<p>Now that Daughter has most of her apps. in I am thinking ahead to how she will make her final decision. She has not visited most of the schools she ended up applying to. Some are quite far from home and not in the vicinity of each other. A few of the schools say that decisions will be made by April 15th. That doesn't leave much time before May 1st to get a visit in. Not to mention what the airfare will be last minute. Plus you factor in that she has school. And a major ec committment Mid April.
How did you guys handle this?
She has 1 acceptance already to a safety so we can schedule that for earlier and she will hopefully have another come early Jan. which is another safety school but has some interesting programs.
The others are all high matches or reaches and on the opposite coast. Two she has done visits to but they were not in depth so I think she would want to go back. I am wondering if we should schedule a visit before acceptance but am hesitant to fly across the country to visit schools that she might not pan out.</p>
<p>My S applied last minute, as a junior, so never saw schools he applied to. When acceptances came in, then I spent 4 hours trying to figure out muti-trip flights. This meant stops betw Fl and NE, NE to CA, but a direct flight back from Ca to FL. I chose this airline because the CA/FL route was the longest. (Direct flights, using different airlines, would have cost over $1200, as compared to $275). We basically narrowed to 2 schools, and gave enough time to really see them, and a third nearby. At one, he could go during admit weekend and stay in dorm one night. Before applying, he had called friends to learn as much as he could about the schools and the environments. The conditions of dorms was not a priority to him. I believe he heard by April 5, and we did trip towards end of April.
My S was on a high the whole time, and slept on planes. There was an intensity about seeing oneself at a particular school. Normally shy, he would ask to see a physics teacher, and to sit in on certain classes. He'd ask me to go to others or to check out dorms, dining rooms, etc.
I suspect your D will narrow her choices, but it will be worth while to actually visit before making such an imp. decision. Just plan to take time off end of April.</p>
<p>i just want to say that it's nice of you guys to take your kids to visit these schools, and to pay for it as well. i am sure they really appreciate it :)</p>
<p>Mom60, D and I flew into Boston to see her two finalists around the middle of April. One she had applied to without visiting, the other she had visited and done an overnight. She did overnights at both on this trip.</p>
<p>The big question now is, "Do you have enough time to see all the possible schools on one trip if you schedule it now?" With the schools being as geographically dispersed as you say, it might be very problematic. I know that people actually decide to attend schools they've never seen but I can't conceive of it myself, especially after having visited 12-15 and seeing the range of reactions.</p>
<p>Fendergirl, compared to the investment of four years and all the $$$, making a trip to try to get the decision right is a small incremental cost. At least that's what I told myself when the credit card bills came in.</p>
<p>I have to agree with TheDad here about the costs of visiting. They're miniscule when you compare them to what you'll be paying for the next four years. We're on D3 now and we've visited all of the schools to which she decided to apply (and more!), just as we did with D1 and D2. We started in the summer before Junior year with all of them and did a tour. We re-visited 3 with D1 when her acceptances came in; D2 was admitted Early Decision; and I suspect with D3 that we will not re-visit, simply because she's done the overnight thing at all of her schools, and, in fact, has visited all of them several times. I, too, cannot conceive of attending a school which hasn't been seen ahead of time. There are so many inexpensive flights you can get these days that it can be done at a very low cost. I feel it's worth it because there are just too many variables involved to make such an important decision without seeing a school face-to-face.</p>
<p>well, in comparison, i haven't been on a family vacation in about 12 years :) and, when i graduate in may, i'll be paying back my student loans for.. awhile. i'm just grateful that my parents have helped me out with some of my tuition. so in my eyes, it was very nice of you to take them around like that :)</p>
<p>Mom60, if funds are limited and you have some schools that are the smaller type schools where a visit, and a "say hello, pop the head in the adcoms office" may make a difference, you might want to visit a few of those schools. You don't mention which schools are still on the plate for a decision, so it is difficult to tell. The larger state schools, HPY &Co generally do not care if you visit them when they make a decision; schools like Tulane, Emory, LACs in general do take this into account, so you may want to put such schools on your priority list to visit. Then when the acceptances come in, she may well be able to eliminate certain schools even without a visit, and focus on the top three choices or so. </p>
<p>S applied to a ridiculous number of schools and since he had to audition to a number of those, that was his visit to them. He did not bother to visit HPY, but did visit Vassar and was planning some other LACs that did not have an audition requirement but were the types of schools where a visit is important. He did not visit State U either.</p>
<p>Mom60, my son was in a similar situation. He had applied to schools from West Coast to East Coast and places in between. Except for the rolling decision instate schools (UMich and MSU -- both in residential colleges), which accepted him early on, he had to wait til April to hear from all the schools he hadn't visited. All promised decisions on or around April 1st.</p>
