My DD said she didn’t care to visit schools but we ended up visiting because I felt it was important for her to figure out what she liked. I think visiting helped her really cut down the schools she liked and didn’t like based on culture, closed in campus versus campus mixed with the city, rural v city or suburban setting etc. she could tell from visiting after talking and going on tour if a campus environment was right fit like she is avoid a lot of schools with competitive cultures but likes a more collaborative culture etc. does she prefer a super intense school or a school better balanced with work and play- visiting helped her hone those ideas. Most schools DD is looking at doesn’t demonstrate interest - it was more for her to narrow down what she was looking for in a school. Her number one reach choice on paper changed and she isn’t interested in that school based on the school visit and the culture she could gauge from the visit.
For fall break, we flew to DC and went to Georgetown and Hopkins and then flew to Raleigh to see Duke. Three days in a row. It was a lot but she was really into it. She wanted to go into all the buildings and observe. We had lunch at a dining hall at each school. She got a good vibe of the campuses. She emailed a bunch of professors ahead of time and one replied from each school and she was able to have a 15-30 minute meeting learning more about the majors she was interested in. Then after each visit, she sat and made all these notes. I was very impressed with her dedication. She kept saying “The senior me will appreciate this!” This thread has been helpful in many way in that visiting may help show the demonstrated interest but also help the student decide which school to ED to. She does not know at this time plus she may apply to BA/BS-MD combined programs so then I guess no ED for her then.
It seems like you are getting answers to two different questions. First, regarding a campus visit to help with acceptance, I don’t think it matters with the top top or so-called Tier 1 schools. Maybe it would help with some of the schools just below Tier 1, like Gtown, Emory, and Wash U, because they know they compete for the top students with Tier 1 schools. However, I agree that there are other ways to show demonstrated interest without a campus visit.
It is also important to show continued demonstrated interest if your daughter gets differed or waitlisted for one of her top choice schools. Again, it’s a small percentage, but kids get in off the waitlist and, after being deferred and showing continued interest, could make a difference even at the top top schools.
IMO students should visit as many schools as possible before applying, and if they can, visit on a weekday when the school is in full session. During our search, the school that on paper checked off all the boxes and was a clear number one was off our son’s list within two minutes after we parked our car. Our S20 is a transfer student at Northwestern. He went with his Mom to visit after he was accepted, and I didn’t see the school until Parent’s Weekend in November. It was very different than what I pictured in my head.
Yes, the original question has certainly evolved. Everyone has such great information to share. 
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.
If that is the size she likes then UCLA has no place on her list. It’s a large public with all the impersonal attributes and large class sizes that implies. But as a CA resident I do want to encourage her to attend! We love the $200K or so in OOS tuition each student pays, and there is no FA aid available for OOS so it goes right to the UC bottom line.
You can Google Common Data set, name of college, to see if they track interest. Section C7. Hardly any of the schools you mention do. When they have such high yield rates, they don’t need to track interest.
Don’t make the mistake of just visiting reach schools. Your child needs at least one safety and preferably a couple of matches. Make sure they would be happy to attend the school, and not apply just in case they don’t get in to any super selective schools. We have all seen disappointed students who have only their safety as a choice. The most selective schools can and do reject many students with perfect grades and test scores. There simply isn’t room for all the vals, sals, and everyone else these schools want.
Each of our 3, visited schools to see if they could see themselves “there”. Our eldest stepped on Yale’s campus and promptly said, “no”. She didn’t elaborate, nor give hints as to why, but said, “no, I can’t see myself living here for four years.”
The middle one liked it, but she didn’t apply there because she didn’t want the travel issues of flying to the East Coast.
The youngest, while in route, we’d start to drive by the University, and he’d say, “nope, next”. Really verbal kids, not!!
We used the trips to rule out what schools they wouldn’t apply to/attend.
In terms of showing interest- it’s heavily debated on CC but if your D applies anywhere which offers her an alumni interview- take it! Honestly- it’s half an hour or 45 minutes on Zoom, turning down an interview may not hurt her but it definitely doesn’t signal “I am very interested in this college”.
And REQUESTING an alumni interview is a painless and no-cost way to show interest for a school which is too far away or too expensive to visit.
When we visited schools, we like to go to the cafeteria, student Union and their quad.
My kid crossed out a school because she noticed there weren’t a lot of coed interactions. Another school was out when she didn’t see students playing on a quad on the first warm day (they were all studying for midterm). She very much liked one school because she could see herself be part of many groups at a Sunday brunch. My kid liked a school because she noticed a lot of inter-racial interaction among students at their student Union.
