Just starting college visits/tours - help!

Parents Forum
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We enjoyed eating at each college. You get to (discretely) observe the local wildlife in its native habitat, not to mention sampling the dining options. We (2 of us) usually ate for free with a voucher, but sometimes had to pay. At one college two students overheard us trying to pay for our meals and they intervened and got us in with their guest passes. After we got our food they invited us to their table and gave us lots of insider information.

If you have done some research ahead of time you can skip the info session but we enjoyed most of the campus tours. There were some info sessions that were very small and intimate, so you could actually interact personally with the admissions staff. Others were huge, in lecture halls.

Definitely agree with making some notes soon after visiting. We also had a little crib sheet we checked before each visit, listing basic facts like # of students and the particular appeal of that school such as 24 hr art studios, so we didn’t start out clueless or confused.

Definitely agree with visiting when school is in session. However, if there’s a college you’d rather your kid DIDN’T attend, try to arrange a weekend morning visit!

Two visits a day max, for a max of two days. With luck you can have lunch at one college and dinner at the second. Fourth college is at a disadvantage, keep this mind when planning itinerary.

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Tours are inherently marketing fluff, but they can be useful in very real ways that you can’t get without actually being there. My oldest, for example, knocked one school off her list because she didn’t like the way the buildings smelled (which at first sounds trivial, but then when you think about how it’d be your home for four years, maybe it’s not so meaningless after all).

23

Two visits a day are not that taxing if the schools are in reasonably close proximity to one another. We had visited 22 schools and had a number of 2 school days.
At every school we did a tour, the information session and had a meal in one of the dining halls.
We had a family rule, my wife and I would not share our opinions about a school until our daughter had processed her own thoughts and asked us what we thought. We wanted her to come to her own conclusions before being influenced by our perspectives.
We had a lot of fun and learned a lot, it was great family time.
As it relates to test scores and merit aid, I agree that a 33 plus on the ACT seems to be the point that opens the door to the larger merit awards. The more selective the school the higher the test scores will need to be to secure big merit awards. I know that is completely logical, but may be helpful for a young person to understand it in those terms.
Best Wishes!

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Lots of great advice above. @mathmom’s question is my favorite too. Answers are often diplomatic, but still telling. I also like asking the guide about their selection process. What other schools did they apply to and why did they choose this one over their other options. If they said, ethusiastically “because sports are a huge thing and the school spirit is amaaaazing” that was a turnoff for my kid. But might not be for another kid.

We actually did the info session and tour at virtually every school we visited, and while I agree they got super-repetitive, we found it instructive to see how a given school chose to present itself - what it emphasized, what sorts of questions prospective families asked, and how those questions were answered. It’s certainly not the whole picture, but it can tell a story of its own – in part about whom they’re TRYING to attract, which will have some impact on whom they DO attract. I would not recommend using that information as your sole measure of a school, but it’s not useless either.

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You could also make bingo cards to spice things up… http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1837440-college-tour-bingo.html

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@porcupine98 Thanks for the link. That was holistically awesome! It reminded me of the very audible argument that went on between mom and kid about co-ed bathrooms that went on WAY too long on one tour. My daughter and I were hard pressed not to giggle.

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That bingo link/list is hysterical @porcupine98.

I really appreciate all of this advice! This thread has been really helpful so far - well I think it will be helpful, lol, I haven’t actually gone on any tours yet :slight_smile:

I’ve edited and added on to my growing list of tips for college tours, thanks to all of you:

  1. Go when the students are in session, avoiding weekends and early mornings
  2. Don't get too ambitious - one to two visits per day max, keep it fun not tortuous
  3. Have your student write down his/her thoughts/impressions after each visit; hold off on offering your own opinion until they've expressed their own
  4. Try not to embarrass your student during the tours with too many questions, but do ask the guide what their least favorite thing about the school is
  5. Sign any sign-in sheets at the college, so they have a record of your interest
  6. Information sessions are seen as pretty optional by some, others think it's a good way to get a feel for what the college is like
  7. Eat a meal at each school you visit
  8. Buy and bring along the Fiske Guide to Colleges
  9. Check out the surrounding town/area
  10. Slight parental sabotage is ok - ex: don't visit schools you know will be out of your price range, and if there's a school you really don't want your kid to attend - schedule the tour during a time you know the campus will be dead/less appealing :)
  11. Keep it fun! This is just the beginning - these first visits should be just to get a feel for different campuses/programs and it should be seen as an opportunity for fun, family bonding time. They'll be plenty of time for stressful family time later :) come essay writing and applications (I added that part on my own, because I can only imagine...)

Did I miss any major things? Minor things?

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I’d just add/elaborate that you can cast a wide (and local/convenient) net early, just to get a feel for things and then use that information to narrow the field in order to more precisely target visits to harder-to-get-to schools.

