<p>Helpful comments or general advice about visiting colleges is greatly appreciated. Also, are there specific things that I should be looking for at the colleges?</p>
<p>The most important thing is to look and think about if you can see yourself at the school. Is it the size/location you like? Does it feel right? Ask a lot of questions about whatever is important to you academically (at the information session) or socially (usually better left for the student tour guide). If you have time, eat at the cafeteria and try to talk to some current students. And make sure you sign in at the information session so the school has it on record that you visited.</p>
<p>Bring a camera to take pictures, so you’ll remember what you’ve seen. Bring a list of questions to ask on the campus tour. Look into their classrooms, lab facilities, dorm rooms, laundry room, cafeteria, etc. Check out the neighborhood.</p>
<p>Are there any alums from your HS at any of the colleges you are visiting? Your college counseling office can assist you in tracking down alums, if you don’t already know. I think a quick meeting with a current student from your own HS (treat them to coffee, ice cream, Jamba Juice) can be really helpful for background information.</p>
<p>Do a “brain dump” of your impressions and observations as soon as possible after leaving the campus. Just type into a Word file, don’t even need to use full sentences. Everything you noticed.
After you’ve done a bunch of these you will be grateful you recorded your thoughts. Eventually you’ll have a hard remembering which campus had the great ice cream stand or the biggest dorms rooms. The details will all sort of merge in your head!
Also, the details may come in handy when writing applications in case the school wants you to explain why you want to go there. You can say really specific things about what impressed you instead of the standard replies.</p>
<p>Agree about taking notes somehow! “Why X” is sooo much easier if you can reference specific conversations with a tour guide or a class you sat in on. Get names of tour guides, and keep track of name of class & professor if you sit in on a class.</p>
<p>Size,
distance from home,
culture of school & kids (liberal/conservative/ diversity/ hard partying/ high pressure/preppy/ sloppy/ suitcase school/intellectual/ sports…)
then facilities & everything else</p>
<p>My son always asked about what percent of kids were in Greek life, and to what extent Greek life dominated the social scene. You can ask a tour guide (even better if you ask before or after the tour), but also ask other students.
Ask about academic support programs for freshmen. And freshmen orientation programs.</p>
<p>Do your best to factor out the personality and other traits of the tour guide. Studies show that students touring colleges are generally more influenced by the guide than other factors. Try not to fall into that mental trap.</p>
<p>Check out the student newspaper to see what the students are riled about and what kind of activities are happening. Look at the bulletin boards in the departments you might major in: What’s going on there? Walk around the town area surrounding the school’s campus - are you comfortable walking alone?</p>