<p>a</p>
<p>We live in a college town and work at the school. Son essentially grew up on campus and had interacted with college age kids all through high school. After a visit to a nearby top 20 LAC, son knew he had no interest in LACs so we didn’t do any further LAC visits.</p>
<p>We did visits to our school and the other flagship campus instate. Did a visit to a flagship in the south while visiting relatives and other Big 10 schools while visiting relatives or in the area for other reasons. After controlling for location differences, there wasn’t much difference between the schools. Some had a few more really strong students while others had a few more pretty weak students. They all had outstanding facilities, faculty, and fun things to do. </p>
<p>Son chose the lowest ranked option which also happened to be an instate school. It had been my favorite from day one. His Mom had originally said that thee was no way he would apply to that school, her co-workers had convinced her it was not a good school or place to be. She changed her mind after couple of visits. We all agreed it was the best choice for son, his personality, and his interests. So far it has proven to be a fine choice.</p>
<p>No shame from this household in choosing your flagship and going all in.</p>
<p>LOL about the tours. I got Happykid and two pals through two college visits (CC students looking for transfer) and it was like pulling teeth. They refused multiple offers of chauffeur service to other institutions. Two more visits later in the year just with Happykid, and that was it. Didn’t want to look at any more. Her transfer applications went out to two places. She loves her cheap in-state school.</p>
<p>Totally agree - I kept thinking in all these visits, when they tout the study abroad programs, is that because no one wants to spend an entire 4 yrs on this campus? I mean, I’m all for study abroad, did it myself but a lot of my decision to go was based on getting out of Ohio.</p>
<p>What about the blue lights? And how they’ve never needed to be used. I thought I’d die when we’d drive hundreds of miles and both kids pulled the - let’s not bother I hate this school - from the parking lot! What I ended up doing with d - we figured out what it was she liked, so we researched and found like schools. Then she applied and when she was accepted she visited. She ended up choosing one of “my” picks, and not liking the original school it was based on. </p>
<p>After a few campus visits, S said, “We are basically comparing architecture.” </p>
<p>…each floor of the library gets quieter as you go up a level. </p>
<p>Perhaps the question to ask before doing visits (beyond conveniently local schools) is:</p>
<ul>
<li>Have the potential visit schools been pre-screened for being likely to fit the student (academics, cost, etc.) before being put on the visit list? There is no point in visiting a college that will be too expensive, or which does not offer the academics the student is looking for, or which otherwise does not fit (e.g. a fraternity/sorority-dominated social scene for a student with no interest in fraternities/sororities, or a heavily-commuter school for a student who wants a residential college experience, or a school with a heavy religious influence for a student who does not want such a thing).</li>
<li>Does the student have questions about the school that would be answered by visiting?</li>
</ul>
<p>Visiting a bunch of schools that the student won’t attend, or visiting when the student does not have questions that need to be answered by visiting, could be a turn-off to the student.</p>
<p>^^ I think you are missing the irony/humor of the OP’s post.</p>
<p>I started enjoying the application/tour process once son got the first acceptance letter. It’s very scary looking at admissions stats and not knowing if the school you are touring (and really starting to like) is going to accept your son. I know the concept of safety schools, etc., but until you get in, you can’t be sure. There are so many resources available on line, that you can really get a good feel for a school before you schedule a visit. We narrowed it down to 8 schools and 4 official visits. It was hard enough making a choice with only 4 choices in the mix. With only 4 schools to choose from, we were able to schedule a second visit and look at the schools a lot deeper. It was amazing the different perspectives we had during the first and second visits. In our case, we all agreed with our first choice, but would have had a “split decision” if we had only the online resources and a single visit.</p>
<p>OP just summarized the first half of my senior year perfectly. </p>
<p>Thank you. </p>
<p>My son made no pre-application campus visits as part of his college search. He had, however, spent some time on the campuses of a couple of the colleges in our state in summer debate camps. He’d visited my alma mater on the west coast when I attended a reunion a few years before. And he’d been to high school debate tournaments at quite a few colleges. But he didn’t want to spend any time reading college guides and discussion boards. He didn’t care about rankings or prestige. He wanted a college where it wasn’t considered dorky if a student wanted to think. And he wanted to attend college in a “major league city” if possible (note: that’s not “major city,” it’s “major LEAGUE city,” as in sports franchises).</p>
<p>He applied to seven colleges, one of which was my alma mater and two of which were major instate universities. He got into these three as well three of the four others he applied to. After all the acceptances arrived, he visited two of them – both out-of-state colleges that he’d never seen before. He ruled out one of these (an LAC in the east) as too jocky. He did an admitted student’s overnight at another, which was located in a major league city but was not jocky or anti-intellectual. He appeared the next morning and answered my “How’d you like it?” with a simple “This will do.” He canceled plans to visit the remaining college he’d been admitted to but had never seen.</p>