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For information purposes. This year Pitt required a 33 avg. on the language and math portion of the ACT to be considered for the major merit awards (ie full tuition). Those are the only two portions of the test they really consider. I would definitely visit Pitt. In my opinion it has a different feel than most other college campuses. It’s not your prototypical college campus.

A university which fits your description but is a bit further afield than you are looking at is Miami University in Oxford Ohio. Midsized (about 15000 students), beautiful campus and a nice if not large college town. Cincinnati and Dayton are less than an hour away (Dayton is more convenient to fly into). A 32 would put you in the running for merit scholarships.

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We visited UMass Amherst, Amherst College and Hampshire as a first step, because they are within a few miles of each other and represent different types of schools. That was step one, optional.

We found bookstores, student centers, dining halls and college greens to be the best way to get a vibe (aside from spending an overnight, which can be misleading too). Tours are more important than info sessions though info sessions are good for getting a vibe. Much of the info is available in other ways but not all.

Two to three is okay. We left when one of my kids just knew she didn’t like the school partway through the info session. This same daughter instructed me to drive through and not stop at one school we traveled some distance to see, and at another we got out and walked toward admissions and she said “no” and we got back in the car. So technically that day we did 4 schools!

I strongly recommend Loren Pope’s book “Colleges that Change Lives”, which is also a website and has national fairs. His other book "Looking Beyond the Ivy League’ is great too. Much more info than Fiske et al though those big books are good for reference. A school like Clark U. in Worcester, in CTCL, has merit aid, yes.

Have your daughter think about her criteria: academics, including majors; location; size; “vibe.” Anything else?

The really in depth visits can happen after acceptance :slight_smile: But I personally am a strong believer in having a short but strong list of 4-6 schools, that can be compiled only through visiting and exploring schools in the beginning of the application process. Many now apply to 20 but our kids did fine with their short lists.

31

Here’s what I’d add to the list:

On trip one, try to see a range of schools – urban, suburban, rural, big, small. What kids think they’ll like and what they actually like might surprise them. Also remember that if you’re visiting schools that require interviews, many will not do that prior to spring of junior year. Here are some things that we found ourselves asking frequently…

  1. If I have to apply to a specific school or program, how easy is it to move to another?
  2. What are the classes that everyone wants to take but are often full/not available? (Ask this rather than "how easy is it to get the classes you want?)
  3. Tell us about your experience with the distribution requirements. What's the attitude toward them? (We've had quite a few tour guides who chose a major based on this. I see this as positive -- kids are encouraged to explore.)
  4. How are advisors assigned, and what's the interaction with them?
  5. How did you spend last weekend? If there's Greek life, where does it fit in the social scene? Is the answer the same for boys and girls?
  6. Is there on campus housing for all four years? How's it assigned? What was your experience with your freshman roommate? Who do you live with now? (We noticed a trend in a lot of LACs that people lived with teammates. Great if you're an athlete, but if you're not, worth asking how guide met most of his/her friends.)
  7. If there were one thing you could change about this school, what would it be? (Answers on this ranged from housing to endowment to "get rid of Greek life".)
  8. How do you use the surrounding area/town?

We’d highly recommend having lunch in the dining hall, not to sample the cuisine, but as a chance to observe how students interact. At some schools, everyone seemed to be saying hi to each other, hanging out, moving from table to table, while at others, people seemed to head to their “regular” spots. It’s also a chance to see a lot of the students, and while this is far from exact, your daughter may immediately recognize a vibe that she loves or hates.

Pick up the college newspaper. you’ll find out about what’s going on that admissions may not be telling you. (Our favorite “reveal” on this front was a series of articles about how to treat your hook-up. “Can’t you at least say hi?” These editorials when the big news was that a frat was being shut down. Certainly not the whole story about the social life at this school, but an idea into a line of inquiry!)

As you know, what you see in a day or a half day will be random and is highly dependent on who the tour guide is, what the weather’s like, whether you’re there the week before exams, etc… If your daughter has the opportunity to shadow a student for a half day, that will add a little more color. I know that my son’s opinion of schools was highly shaped by the level of discourse in the classroom.

We especially liked the schools that toured the parents and students separately. Different interests, different focus…

Have fun!

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Yes for separate kid/parent tours or just separating kids from THEIR parents. Among other things, it frees you to ask all those embarrassing questions you’ve been holding back!

And yes – beware the undue influence of bad weather.

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and “what led you to pick this college?”

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Lots of great advice here, and I think your last list is really solid. I wanted to chime in primarily as the parent of another Junior daughter. We did our first exploratory trip last summer, in an effort to space the visits out and not make junior spring and senior fall quite so hectic with college stuff. So far our daughter has visited eight schools if you count walking around campus with her brother when we dropped him off at his school after Christmas break this year. We are prepping another (and hopefully last) big trip for spring break this year. Except for a day trip to Pittsburgh, where she visited Dusquene and Carnegie Mellon on the same day, we devoted one day to each school.

