We started in 10th grade and combined them with vacations. We visited about 20 schools in total and indulged in our passion for BBQ. The best ones (meaning best fit) percolated to the top. After awhile the speeches sounded the same “Take all AP’s and get all A’s”, but there was a huge variance in the quality of admission presentation. Tours ranged from an afterthought (Cal), haughty (Princeton), boring and sleep-inducing (Columbia), and tense (MIT). GT and Michigan let their facilities and projects speak for themselves (solar planes, submarines, wild looking drones built by students). I have never seen so many amazing athletic facilities in my life.
Our best visit was at Alabama where we met personally with the university president and the dean of engineering.
I really appreciated how honest and straightforward most of the people were and how much they cared for the students. The ‘we are so great that everyone wants to come here’ speeches got old fairly quickly.