>
<p>Summer visits are ok, but not the greatest - I kind of feel the need to revisit the schools I’ve been accepted to because it’s really hard to get a feeling for the school when no students are there in many cases (some schools are better with this than others).</p>
<p>I honestly feel as though I’ll be out of school all April in order to make my decision! Our Spring Break is really early this year, unfortunately, so that further complicates things.</p>
<p>We saw 1 with older D when she was a junior, a small university not far from home, and she refused to look anywhere else. Applied early, got in early, done deal.</p>
<p>Spring break sophomore year I took younger D on an east coast tour, because she’s been adamant about going east since she was young. We were with a junior friend and her mom. We “saw” 8 schools in theory, but some for mere moments-- she bailed on the BU tour after seeing how huge and urban the campus was, and we left Boston College before the tour because she was so put off by the info session first. Basically every school we saw is off her list, but the trip was very helpful, because now she’s much more focused on what she wants.</p>
<p>We’re headed east (from California) shortly to see 7 schools, this time much more focused on what she wants: mid-size LAC or small university with a traditional campus, reasonable train distance from a major city, not too much worse than the 60-40 gender imbalance norm, a bit more artsy than Greek, and with a good (but not intense) theatre program and performance clubs. </p>
<p>Hopefully this time at least 4 or so will make her cut!</p>
<p>historymom–we did love our trips. We visited Northeast schools during Feb break and Midwest schools during April break. The rest we saw in the summer, not ideal, but the kid got a sense. In Annapolis, visiting St. John’s, we took an incredible sunset boat cruise. In Baltimore, visiting Goucher, we went to the amazing American Museum of Visionary Art. When looking at Haverford, we also visited the Barnes Foundation. While on the way to Pomona, we ate at an In-N-Out Burger place that turned out to be their training headquarters. Loved it!!</p>
<p>I must say, 20 info sessions were pretty repetitive, but I felt they might have conveyed to my son that the “most rigorous curriculum available” was actually something that colleges took seriously.</p>
<p>We revisited 6 schools after 10 acceptances were received. Fortunately, our public HS does not limit excused days off. We used the one week April break and took an extra week for our son’s final look at Grinnell, Haverford, Mac, Carleton, Reed and Pomona. He chose Grinnell and it has been a wonderful choice. I think any of them would have been great.</p>
<p>I didn’t visit any colleges either my junior or senior year. Didn’t even visit the college I’m going to, which would have only been a 30 minute bus ride away (but then, there’s also not much point in visiting it).</p>
<p>I would recommend looking at a variety of “types” of schools - big in big city, small in big city, etc. You are trying to get a sense of the type of school, and size of campus. Also - possibly different areas or parts of the country. I think that any vacations during high school should include a couple hours at the local college or university. Then the student can narrow down their list for apps. They only schools crucial to visit are those that “count” it as part of the admissions process. For example, it’s fairly known that Wash U in St Louis counts demonstrated interest in their admissions process. Otherwise, you can wait until acceptances come in to visit the top two choices.</p>
<p>We did all our visiting in October of senior year–four schools in five days. The bulk of the “visiting” we did was with ad-reps at D’s school or at college fairs.</p>
<p>Junior year visits…7 for each kid…but they coincided with family vacations to the destinations where the schools were located. Otherwise…number would have been LOWER.</p>