<p>As it turned out one of the Eastern schools (Williams) did an "early write" and let him know he was admitted in early March. So that meant that he had to plan either to go to their admitted student's day in mid-April or go earlier, since that admitted student's day ended up conflicting with another school's visiting day, which was located in the midwest.</p>
<p>So we did a bit of triage. He decided to make an early visit to the Eastern school, a week before their admitted student day, because he could do this during his Spring vacation. That visit took that school out of the running for him. The next week, therefore, he did a regular overnight admitted student visit to school in the Midwest (UChicago), and the next morning declared "This will do," and that was the end of his visiting. He never did visit Carleton, which was the other midwest school (other than the state schools), or go back to the West coast to check out Reed (which he had in fact visited two years earlier).</p>
<p>It wasn't that hard for him to make a decision after he had eliminated one of the possibilities early on, and also given that he had good backups.</p>
<p>Fendergirl,
Up until last spring, our family had not taken an extended family vacation in a number of yrs also. In fact, our trip back east to check out D1's final 4 schools was the first time our 11 yr old had taken a plane trip!!! :0 So, we made a family vacation out of the trip...and also allowed our 14 yr old to check out the eastern schools as well. Lucky for us, the 2 schools were in MA and the others were in PA.</p>
<p>After all the acceptances come in, try narrowing it down to a reasonable number. D must have preferences for some over others.</p>
<p>I don't remember which thread mentioned this earlier but someone said it was important to confine your kid's college choices to ONLY schools located near cities served by Southwest!</p>
<p>It might not hurt to get tickets booked now if they are refundable.... I think Southwest does exchange unused tix.</p>
<p>yeah, my little sister is 16 and still hasn't ridden on a plane. we drove to virginia for 2 or 3 days back when she was about 3. :) the first(and only) time ive ridden on a plane was my senior year of high school. our senior class went to Orlando.. about 400 of us went, we had to take three full planes :) i love visiting places.. i'm driving with 36 friends down to florida for spring break in march.. last year 20 of us drove to miami, and the year before 18 of us went to west palm beach. our trips are part of habitat for humanities spring break program. we build houses, it's a wonderful experience.. you guys should suggest it to your kids.. it's a nice, inexpensive way to spend a spring break, and it really is for a good cause.</p>
<p>My son decided last year he would make these final visits himself and stay over at each school. Like you, we made sure he accomplished this before April at the places he heard from early. </p>
<p>Then, though it was last minute and we're on the West Coast while some of his schools were in the midwest and East Coast, he sat down and managed to put together a trip, using discount airlines and specials, that was reasonable. At some schools, he was able to make the admit weekends and events. Where he was not, we found places for him to stay and students for him to meet through a variety of networks, from family to CC. I even called people I had not seen in years because I remembered hearing they had a kid at this place or that. So he went off with phone numbers and overnight arrangements. I was amazed he wanted to do this on his own, and impressed by how he did it. It seemed to be part of his decision making process to see whether he could handle the travel, the distance, and the information gathering away from us.</p>
<p>We joked that if he got off the plane coming home wearing a college sweatshirt, we'd know his choice. He got off the plane wearing a college tee-shirt, saying the sweatshirt had been too expensive, which correctly mirrored his level of commitment. It went down to the wire, including a check made out at one point to a different school, until he finally chose his college. And, it was the one where he had bought the tee-shirt.</p>
<p>I recall that back in the dark ages, when I was a hs senior it was not unusual for students to enroll to colleges sight unseen. And that was pre-internet, heck pre-personal computer and calculator. Before my arrival on the OSU campus for summer orientation the only information I had was out of the University catalogue which had about 10 photographs and an encyclopedia article. The only classmate who traveled out of state visited Duke(his father had negative comments to the effect of it being to beautiful) and Notre Dame where he ultimately enrolled.</p>
<p>I am NOT suggesting that your D not visit. Try to visit as many as necessary. Just have her keep in mind several things. There is no such thing as the perfect college for any particular student. An overwhelming %age of students eventually love the college they are attending. Many negatives a student encounters in college cannot be determined by a short campus visit(the roommate from h$@%, the disorganized/uncomprehensible professor, the dining hall food three months later, the inability to connect socially, campus diversity issues, a dreary 4 month winter, frustrations with the Registrar after being closed out of a class she really wanted to take that first spring semester(just happened to S), riding the bench on the soccer team after starting jr & sr years in hs, failing the audition for the college orchestra, finding out that 8am classes are nearly impossible to get to after being on time at 8am for 960 straight previous school days). And sometimes a student will have a negative experience during a campus visit, particularly an overnite, which does not typify the environment at that college. Can you imaging the different image a student may come away with if the campus tour was done on a miserably cold and rainy day vs a gloriously warm and sunny spring day? During our Uof Rochester visit a student yelled, "Don't even think about coming here, Rochester s^$%s!"</p>
