As Ivy schools are a long shot for everyone, is it wise to invest money and time into touring these unlikely destinations? Wouldn’t it be wiser to wait until you have your acceptances.? I guess it’s different for wealthy or ED/EA applicants but what advice do you have for rest of the Ivy aspirants? Most of us fall in love with schools for wrong reasons anyways, so if you have no intention to say no to the best school you can get accepted at, do you really need to do the useless drill and invest into their t-shirts?
Afterward. If you’re applying ED to an Ivy such as Brown or Cornell, however, then I’m sure it’d be in your best interest to at least visit the campus once before potentially pigeonholing yourself into going to a college that may not be a good fit for you.
Of course, this all centers on how much money and time you’re willing to spend on trips to colleges. So while it may not be “wise” to invest time and money, it’s certainly a prudent option if you’re weighing the merits of multiple schools.
In most cases, it’s hard to find a “good fit” after one quick trip to a dozen schools. I think finding “fit” is an overused and over valued notion in case of schools where your chances of getting in are lower than your chances of getting struck by lightening.
I did visit two ivies that I ended up applying to just to get a feel for them. However, I visited both while seeing other schools, so I didn’t spend lots of extra time, energy, or money visiting.
Visiting can also let you see if you’d even like to go there. Personally, for example, after visiting a couple of ivies and LACs, I found that I prefer the atmosphere of LACs more. The reason I applied to the ivies altogether was because I liked the schools even though they were a bit too big in my opinion. Thus, when I was looking for a few more places to apply to, I applied to LACs and not ivies.
My D18 may apply to a couple of elite schools (not Ivy, but top ten). We will not visit unless she is accepted AND we know that the cost is manageable. We have been focusing our energies on match and safety schools. D claims that three of her matches are all her “dream school,” so there’s no need to investigate the reaches further until we know they are a realistic option.
If it’s a close drive for you, I’d say it’s worth checking out if you’re serious about it. It’s definitely not worth flying to the school only to tour. I would never apply ED without having visited the place and being able to imagine yourself there.
@Yallie2011, there is little use making a specific visit to Stanford or Harvard as those are super-reaches for anyone… and I have heard that they do not even track whether you have attended an informational session/college tour. I do have the impression that visiting other Ivies (and most other schools) is a legitimate way to show genuine interest in the school…and that doing so may help an applicant get in if they were otherwise well qualified. There are also intangibles to be gained by many of these visits. For instance…it is easier for an applicant to answer the essay question “Why Duke/UChicago/Brown?” when they have actually been to the school and have learned a few things to write about in the process. Our family worked an East Coast college trip around two business meetings a couple of summers ago. We toured Brown but also hiked in Rhode Island, then we visited Harvard and MIT but also walked the Freedom Trail and took a boat tour, then we visited Dartmouth but also swam in the ocean and hiked a piece of the Appalachian Trail, and finally we toured Middlebury College and hiked to a beautiful view from the top of Snake Mountain. So whether or not my kids ever get into those schools, at least they saw a new part of the country and gained an appreciation for the cities and natural beauty of the area. They will retain good memories of things other than the schools. Of course, they fell in love with each and every school as they visited. So you do run the risk of igniting an interest where chances of success may be slim. We did a drive-by of Boston University, which my kid was also interested in and which is a bit easier to get into. Note that hotels immediately around Boston are extremely expensive, but there are more reasonable options further out, as in most cities. We found a B&B in Cambridge where all 5 of us could sleep in one room, though even that cost $300 or more. We did not buy a single t-shirt on the trip and I don’t recommend doing so (think we bought a small Dartmouth pennant because they loved the school…though they loved them all). We wished Cornell had been close enough to visit, but that was too far of a drive for us. The engineering school there is of interest to my middle child. We have managed to visit schools in and around Chicago while visiting family, and visited Duke, WashU and Vanderbilt while on different trips related to high school sports. I think we have been working these visits into our schedule over 3-4 years, and my eldest is just now in the applicant pool. I would recommend working visits in over time if possible. Feels less like work that way. My wife kept notes of information sessions on her laptop, because otherwise you forget (believe me) and things will blur together. My child really wanted a plane ticket to visit Yale before applying there, but I said “no.” I just felt it was too expensive to make a trip to visit just one Ivy with the likelihood of admission being so low. However, I promised a plane ticket to visit if my kid is accepted. Also, look at schools beyond the Ivies to give your child plenty of other options. Ivies don’t give merit aid, so know your financial situation and what makes the most sense. I’ve seen posts from others whose kid gets into 10+ schools but receives little or no aid because the family makes too much and did not know that the schools they applied to do not offer merit scholarships. You may find a better fit elsewhere, so apply to a variety of schools. And before you make a special trip try to find out if the admissions office tracks or even cares whether you visit. Each Ivy is different, so you should be able to eliminate a good number of them while sitting at your computer. Personally, I cannot figure out why anyone would send their kid to New York City to study, and I am sure you and yours can find reasonable number to consider … and possibly visit only if the fit seems really good and your kids’ stats are in at least the mid-50% range of accepted students. Good luck!