<p>And so the decision was made. The process was quite easy for him, and not very hard for us. No muss, no fuss. You should all hope your kids are this accommodating.</p>
<p>Your post made me laugh, OP, especially the part about starting your own club with x number of students. I’ve been on many campus visits with my 2 older kids and it became an inside to joke to see when they would mention the blue lights, forming your own club, etc. That said, for some reason I have really enjoyed the college selection process with my children. </p>
<p>My son, a current HS senior, quickly got tired of the standard tour and info session. After the first few schools he visited, he began contacting the admissions office at schools he was planning to visit and asking if he could attend a class or 2. Most schools were very accommodating. Some even went out of their way to set up meetings with professors. He also liked to have lunch on campus so that he could see how students interacted. Although this made many campus visits longer, he got a much better feel for the school.</p>
<p>Great post, OP! I have a junior as well, and had recently posted about fitting in 4 more visits, but dreading the whole process of getting to the destination, hotel stay, hearing same or similar sales pitch, and walking yet another campus in rain, sleet, and or snow to gawk at buildings I can see via the website from the comfort of my home. You said, what I’ve been thinking all school year–Why visit schools that seem so similar in type, looks, offerings, student body & vibe. So, no more visits for us until we have offers on the table. I might even go and buy a new dress with the money I just saved. </p>
<p>We gave up on info sessions. After maybe two. Almost didn’t go up to one for a student overnight- it was late in the game, maybe late Oct/Nov. Once there, both D and I immediately saw it was “the one.” We never took an official tour. She graduated last year. I’ve said often, what she liked to see was libraries and how many kids were in there working. Or in other common areas. (Plus the party potential, of course.)</p>
<p>I’m in love with this thread! We’re really fortunate to live in a region with an abundance of excellent schools, so we hit one of pretty much every type, and these will serve as stand-ins for the schools S applied to until we receive final decisions (including FA & merit offers). </p>
<p>My selection criteria includes which schools can provide an excellent grilled cheese and tomato on whole wheat (UDel by a longshot) and whether or not the campus tour guide is aware that freight trains aren’t typically used by OOS students to get to campus. (UDel didn’t fare so well on this one!) ;-)</p>
<p>I suspect that the OP’s experience is actually pretty common, and I wonder what fraction of kids really get the 'this is the perfect place for me" vibe when they first set foot on campus. Of course, nearly every tour guide we had recounted having that moment, but I suspect the reality is that it’s not so common. Of the schools we visited before application, my daughter eliminated 2 on the basis of disliking the campus (partly a matter of size/setting/layout) and another 2 on reflection that she felt the school didn’t fit her overall interests/desired envirnoment well enough and hadn’t been wowed by her visit. Every other place we visited pre-application, she basically said “I could see myself here”. I will say that earlier in high school she had declared that she didn’t want to go to school in a big city, but after I dragged her through a campus or two, she decided that some big city schools were perfectly fine. She just lacked experience with many cities and needed to see how urban campuses actually are.
She hasn’t seen two of the schools she applied to yet. I’ll pay for plane tickets if those schools are still top contenders when we have all the offers in hand.</p>
<p>@SouthernHope, I love your post. It’s funny and clever while also pointing out some important truths. I’ve found the visits useful at the beginning when they help the prospective student sort through his basic priorities. Once the reality of college is plain and the priorities sorted out, I think it’s quite possible to do the research from afar and to get a sense of various schools through email contacts, the school website, the review website, CC, the college catalogues.</p>
<p>There are exceptions. My middle D did have that eureka moment at a women’s school. She’d been thoroughly resistant to the notion of single sex education until she visited the school she ended up attending. </p>
<p>LOL. Great post! My D refused to do a week long tour over the summer because she feared that “all of the schools will run together.” Our schedules were full in the Fall so D ended up only visiting 3 colleges. D liked all 3. She applied to those and one other school that she will visit if accepted. One school is a high match/low reach, two are good matches, and one is a financial and academic safety. I kept urging her to consider more schools and to keep her options open. I wanted her to visit at least 12 schools and apply to 6-8. But D said she loved the schools she applied to, and if she didn’t get in or didn’t get enough $, she would be happy attending the safety. Essentially, I was making this more complicated than necessary! </p>
<p>A big factor in my D1’s college search was using Google Maps to figure out the distance and transit time from each campus to the nearest Trader Joe’s. She didn’t need to actually make the trip…</p>