<p>My mom really is trying to push college visits. She wants to visit colleges this week. This is the week of finals and I'm trying to vastly improve my ACT scores in Febuary and just got myself a tutor. I also have 3 APs and playing varsity lacrosse that starts in Febuary as well. I see no time to go on long college visits and I personally don't see the value of visiting colleges before you get accepted there. How important do you feel college visits are during your junior year?</p>
<p>I don’t think college visits are absolutely necessary, but they are useful to see where you might be living in two years. You might realize that a campus doesn’t suit your needs. Maybe it’s too big, too small, too diverse, too uniform, etc. Obviously you are busy right now, so maybe you should visit the universities later when you’re on spring break or something.</p>
<p>Good idea. I also am told that you can’t make college visits over the summer. Now I will have football over the summer but it would be easier to find time than now.</p>
<p>Anyone else have an opinion?</p>
<p>I found that touring schools saved me money on applications, I saved 140 on 2 applications because I went to see the campus and decided I hated it. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t say that tours are easier to find over the summer because many schools have tours 6x a week, it’s just a matter of making a phone call or registering online. I’ve never found info sessions to helpful since they just repeat what the website says.</p>
<p>Wait so are you saying that you can make college visits over the summer?</p>
<p>Yeah you can pretty much take tours whenever.</p>
<p>They’re not absolutely 100% necessary, but I think they’re pretty important. Visiting the school makes a difference, since you can go there and look around and actually get a feeling or connection to the school or you can determine that you don’t like the campus at all. Just focus on school and go when you have time.</p>
<p>I just feel that you should go on college visits once you are accepted and need to make a decision on where to go.</p>
<p>I think it depends on your personality. I didn’t visit any colleges, and I’ve only been on the UT campus by pure chance. When I was deciding on where to apply, I did a lot of extra research about the cities where the colleges were located. I looked at pictures and read about campus atmospheres. My brother did the same thing. Neither one of us really needed a tour to decide where we wanted to go. However, some of my friends are completely different. They only feel really sure about a college once they get to see it in person. Something else to consider is the interest you show by visiting a school. Some universities like to know you’ve really been thinking about their school enough to invest your time. One final thing… some people don’t have the means to visit schools. Make sure you realize it’s an opportunity that you’re lucky to have before you pass it up.</p>
<p>Ok thank you. I like the view from someone that had no college visits. Today with the internet I feel that you can get a great look at the university on youtube alone. I do plan on visiting for sports before I decide but not during my junior year.</p>
<p>Acelia is absolutely right. OP I understand your thoughts but you’re asking for our opinions. Ultimately it is your decision, I was just pointing out that taking a few hours to visit a school may save you application, SAT/ACT , and transcript money. College materials add up quickly.</p>
<p>But college visits also have a cost amounted to them as well (a lot more in fact). I, like stated above, don’t beleive in going on college visits until you are accepted to a school or asked to go for free. My mom on the other hand can’t see that and is pushing for college visits now. I was trying to get other’s opinions to see if I’m overlooking something. From what I read here I’m definately not going to make any visits this week but Spring break doesn’t sound unreasonable.</p>
<p>I think you need to visit a school (even if it is a local open house) so that you can think about college in terms of what you like and do not like. After we actually went through an overview and a tour, it got the wheels turning and brought up things we had not considered. In our case, we found out just how competitive a major we were looking at and then we researched more about what would be best and planned our visits from there. If you have older siblings and your parents have been through the process before, then maybe you can do web visits and virtual tours to narrow your selections, before actually visiting. I guess it all depends on where you live and where you want to go and how you will travel. If airfare is in the picture, I guess I would wait for acceptances too!</p>
<p>Well I’m the first in my family to be going to college so unfortuantly I’m the guinea pig. My sister is going to HS nnext year and it’s kind of fun advicing my sister when she is scheduling and doing other things so she can avoid mistakes I’ve made. </p>
<p>Also most of the schools I’m currently thinking of are out of state and to make travel even more of an issue most are across country while I’m in the middle.</p>
<p>Some colleges consider applicant’s level of interest when reviewing application for admission. You may want to find out if any of the schools you are considering do weigh ‘interest’. I also agree with Marybee’s post above. The process of visiting and touring schools helps the student decide what he likes or does not like about a college. While difficult to carve out time around sports and exams, the visits are important.</p>
<p>I’m a big fan of visiting schools if at all possible. We visited a lot of them and we were sometimes surprised at the ones my son rejected based on the visit. It definitely helped him define his list.
Once he got in, he revisited his top three choices to help decide between them. That’s a lot harder to do if you have never been to any of those schools you applied to.</p>
<p>@CT1416 Great point I will check that because I wouldn’t want to not get accepted to a school because I couldn’t find time to visit</p>
<p>Just to add to beantowngirl, virtual visits do a GREAT job at showing you a pretty picture. I was convinced that I loved a school online but I visited and absolutely hated it. </p>
<p>Also some schools heavily weigh demonstrated interested. Just by visiting and meeting a financial aid rep an my admissions my scholarship was bumped 1000 to the full possible amount and I know they remembered me because on my acceptance letter he wrote " congrats jasmine, I told you I’d make it work. </p>
<p>If you can’t visit the schools that are far away visit your local 4 year school just to get a feel for a college campus and what you like/dislike. An entire tour and info session only takes about 2 hours.</p>
<p>As a junior I think it’s more important to visit various types of colleges. You want to go to a large public, a small private, a college in the city, a college outside a urban area, etc. Really being there to get a sense of what it is like, to talk to students, do a class visit, is helpful in deciding what type(s) of college you want to apply to. IMHO that’s why summer visits don’t work as well; it’s like visiting the shell of the school and you don’t get a sense of what it’s like as a working institution</p>