<p>My junior currently has a ton of schools on her list. including:
Barnard
BC or BU?
Bowdoin
Brandeis
Carleton
Clark
Mt Holyoke
NYU
Oberlin
Vassar
Tufts
Bryn Mawr
Wellesley
...and probably more I am forgetting. We live in NJ, so some of these are quite a haul. I was wondering how many schools people typically visit? We've been to NYU, Mt. Holyoke, McGill, CMU and Smith so far; the first two advanced up the list while the others fell off, so I guess it was worth it, but I'm exhausted already!</p>
<p>We’re just starting the process and will tour 5 this spring break. D - who is a sophomore - narrowed down her list and we’ve broken them up by region.</p>
<p>How have the tours been? Are you finding them to be similar - same spiel, same tour?</p>
<p>Haven’t found them similar at all! A wide range – and maybe unfair to the schools. Smith had a ditzy tour guide, my d hated her, while MHC’s guide was intelligent, informative, and wrote a personal thank-you note to d for coming. Yet in many ways Smith might be a better choice for her (doesn’t matter – she won’t apply now). Similarly my d loved the NYU tour even though she had been set on small schools before we visited. And CMU, which I loved, was an instant turn-off to d (still not sure why). One thing that is starting to emerge is that smaller schools that are not too remote would be a good fit for her. If Mount Holyoke took boys and was located within an hour of a decent-sized city, it would absolutely be her no. 1 choice…which is more than we knew before the first set of tours.</p>
<p>Which 5 are you touring?</p>
<p>With each of my 3 girls, we visited 8 schools. They were such enjoyable trips, and I treasure the memories. Lots of misadventures, missed directions, and things we laugh about to this day.</p>
<p>It’s not necessary to visit every school on the list before decisions are in. Though, if you wait for accepted student events, you may find them even more packaged than the standard info session-tour. You can determine if each school on the list weighs demonstrated interest as a factor in admissions by looking at the school common data set. Question C7 under “first time, first year” admissions lists academic and non-academic factors, and the school rates how important each is (from “very important” to “not considered”). If a school considers interest important, I suggest a visit if it’s affordable.</p>
<p>That is great to know! Where can I find that information?</p>
<p>We’ve chosen these schools to look at this trip based on what D is interested in at this juncture.</p>
<p>: Harvey Mudd - one of the Claremont colleges
: CalTech
: UCLA - simply because we’ll be in the area and I have a friend who teaches there and is giving a personal tour
: UCSB
: Stanford</p>
<p>There’s a downside to each school but we are going with an open mind.
HM is smaller than she’d probably prefer although it does have the other 4 colleges to draw from. Air quality is poor.</p>
<p>CalTech - admission is tough, may not provide the college experience D is hoping for.</p>
<p>UCLA - victim of CA public school crisis, OOS tuition.</p>
<p>UCSB - same as UCLA</p>
<p>Stanford- tough admissions limited merit $$$</p>
<p>
You can just google the school’s name and “common data set” or you can go to each school’s website and do a search. There’s usually an Office of Institutional Research that has responsibility for the common data set. There’s also a helpful CC thread with links to various school data sets: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/76444-links-common-data-sets-posted-colleges.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/76444-links-common-data-sets-posted-colleges.html</a></p>
<p>Brilliant! You may have just saved me a trip to Minnesota. Looks like we’ll be hitting Ohio, though :)</p>
<p>frazzled1, thank you!!! This is very helpful information.