You are wise to focus on schools of varying size, geography and "vibe"at this point. In our experience, that first trip really helped our daughter discover what she perceives as important. Some of these things were not shocking to us as her parents, but then again some things were.

If your daughter is anything like my own, I would not advise doing more than one school a day. This is because the goal is to keep her engaged, and provide her the space and time to think about each school individually. We found this to be important because at schools my daughter liked she wanted to spend more time than just the tour and information session. Doing only one school per day provided us the time to do that. Plus, when your daughter takes one look at a school and says “nope” (which will likely happen at least once) this provides the freedom to do some relaxing things on that day. Go get a nice dinner, walk around the city or see a show. It made it a bit more like a vacation rather than a business trip, you know?

I would also say that you shouldn’t skip the information session, unless your daughter really isn’t “feeling it” at a particular school. While I agree with others that most of the information sessions are not helpful, a couple of them were. Unfortunately, you won’t really know which is which until you are there. My thinking is that if we are going to invest the time in going to the school in the first instance, might as well wring everything possible from it.

As far as the nuts and bolts, a couple ideas. The night before each visit, our daughter spent twenty-thirty minutes looking at the college’s web site. Mostly this was to give her a kind of mental orientation to the campus (from the maps) and to refresh her recollection about why we she was visiting that school in the first place. After each visit, our daughter took very brief notes on her phone, mostly a bullet list of likes/dislikes of that particular school. It was when she looked at these lists later that a pattern started to emerge, and we got a sense of what things were important to her, pro and con.

Good luck, and enjoy the trip!

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OP @ Post #13 – I am going to send you a personal message (PM) about this, as my comments will veer slightly off the topic of your original thread.

36

The best bit of advice we were given: It’s more important to visit your safety schools than your dream schools, because the real value of a tour isn’t to sell you on a school, it’s to see which ones you’ll happily cut from your list.

Also: Yes, it’s best to go when classes are in session and all, but that might not be doable. (Take our case: We’re a 2,257-mile drive from the nearest college on my daughter’s sorta-shortlist, 3,174 miles from the nearest one she’s really serious about. This is not something we’re taking a week off from her high-school classes to go do.) There’s an advantage to visits during summers and breaks, though, we’ve found: Faculty, if around, are much more available. If your child has very clear, longstanding ideas of what they want to do, meeting with a faculty member (and, if you can swing it, talking with the students that work with them) is way more valuable than your basic campus tour.

37

My kids did get a lot out of sitting in a class. At a couple schools my kids had read the materials discussed, so were in a good position to judge the quality of the students and teaching. One of D1’s schools came off her list when the students hadn’t done the reading and the prof’s treatment was not very in-depth. D2 was looking for smart, “sparky” kids (her term). D1 picked her school partly because the kids in the class she attended really went out of their way to talk to her (friendly is important to her).

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Yes on safety schools! Very important to fall in love with safeties and matches first.

That said, we did find it instructive to visit some fantasy schools as well. It wasn’t by design (we were in the neighborhood, and stakes were low at the time), but in hindsight, I learned a bunch of stuff about my kid from those visits too. (It turned out to be pretty easy to pass on the fantasies.) Similarly you (and the kid) can learn something from a visit to a school you don’t THINK your kid will like. Sometimes there are surprises.

But safety first!

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I second @Ohiodad51’s sentiments on info sessions. A number of them – certainly more than half – felt like a waste of time, but there were a handful that provided information that we hadn’t heard on the tour that was definitely helpful and persuasive for or against. My son, like @intparent’s D1, attended a class taught by a dept. head in the field he thinks he’d like to study. Found the prof. accessible and his style great yet was dismayed by how the 25 students in the class just sat there. And didn’t talk to each other when they entered or left the room. He was thinking he’d ED at this school, and that plan was immediately terminated! (He acknowledged that it may have been an outlier and kept it on his RD list, but he wouldn’t attend without an opportunity to visit again.)

Great advice on safeties too.

40

No one else has mentioned an aspect of visits that turned out to be important to our kids - visiting info sessions for their major field of interest.

We went to the General Visit meetings - but also tried to arrange a visit with a professor, chair, or department in the field of interest. If the overall college is acceptable - but the Dept not so much - that is useful info to know. Of course if the kids don’t know what course of study they intend to pursue, then this is not so important, but it could then be useful to find out how easy/hard it is to transfer majors.

Added in edit: I should also mention that Admitted Students Overnights can be very helpful… One of my kids went, and their student hosts cut class in the morning - NOT exactly what our kid wanted to do! So able to cross a school off the list, and a useful data point for the school. :slight_smile:

Good Luck - and Have Fun!