When my kid sat in on a class at a large uni, she found a lot of students were not prepared (did not read assigned books)l. She went to a prep school where it was not the norm to not red required books/papers and discussions in class were usually very lively. She told me she didn’t want to be top of her class, she wanted peers.
My son and I had this exact experience at an elite school right in the middle of the tour. The fact is that we BOTH realized how poor of a fit it was for him. So we spent the next 15 minutes of the tour trying to find the best opportunity to sneak out. We were far from home and had added this tour after spending the day before at a special invited event at a nearby college that he ended up loving. So we were already pressed for time.
Needless to say, these college visits cost a lot of money and take up a lot of time. My son is a senior and we regret not getting to a couple that he applied to. But it’s just not possible.
Another great option for you is to have your daughter apply to be a Lilly Scholar. Not sure if you’d qualify since some weight in the qualification process is given to financial need—tho every Indiana county. But Lilly scholars can go to any public or private Indiana university tuition free with many other perks. There are usually 140+ Lilly scholars each year.
The more “reachy” the school, the less likely the student is admitted. The less likely the admit, the less valuable the visit.
In more concrete terms- don’t visit Stanford. The time and expense involved with visiting a school that accepts 4% of applicants is not a good investment of precious resources.
I’d recommend visiting 1-2 likely admits, and only visiting reaches if they happen to overlap with another reason you have to be in the area. If you are visiting family in the area, sure, go see Columbia, but don’t dedicate a trip for it.
Come late winter and spring of senior year, leave as much time and flexibility you can to visit schools your student IS admitted to- and visit the favorites.
I know above creates a bit of a circular problem in that some kids need to visit a school in order to know if they would want to attend- necessitating an application. But you can go broke and run out of time (and miss many schools) if a visit is part of the application list narrowing process.
With regards to “demonstrated interest” for schools that value it…I think visits are the highest level of interest that can be shown- but at the same time and the lowest bang for the buck. There are many other ways to demonstrate interest that don’t require as much time and expense as a visit. Added up, they likely move the needle as much.
EDIT: Blossom correctly notes, ED is the strongest form of demonstrated interest. I overlooked it because it was not a strategy that was part of D23’s process. It is valued by all schools that offer it- elite and non, even if they don’t indicate any importance towards demonstrated interested on CDS. It is, from their perspective, guaranteed (with rare exceptions) commitment from the accepted applicant, which gives them a lot of leeway over class shaping finances etc. The increased % of classes comprised of ED’s demonstrates this clearly.
No, applying ED is the highest level of interest that can be shown. After that, the other vehicles are pretty much comparable- log on to a virtual admissions session; ask for an interview with an alum in your area (or Zoom if no local options are possible), attend a regional college fair and speak with the admissions rep; ask to be set up with a junior or senior with similar academic interests as yours and ask questions; and the easiest and probably the one which most HS students do not do… OPEN every email you get from the college. You no longer need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out who is opening your informational emails- the colleges which care about demonstrated interest have all of that data at their disposal.
And display images in the college’s email.
Can the colleges differentiate between those who open the emails and those who click the button to display the embedded images?
Images in HTML email may be tracking links. Reading the email without images avoids this particular type of tracking. But if you want to be tracked, such as in a college level of interest game, display the images.
How nuts is it that kids have to do this?
How hard is it to open an email?
And to clarify- it is a small number of colleges which track and care about this stuff. My state flagship and all the regional, satellite campuses, the state college system? Nobody cares about interest. Delete every piece of correspondence you get from them- doesn’t matter. And other than the handful of states (looking at you, Michigan, UVA etc) where being out of state means a different set of screens applies to you- that holds for the entire public U system.
You think U Montana is tracking how many emails you open??? And you think Harvard cares?
Yes, the colleges that are tracking this behavior can tell who clicks on links in the email, and then how long they spend on the page the link takes them to. These schools also track how quickly the student sets up the portal after applying, and how often they check their portal.
Yes email tracking is absolutely a real thing, for all sorts of organizations that send emails. That’s why I turned it off on all my email accounts years ago.
I don’t get many college app emails as a parent, but I WANT them to know I opened the message. My email clients block all “remote content” from showing (that’s where trackers can be embedded). It gives me a button to click to voluntarily load the content. I do that for the college app emails.
Occasionally I have to load the remote content to click on links in my everyday life (e.g., logging onto a patient portal). Once college app season is over, I’m going to tell my kid to block remote content on his email as well (he’s using his main account for apps).