How many colleges did you visit or plan to visit and how many did you apply or plan to apply to?
For visit I would like to know how many did you visit that require air travel and how may did you visit that can be driven to.
Between my 2 sons, we visited 12 colleges. 3 required air travel and we saw them all in 1 trip. 9 we visited by driving. Both applied to 10 colleges with several overlaps. We did not visit their Reach schools (2). Figured if they got in, then we would visit.
With S18 we visited 12, (also drove by 2 additional that were near other visits and didn’t like the look), and he applied to 9. We drove to all of them - furthest was about 5.5 hours away by car. Being in the Northeast, we have a lot of schools within a reasonable driving distance. He actually ended up at the school that is closest to home (about 40 mins away).
We have only visited colleges by driving. It would not be possible for us to visit by air. We have visited 11 and will apply to 11, but some of those we have not visited. To be fair, its very easy to visit colleges in our area because there are so many of them.
DD’17 visited 4, applied to 2 of them. All were within 2 hours drive.
DD’19 will have her 5th visit on Saturday. One was by air, the rest 3 hours drive or less. She has applied to 3 so far, one of which she has not visited.
We knew our eldest was interested in out-of-state schools but budget didn’t allow for a big east coast tour. So, we did an in-state road trip and focused on types of schools… big public’s, little LAC’s, city campuses, suburban campuses, rural campuses, beach towns. I think we saw 7 schools as a family. Her school took her to local schools and some within 2 hours of Home. An out of state school paid for her to fly out and visit during application season. In the end, applied to 12 schools (only 3 that we toured as a family… most out of state.) She flew and attended the admitted students day of her top choice before enrolling.
Middle was with us on initial college tour though only in 7th grade. We only visited 1 school he was specifically interested in as a family during high school. He flew with hubby to 3 schools back east after he’d been admitted and chose one of them. I believe he applied to 8 all together.
My son visited 6, applied to 5 none were nearby, all but one OOS. Two were on a road trip visited one of those twice - once with friends, other 4 were flying on separate trips. Ended up going three times to the school he eventually attended flying each time (initial visit, accepted student/interview for special program visit, orientation). Helped that all were on Southwest!
All 3 of my children visited about a dozen schools (most by driving) and applied to 5.
D1-- Visited 4 applied to 1
D2- Visited 7 applied to 6
For both we did a junior year spring break driving trip that covered 3ish schools. For D2 we added an East Coast Columbus Day trip and 1 additional flight to re-visit 2 schools.
We visited 29 over a 2-year period and applied to 10. It may seem we visited too many but we really enjoyed these visits.
D visited 11. Applied to 6. Three of the visits were an airline flight away. Two of these we saw while on a family vacation. We took a special trip to see the other after she was admitted and we found a super low rate on Southwest.
S has visited 5 and will apply to five (not the same five).
Cant quite recall, but we visited12 or 13 each for each kid. about a third were driveable, the rest were flights. But we also visited family when we went to some of the far away ones.
We drove to all visits, all visits were in-state, the furthest about 5 hours. Daughter visited 4, applied to 2. Son visited 3 and applied to 5 (2 out of state, did not visit).
D’16 - official tours at 7, applied to 2 of those, plus 5 others she never saw.
S’19 official tours at 3, is applying to 2 of those, plus 5 he did not officially visit (although he has briefly been on campus at two of the schools that made the list)
We visited 15 and dd applied to 8. We did two long road trips and then visited more local schools.
We never visited any colleges for the sake of college visits but as fringe trips during our family vacations and irregardless of whether my son intended to apply to these schools or had little interest in applying to or not. In fact, he didn’t apply to most of these schools we visited. Speaking just for myself, I simply never gave much weight and importance to these college visits (I’m not saying they aren’t, and therefore shouldn’t, to others). My thinking was why spend so much money and valuable time visiting colleges that may very well end up rejecting you or you can’t afford to attend even if you get accepted simply because FA offer isn’t enough. Again, this isn’t to deny or ignore other people’s valid reasons for putting in the money and the time. We all have our own valid and compelling reasons for our own decision making.
My approach was rather “reversed” in terms of the order of the visits, that is: 1) apply, 2) get accepted, 3) narrow down by selection criteria and FA offers, then, 4) visit the finalists.
To the OP’s question regarding how many we applied:
Given today’s highly unpredictable and seemingly random (given equal qualifications within the class of applicants, that is) college admissions practices at “holistic” institutions, we decided on a “shotgun” approach, i.e., casting the net far and wide and see what yields. After hours and hours of careful and in-depth research, and based on our selection criteria that we created, we ended up applying to 14 private colleges OOS consisting of 3 LACs and 11 research universities that we thought were a good mix of reaches, matches and safeties.
This “shot gun” approach yielded 7 admissions. And this is where I came to realize why the shot gun approach involving more than a dozen application had turned out to be the right approach. Although the admissions yield seemed like a great number, their FA (all need-based) offers varied by a lot. We wouldn’t have been able to either afford or without at least putting quite a bit of strain on our finances for most of these colleges that admitted my son. Fortunately for us, there was one institution among the yield that offered a very generous FA package as well as meeting all of our criteria that we had a happy ending. During the decision month of April was when we finally made our official campus visit, the one that met all of our needs and one other college.
We’ve visited quite a few, but have basically tacked on a college tour when we’ve been in the area for other things. My daughter’s only a junior and has visited 10 - well maybe officially 9 as we bailed on the BU tour as she knew immediately it was not a fit for her. We’re planning a southeast tour in the spring to see another 4-5.
We really like to visit. Just to preface these numbers. D1 visited 15 that I can remember, D2 18. We took a total of 6 trips requiring flights, but 3 of those were woven in with family vacations or summer program trips we would have taken anyway. A few were seen on longer driving trips going to and from grandparent visits, too.
D1 applied to 7 schools, D2 to 8. D1 went to 1 accepted student visit, D2 went to 3. All required flights.
Oldest kid - wanted to stay on the West Coast. We toured 2 schools on family trips before she was really looking (9th grade, I think), then during spring break of junior year she and I flew to Portland and toured 3, then flew back and did a driving tour where we toured 5 more. My husband took her to one more locally and then after she was accepted she revisted her top 3 (all flying, but 2 were done with one flight). Oh, she applied to 10, 2 of which she never officially toured but they are local enough that she could have done that easily if they’d ended up being in her top few.
Middle kid, current junior - has taken 4 tours so far plus saw a couple when my oldest was looking. We are planning a spring break trip that will hit probably 5 more. Beyond that there are a couple more that are near each other that we’d have to fly to to see that we might try to go visit but I’m not sure when we’ll fit that in, and I think the rest she’s looking at are in state. Maybe, that could change.
For D16, we visited 11. She applied to 8 of those and one more that we did not visit.
For D18, we visited 8. She applied to 6 of those and also 3 that we didn’t visit but one she had unofficially seen before.