<p>As far as summer visits go, I have found that they work best on large campuses or during an open house. I have not been able to get any of my kids to put a summer visit college (without the above criteria) on their list, let alone decide to apply because they just couldn’t picture what the college was really like sans students. </p>
<p>I am planning a couple of college visits during the summer but they will be at planned events to guarantee students in attendance. If my son decides to apply and is accepted, we’ll do a re-visit during the school year.</p>
<p>I disagree about all state colleges being alike. Every college is different. For those that don’t think so, maybe they just aren’t as discerning.</p>
<p>“I disagree about all state colleges being alike.”</p>
<p>I don’t think they’re all alike. But all colleges with 25,000+ undergrads have one thing in common: there are a lot of different scenes on campus, and virtually anyone can find a niche and a group of friends with similar tastes and priorities. That’s not true at 1200-student schools. You better fit in with the mainstream, or you won’t be happy. I’d rather be the kid at Alabama that hates football than the kid at Swarthmore who thinks talking about philosophy in the dining hall is a pretentious waste of time.</p>
<p>Every school is different therefore any school your child is seriously considering should be visited. Not every Ivy is alike and defiantly not every state school is alike. Schools are like people, no two are the same.</p>
<p>But not all state schools have 25,000 kids, not all of them are rural, all in the city, etc… Penn State is as different from Temple as night and day.</p>
<p>keep in mind that summer visits are not nearly as informative as those during the school year, as the general mindset of the student body is one of the most important factors that effects your life while at a school. (like the alabama/ swarthmore example), and this is something that is impossible to gauge during a visit.</p>
<p>I know there are people on CC who maintain that colleges do not track demonstrated interest and that whether or not you have visited a college is not a factor in the admissions decision. So, I had the opportunity to have dinner recently with a high level admissions rep from a prestigious, although not Ivy League, university. She gave me the example of a top student that they had WL - she had straight A’s, close to perfect SATs and good ECs. They WL her because although the student lived an hour away and could have easily visited - she had not done so. This led them to conclude that she was only applying there as a safety school and had no real desire to attend. Hence, she was WL. Just food for thought.</p>
<p>“I know there are people on CC who maintain that colleges do not track demonstrated interest”</p>
<p>Some do, some don’t. If you can google to find a school’s “Common Data Set” you can see the answer in Section C7. It will show one selection checked:</p>
<p>“Penn State is as different from Temple as night and day.”</p>
<p>Yes. But you can find nearly any type of peer group at either one. That’s a critical difference between a big and a small school, and means that the risk of attending Penn State without a visit is a lot lower than the risk of attending Rosemont College without a visit, which is a direct answer to the OP’s question.</p>
<p>I get the impression that on this thread, we’re talking about big state schools. No one here is talking about the University of Mary Washington. Anyway, I specified precisely the size of school I was talking about, not the public/private divide.</p>
<p>Everyone saw how competitive the top colleges were this year…just look at the acceptance stats. I think that visiting is essential, especially for a child’s top-choice schools. When a college is weighing everything, and the one remaining spot is between your child and another, you want every advantage your child can have, and visiting the school shows that the applicant is really interested.</p>
<p>If a senior is applying to 10 schools, I think the mix should be 3 “safe”, 4 “I think I can get in”, and 3 “reach”. Getting into one of those top seven schools is the goal, so kids need to do everything they can to make themselves attractive to those schools - and that includes visiting them. They are going to get into the safe schools anyway, so there’s no need to impress anyone. Worst case, if they only get into their safe schools, they can visit before they decide. </p>
<p>However, if they only get into their safe schools, the 4 schools in the middle were probably closer to “reach” than they should have been.</p>
<p>^Wise theoretical advice, rubbish practical advice (for students applying to elite schools, anyway). After all, you can’t force a student to rank 3 safeties in their top 7/10, and for such students it makes sense to apply widely among reaches of varying reachiness (akin to casting a wide merit-aid net).</p>