It really depends on how close you are. We were able to make Harvard as a day trip and Princeton, Penn, and Columbia on a 4 day driving trip so that wasn’t bad. I’m ready for this saga to be over so I’m not sure yet what I would do differently.
We did Harvard as a sophomore because we knew we were moving and it was an easy visit before the move. We’ve visited 8 schools total, only three Ivies were the ones previously mentioned. Did not apply to Penn due to NPC. We visited three schools twice and still have the first visit to a school where daugher is a finalist for a scholarship. Also have a third visit as an accepted honor students weekend at Tulane, which is a high probability of attendance, although waiting on word or Paul Tulane or DHS.
I will say that all of the visits have brought changing answers. There were schools that were ruled out which is great but others bounce around based on very short visits that as stated aren’t necessarily enough to determine fit. An accepted students weekend is better but frankly other than choosing the desired size of the school, class size, and geographical preferences, I think college is what you can make of it (which includes inside the budget).
Another way to figure out if a particular Ivy might be a good fit before making a special visit may be to have your kid look through the application first. I don’t even know if this is possible anymore until you get a Naviance account or set up something on the Common App site. But I really do think it might be helpful to see all the extra essays required by the school in advance. Some are labelled “optional” but hopefully your kid has something to write in those spaces. My kid found that certain Ivies had extra essays (beyond the Common App) that fell right into her wheelhouse and were easy and fun to write. But others (Princeton comes to mind) were harder to complete. Maybe that is because we did not visit Princeton, can’t be sure. I know many kids won’t write the extra essays that UChicago requires, so there would be little use visiting in that case.
As is probably clear from these comments, there is no hard and fast rule to it. If it’s convenient and not going to break the bank, there’s no harm in visiting the schools you like to get a sense of whether or not they’re worth the application. I visited some ivies before I applied and some after I was accepted. It was a different (and more stressful) experience visiting the schools after I was accepted because I found myself trying to compare them more than when I was just visiting them to see whether I would like them. That was perhaps a mistake on my part because I basically drove myself crazy trying to find the differences between Penn, Yale, and Columbia (spoiler alert: there are almost none and the differences that do exist are not often of any genuine significance). So rather than just trying to decide whether or not I would be happy at one of those schools for the experiences I would have there, I was worrying about if I would be happy there despite the experiences I would be giving up elsewhere. It was a small shift in perspective that had a dramatic impact on my mood for a few weeks. But in the end, I got some wonderful advice, which was to stop comparing those schools and make a list of what I truly wanted out of an undergrad experience. From there it was much easier to choose one.
All of that is to say, as long as you keep an open mind and center your visits around finding information that can help you make a productive choice with respect to your future, there’s no harm in visiting either before or after acceptance assuming its convenient and not going to cost too much money.
I’ll assume you’re speaking figuratively, not literally, but really, nobody should buy the paraphernalia until they’ve been accepted.
For Ivy League schools, and those at that low level acceptance level, particular if the college does not consider level of interest, I see no reason to visit unless the college is close or unless it is on the way while visiting other colleges on a pre-planned trip.
On the flip side, I find myself agreeing with @PennCAS2014 :
There really is no right or wrong answer; it will depend upon the student/family and circumstances