Hello! Forgive me if this has already been addressed. I am new here and did not see this question listed. My DD is a junior and has scored a 35 and has over 4.0 GPA. We are aiming as high as possible for her college prospects and understand there are many factors to the application. We were advised that it’s super important to visit the schools she’s really interested in before applying because although schools say they don’t track demonstrated interest, it still can make a difference if the decision is close between applicants. Can anyone give any insight to if this is really true? We have a list of schools we are trying to visit during school breaks but it is difficult to make every school.
Which schools are on your D’s list so far? How far away are they?
The main reason to visit a school is to determine if your D wants to go there. At the beginning of the process, visits are also really useful in figuring out what type of school she wants to attend (such as large or small, urban / suburban / rural, etc.) So for your first school visits with her, you’ll want to visit some relatively local schools with different characteristics, so that she can start to understand her own preferences.
As far as the effect on admissions, schools differ in how much weight they put on demonstrated interest. Some do not track it at all. Even with a school that cares a lot about this, there are lots of ways to show your interest. If the school is far away, they don’t expect you to travel all the way across the country to visit them. Keep an eye on the school’s web site for admissions outreach events in your area and try to attend those if you can.
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If they say they don’t track demonstrated interest, which is true of many “reach” schools, I don’t think it will make a difference in decisions between close applicants. If they say demonstrated interest is not important in admission decisions, I would pay closer attention to what they do say is important (in their common data set). Since you are “aiming as high as possible” I feel that visiting super reach schools is not necessarily in your best interest, because the risk of your D falling in love with specific schools that have so many applicants with equally impressive stats is fairly high. As long as she has a couple of “likely” and affordable schools that she does like, I don’t think you need to try to visit all before applying. For reach schools, why not wait and see where she is admitted and then visit top choices that are affordable? Best of luck. I know this is a stressful process.
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There were schools which were perfect on paper, but where the kid turned to me after five minutes on the tour and said “Nope, not applying here”.
I don’t think it’s critical to visit, but it sure is helpful in honing in on what your kid wants out of their education!
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Yes, my thoughts were let’s see where she gets admission and then we can go visit to narrow down. She is interested in ivy leagues, Georgetown, Hopkins, Northwestern and a couple California schools. I think the size of the ivy leagues and the other 3 I listed are similar which is what she likes. They are all about 2 hour flights away. A couple are connecting flights only which make it longer. Cali schools are further and I would say a longshot. We have seen the DC area schools and are now planning spring break to see the upper east coast ivy schools. She understands the admissions are a chance.
Which California schools is she interested in?
And, even for high-stats students, it is very important to have a couple of schools that she likes, that admission is pretty much guaranteed, and that you can afford.
There are so many, many high stats kids applying to the schools you have listed that some high stats kids are shut out of everywhere they apply if they only go for the reaches.
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That’s good that she’s aware of the low acceptance rates. My S was also on board with taking his chances and applied to a pretty high number of reach schools (we had two very good in state options as well). He had not visited any of the reach schools except (begrudgingly) one that is in our area. We just waited for results and financial aid/scholarships, which were definitely unpredictable, and then visited in April.
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I think it’s important to visit under certain circumstances:
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If you are considering an ED application, visit the place(s) you are considering.
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If you do not know what type(s) of campus you would prefer – go and visit one in a city, one in a suburb or a small town, and one in a tiny town/rural location. That should help.
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If you have been admitted to multiple schools, and you cannot decide between them, go and visit them.
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Absolutely not.
You can demonstrate interest in lots of ways- starting by doing the homework on what the college has on offer: virtual visits? opening their mailings? participating in online outreach efforts?
As @tomagotchi said, at this stage it’s about identifying the types that do/don’t appeal to your student.
And, not your question, but: congrats to your daughter on her academic achievements. Absolutely support her efforts to grab the brass ring that her stats qualify her for. BUT.
The stats just put her in the running. Course rigor, LoRs, ECs, Essays will all play a major role in admissions at the tippy tops. If she has no ‘hooks’ (things that a given college has preferences for, such as legacy, fame, money, diversity) her odds are even lower than the single digit overall acceptance rate.
Help her by encouraging her to build her list from the bottom up: it is much, much harder to find likely and match schools for a student who is used to being seen as an academic star than it is to parse whether she/you like Princeton better than Stanford. As the adult in the room, you need to keep it clear in your own head that a 7% acceptance rate means that 93% of applicants will be rejected- and that most of those applicants are just as used to being an academic star as your girl. Focus on what individual schools can offer her - things that will salve her ego if - as will happen for most students with her stats- she doesn’t get the super-famous name on her eventual sweatshirt.
If she has a good set of ‘other’ choice and doesn’t need them, no harm done. But if she needs them it will be everything.
(eta: took so long to post this that a bunch of others have rowed in with similar advice!)
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We did a lot of tours…but they started really casual. We were in Boston for the marathon her sophomore year so thought we might as well spend a day or two touring some Boston area schools. A couple were official tours and some we just walked around campus. But at that point in the process we just trying to help her get a feel for what she liked and didn’t like. As time went on we got a little more focused as she developed a list. We did a spring break road trip to hit some midwest schools (we live in the midwest), we were in Chicago for a holiday and toured Chicago and Northwestern while we were there, etc. But, there were some schools we just couldn’t get to. She applied to Rice and we didn’t have the time to get down to Texas. We told her if she was accepted we’d visit - which we did. We quickly scheduled an admitted student day visit. Rice does say they take interest into account but there are other ways to show interest than visiting. AND I think schools understand that a cross country trip is not feasible for everyone.