<p>Again try to shoehorn the visits in, but encourage your D to keep an open mind and not place too much emphesis on their outcome. If she is like most students, she will very likely be extremely happy at any number of her top choices.</p>
<p>Oringinalog -- I agree with your basic points, that there is no perfect school and that most students will be happy at any of their top choices. That was the problem -- our son could see himself at almost every school that accepted him. To choose, he really needed the overnight experience and to meet more students at each place, while realizing that he could never get a "representative sample" in a scientific sense in such a short visit. At some point, he had to go with his gut. I, too, attended a college without visiting it ahead of time back in the dinosaur age, and hated it. I think I would have known it was not the place for me if I had sat in on one class.</p>
<p>The U of Rochester experience reminds me that at one of his stops, my son stayed overnight the first night in the apartment of a student whose mother was my best friend in high school. The student invited some friends in for him to meet. He phoned us a few hours later, whispering so that his hostess didn't hear, that every single one of her friends who heard what his choices were advised him not to go the school they all attended.</p>
<p>I certainly agree. My son had a miserable, miserable visit to Syracuse last spring. Everything went wrong and it was a day when it was raining buckets and he stepped in mud everywhere. He was supposed to meet up with someone who stood him up. He had an appointment with a prof who forgot. He was going to sit in on a class and it was the wrong date so the class was not held. The kid who finally showed him around was a total wierdo who picked his nose constantly and sucked on his front teeth. The adcom office was virtually empty, no one could find any material to give him. The food was horrible. He saw the worst dorm on campus. He wanted to cross the school off of his list. </p>
<p>We went in October, and what a difference. It was a beautiful fall day, andl the school had everything together. He met some great kids, took a wonderful tour, caught a football game. Syracuse became one of the top considerations. So, you can see that a visit can often be deceiving. Also to visit a school on a school night is a whole different thing from enjoying a weekend there complete with parties and going ons. Though in S's case, he saw one school that he liked totally shuts down on weekends and you are on the town which being Boston is great, but it is nice to have a lively campus with things going on as well. Also if you are considering a Syracuse or a Rochester, you should be well aware that the weather for a good part of the year is not very nice. A warm sunny day is actually deceptive. </p>
<p>But there are things that you can only get from a visit. I would not advise sending a kid to a school like ST Marys in MD, for example without checking it out first as the culture is very different from a UMD or a city school. A college like Bard or Oberlin definitely has a different culture from ROchester of Johns Hopkins. Kids who are hesitant about going to a catholic college can be well assured that they are not overly religious by spending some time there, or in the case of a school like Franciscan, they need to be aware that religion is a big deal thing,</p>
<p>Last summer I took my daughter on what I called the "harmony or homicide road trip" We went from California to Boston, by train, plane,taxi, bus, car, and ferry (lake Champlain). It turned out to be harmony. We have also taken a three day road trip to the UCs here in Ca. If D decides to apply to any others we will find a way after she is accepted and if she doesn't get what she wants from the schools we did see.</p>
<p>Harmony or homicide-- LOL!!!</p>
<p>I agree with what's been said about the unpredictability of visits for giving an accurate picture of a college. That said, however, there are some things that only a visit can really help with. One of these that we've found is the relationship between the campus and the town, and how isolated a place may be from other colleges, urban places, airports, and so on. </p>
<p>Of course, I went off to a college sight unseen, and it was a terrific experience for me that I would repeat in a moment (if I didn't have a job, and if I had a spare $180,000 and four years of my time to spend). But it was a risk at that time, and it would be now. It's better to have access to the kind of information and insight that you can pick up on a visit, as long as you realize that it can be somewhat subject to random events like weather, time of year (or week), and the chance that the people you encounter will be jerks or the classes you happen to attend on a showcase day aren't representative.</p>
<p>I'm not a last year's parent but I just thought I would mention that some of your daughter's schools may come off her list due to financial reasons. You might want to wait until the financial aid package for each school comes in (although I realize that there will not be a lot of time between that date and when you have to send in your deposit). Just a thought.</p>
<p>My son was fortunate, he had visisted every school once, and some twice because he was a recruited athlete. But his best friend had not visited ANY of the schools he was accepted to, so he had to do a SE, Ne & Mid-West trip the middle of April. It was hectic, but he did get a good visit in at each school, andf was happy with the coice he ultimately made.</p>