<p>Might look at RIT also - very good reports from friend whose son attends there. Good academics, really likes the school.</p>
<p>My D visited 6 schools with me on what we jokingly called ahead of time "The Harmony or Homicide" trip...Harmony prevailed. In addition my d had seen several campuses during speech and debate tournaments. My wife and I have also gone and visited two other schools with a video camera but after a few minutes she ruled those out. We took a day per school so we had plenty of time to wander around free of tour guides and did not get one school confused with another. This all occurred after numerous college fairs, on line tours and other research that helped her to narrow her list. </p>
<p>If your s is a junior he must have taken the PSAT which should give you a ball park estimate for SAT scores. He would also know his AP scores and or class rank at this point. </p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>deb, we live overseas and the ONLY window of opportunity for our son to visit was the summer between junior and senior years. (We didn't do it before because we were in denial and couldn't do it afterwards because of time constraints.) So. . .we researched extensively and made a somewhat arbitrary geographical restriction. We concentrated on LACs, but also visited one mega university and a couple of ivies. We visited a total of 14, 12 planned in advance and two added during the trip. </p>
<p>The idea was to apply to 8, which was the limit set by the high school. Son ended up applying to and getting into his ED choice so that was the end of that and ironically it was one of the add on's. The outcome has been very, very good.</p>
<p>I can think of 16 schools that my daughter visited from ninth through twelfth grades. Some were as the result of summer camps or all-state orchestra participation that involved overnights. Others were specifically planned as a look at future possibilities. She returned to five of those to audition. She returned yet again to one of those five for an accepted students visit. She has been taking private lessons at another of the five for the past two years, so she has seen that place forty or fifty times at least.</p>
<p>There were a few other visits that were too brief to include in the total. Those involved picking up or dropping off her brother at a summer program or fell into the category of a "drive-by snubbing."</p>
<p>We have visited 8 so far, and will visit 5-6 more this year (rising senior). The first visits we very useful, as we looked hard at schools that were very different in size, academic intensity, and location (urban/suburban). We will continue to look at very different schools this year, now focusing on some other issues which S understands better now, such as dorms and research facilities. It has taken some time for him to internalize the features and benefits of different types of schools, and come up with a clear sense of what he wants, as opposed to what we thought he would like...</p>
<p>We will almost certainly have to re-visit some of the first schools we saw a second time (hopefully after an acceptance) so that he can see them again with more knowledgable eyes.</p>
<p>DS visited 14 schools between 10th grade and the beginning of his senior year (we finished "visiting" by the end of his junior year). He applied to 7 of those schools and was accepted at 6. Because he is a music major, the visits were essential because he also took private lessons with the applied faculty on his instrument. I should add that we also had to go back to 6 of the 7 schools for auditions. The 7th school, DS had a private audition with the department head in the summer prior to his senior year. DD has already looked at 14 schools (combined college trips with family vacations). She has two more she wants to see and we will do this in June. She will probably apply to 5 or 6 of the schools she has seen. In her case, she wants to go to school that are quite far from here and we feel it is essential that she sees these before she makes an application decision. I will say, she has given us the opportunity to go on some nice vacations in the last year and a half!! Regarding re-visits....DS (despite his TWO visits to each school prior to acceptance) still revisited his top choice after acceptance. DD will be given the opportunity to do the same.</p>
<p>Even tho we live in Cal, we have only visited a couple local schools, usually by virtue of attending an event on campus. Last year, we took the 12/13 schools in a week NE tour, although some were just drive-bys to pad the number or see the campus since it had a great sports team. :) But, like R-Dad said, the first was really beneficial, bcos he immediately crossed off some schools as too small, too big, too whatever. </p>
<p>Spring was a long weekend in midwest to visit friends and see a few midwestern schools.</p>
<p>Will likely take SE tour this summer (6-8 more), and visit any UCs or Calif private safteties after acceptances.</p>