For my D tours were super helpful, and many changed her perception of the school (both positively and negatively) but we did not tour everywhere she applied. She was in a sport that made it very challenging to tour at all in the fall and early winter. There was too much traveling and time away from school already.
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Adding on that for a high-stats student, McGill in Montreal is an excellent school to consider. They love high stat kids, don’t care about ECs, are highly ranked internationally, in a wonderful city for college students, and much less expensive than comparable US institutions — plus the tuition is in Canadian dollars so when converted to US dollars is even less expensive. And generous with AP credit so can finish early or do a masters with the extra time, for some.
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I am in the camp of not visiting every school, but visit maybe top 3-5.
Georgetown and Northwestern are very different, whereas Northwestern and Cornell are more similar. Georgetown is more urban, similar to NYU. Columbia is urban, but it has a real campus.
The schools your kid probably should visit are the match/safety schools to show interest. A lot of match/safety schools may reject your kid if they don think she is interested. Whereas higher tier schools do not require love from your daughter.
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Simply Google “Common Data Set [name of college],” and scroll down to section C7 where it will tell you the “Level of applicant’s interest” to determine whether the college considers it important or “Not Considered” as a starting point. Many top schools do not consider the level of interest.
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When D1 was WL at Cornell, her school counselor spoke with Cornell. The counselor was told that they assumed D1 would have many options, so they decided to admit other students from her school who may be more likely to attend. They told the counselor if D1 would attend Cornell then they would consider to take her off the WL if/when the list opened.
We made sure D2 visited Cornell and logged it. D2 ended up ED Cornell to show her ultimate love.
Some schools may say they don’t track interest, but whether they care or not depends on applicant’s stats.
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We did not visit every university before applying. We visited the ones which were closest to home. We visited a few that were of particularly high interest. We visited at least two “semi clusters” of schools that just happened to be close to each other (Concordia and McGill in Montreal is one example). We did skip some that were just further away and harder to get to.
If we were going to apply ED anywhere, then I would first both visit, and run the NPC and make sure that it is likely to be affordable. If there are particular reach schools that say that they track interest then I would be more inclined to visit if it were reasonably convenient and of high interest. Otherwise I think that you just need to do whatever seems to make sense for you.
When one daughter was applying to DVM programs she only visited one school first, and that was just a drive by that the school was not aware of at the time. This did not seem to harm her acceptances at all. The schools she applied to were somewhat spread out and it would not have been practical to visit all of them.
I would warn that “as high as possible” is not as important as “a good fit”. I might be overly aware of this because I did attend the highest ranked university that I got into for my bachelor’s, and I am not sure that it was all that good of a fit for me personally at the time.
I do think that the tours were far more useful from the perspective of “allow the student to get a sense of what different locations are like” rather than “demonstrate interest”. We also did some tours after each daughter was accepted (with affordable financial aid where applicable), and this did provide a “you really can be here in September if you want” sense of reality.
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You really need to visit your private EA or ED candidates in order to be able to pick one of them. HYPM do not care about demonstrating interest by visiting. Not sure about the rest of the ivies.
I would say that for schools like Northwestern, you don’t need to visit to show commitment. You just need to ED. But of course, if you are going to ED, you may want to visit first. If you visit, but don’t ED, it won’t move the needle for these kinds of schools.
Before application we visited a few metro areas (DC/MD/VA, Boston, NYC,… and made a few “urban” stops along the way. It certainly helped eliminating many (some surprising), and unexpectedly liking some that had just been in the area.
It also helped refine the vibe/environment that felt right - and definitely was important to narrow the list of schools to a reasonable number of applications.
Acceptances came from schools we had seen, and from schools we had not been able to.
Once acceptances were in, the 5 “top” contenders were revisited (or visited first time) - because by now, much had been forgotten and/or by now there was a better understanding what to look for/ask for. Some were in overnight driving distance, but some required air travel.
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A visit can help a student on their “why us” essays that are on many college applications.
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Thank you all for your input. Although she is aiming high, we do have a couple local safety schools which we are pretty confident she will be able to attend with merit scholarship as well. We just want to make sure we do everything we can to expand her opportunities. I am referring to instances where a visit comes into play as @oldfort described.
@MMRose - As for California schools, she interested in Stanford, UCLA and USC.
She doesn’t need to visit UCLA until after she is accepted.
USC does log when students visit. It is supposedly not considered in the application review but they do log it on the student’s profile. They also pay attention to emails where students click through to ask for more information as well as webinars attended. They have a “why us” essay and look to make sure the student is knowledgeable about USC. USC admissions does a road show and may be in your area. If that is the case, I would make an effort to attend.
You might look at Exploring College Options to see if other college admissions officers will be in your area.
Edit: Sorry, I just checked the link I provided for USC road show and it was for admitted students. Their online tour can be viewed here: Experience University of Southern California in Virtual Reality.. 2022 Admission Staff on the Road dates can be found here. The USC Viterbi Admission Staff is On The Road! – USC Viterbi | Undergraduate Admission Keep your eyes open for 2023 dates and locations or have your student contact the school to be notified when they will be in your area.
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