And thanks for the thread, NJmom!</p>
<p>My younger son applied EA to Chicago sight unseen. He figured if he got in (it was a real reach) he could visit in the spring. He did and it ended up being his second choice by a hair. He liked visiting schools and generally had pretty strong opinions. We figured out pretty quickly he had to have a defined campus (He hated NYU and GW) and it couldn’t be in the middle of nowhere (he also hated Bard.) He was most comfortable with fairly residential neighborhood in or near big cities, just like where we live. He did think it was much easier to write the “Why X College essays if he’d been to the place” and why’ll he hadn’t seen Chicago, he had some family connections that enabled him to write a clever essay about why he hadn’t wanted to apply at first.</p>
<p>My older son visited a few places junior year when I dragged him around and then said he’d had enough, all he cared about was his specific academic program. He did visit all the places he got in in April though. (Which amusingly were none of the places I’d taken him to see junior year.)</p>
<p>I was touched by frazzled1’s comment
</p>
<p>We’re naturalized Americans and not entirely enculturated. D adamantly refused to visit any campuses before applying, saying she wasn’t interested in checking out any place that hadn’t made her an offer.</p>
<p>Just last week we finally attended an admitted student day for the honors college at our state flagship. Everything looked good there. If she actually gets any offers from the OOS privates where she applied RD, we may be looking at some rushed and expensive trips in April!</p>
<p>We learned the hard way that research cannot take the place of several onsite visits. When considering a h.s. for D - who needed/wanted more rigor than available in our small town - we started out with only one. It is considered one of the top in the nation. BIL is a trustee, reasonably close to home, others in the area attend so great carpool. It was a shoe in. D shadowed, we attended all the functions. But none of us ever really LIKED the school. </p>
<p>On a lark we checked out another top school across town. Good reputation, same tuition price, similar academics. After only 10 minutes we knew it was the right fit. And it’s been an amazing school and D has never been happier. </p>
<p>Our rule is that she must visit the campus before she applies.</p>
<p>Since visits can be expensive, it may be worth doing the cheap screening first. In particular, screen out the unaffordable schools and those which are academically inappropriate for the student.</p>
<p>For example, can’t afford NYU’s list price and student is not at the level of getting a big merit scholarship from there? Don’t bother visiting NYU.</p>
<p>Or, ________ does not offer the student’s intended or possible major, or has a weak department or degree program in it? Don’t bother visiting _______.</p>
<p>Thank goodness we visited schools before applying! Things I thought my son would love he didn’t, and the school I threw in because we were in the area is the school where he’ll attend next year. </p>
<p>His school took them on bus trips each year so he saw tons of schools. We did one big tour and visited 6 over spring break. </p>
<p>Most tours are extremely similar, but seeing the other students and the feel of the campus is what made the difference.</p>
<p>D2 is a HS junior as well & we’re visiting 7 schools this Spring; we’ve visited 1 other on her list back in the fall. I’m thinking that the Spring Break trip is going to be a lot of fun and will help clarify things for her. </p>
<p>Some kids don’t need to visit that many while others need to visit a lot. It’s one of those things that varies from family to family and student to student and there’s really not a right answer. I wouldn’t let my kid say yes to a school though without having set foot on the campus.</p>
<p>I visited about 8 with each kid. Our visits were a lot of fun!</p>
<p>Try to visit most of the top match schools; leave the reaches and safeties for later on in senior year once your child has been accepted, unless you can combine a lot in one visit (like trips to the big cities- Boston, NYC, DC), or want to combine it with vacation (California). At least try to give your child a taste of different schools to see what they would like-- a mixture of urban and rural, big and small, etc.</p>
<p>I’ve enjoyed visits with my S. We don’t normally spend a lot of time together alone so it was nice to do that. I think I’ll get a couple more once all accepts are in, and I’m excited for those :)</p>
<p>Since you are in NJ and a couple on the list are in NYC, can she go without you? Barnard is very accessible from NJ trains and buses via subway, Vassar is close to the Metro North Poughkeepsie train stop, 5 minute taxi ride.</p>
<p>Does the CDS show what schools heavily consider “interest”? I know a lot of the CTCL schools seem to care a lot about that.</p>
<p>Seems like there should be a web site with colleges on a map…maybe there is and I haven’t seen it, but seems like a great idea, a google map overlay or something. For visit planning purposes…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It is in section C7 of the common data set – the last entry in the list of criteria for admissions is “level of interest”.</p>