<p>Read the thread Turtle, his father has already given the OP a “budget.” The OP’s dad may be concerned about total cost at some of the colleges but the OP has a healthy budget for college.</p>
<p>I don’t think college visits really matter. You can find a lot of information about colleges online. However I do think that it is wrong for your father to deny you the chance to apply to 10 colleges. What’s the harm? A few hundred bucks which you can easily repay once you have a job (if he’s that stubborn)?</p>
<p>"While the calculators give guidance, the truth is that offers actually vary quite dramatically, which is one reason many students apply to so many schools – you want to have enough choices for a good financial deal as well. " - KMCmom</p>
<p>Exactly! That is why it is so hard to prune lists for families in the 100K range. Fincancial Aid is like a box of chocolates . . . .</p>
<p>Your dad is obviously from a generation of people who quit school early and were forced to bust there ass for the majority of there life. which is ok. Perhaps financially he may not be able to travel to all these places because of gas. Save of some money to pay him for gas. Or, you can just go there on your own. Pay for it yourself. Parents just don’t do things like this, they never have. would you lend your little sister $1000 bucks out of your pocket to visit schools and apply?</p>
<p>I would research every school as much as you can online. If you know anyone at any of the schools you are looking at contact them. Also, contact admissions and ask about college life, clubs, and student involvement. Don’t worry, I am sure you will find a great university.</p>
<p>Every good large college has so many clubs and opportunities nobody could ever hit 10% of them. That’s one reason I think all this stuff is nonsense. People rejecting a school because the guide wore nice shoes?? Kids are nuts today.</p>
<p>CMU has something called “sleeping bag weekends”. Can you get on a bus or train? They consider interest in their acceptance decision and have a formal process once you are accepted to allow you to submit competing financial aid/merit offers to see if they can do better. </p>
<p>Also check the various schools on your list to see if they are traveling the country making presentations. I believe a bunch of them do. Some travel in consortiums so you may be able to hit a bunch at once. Since you live in a rural area you may have to travel to a larger city but again…train or bus. </p>
<p>I think one of the bus or train lines has some kind of discount program for students visiting colleges. Check it out. It takes a lot of planning to fit all of this into your school schedule (even if you had your parents helping out and driving) so start planning now if you want to fit some visits in during the school year.</p>
<p>Dear Untraveled Student: your Dad won’t change, he wont see the guidance counselor, he’s not going to budge. SOOOOOO here’s what I would suggest:
Say, “Daddy, I’ve worked hard to make myself eligible for these schools. I know you say it’s my choice, but I don’t feel like it is; and I’m sorry that you don’t have that trust in me. Since this is such an important milestone in my life, I’m hurt by your lack of confidence in me and I feel like I can’t share things that are important to me with you because they will be dismissed.” “What are you afraid of?” And then walk out of the room.</p>
<p>I think that you should visit your realistic match schools. Personally, college visits made a HUGE difference for me. I visited two schools in the northeast (family vacation so wasn’t a lot of extra travel costs) last summer that I was very excited about. I had researched both of them extensively and thought both could be a decent match. Then I visited and the first one looked like a high school while the second was the school of my dreams. I didn’t even bother applying to the first school and saved some money. On the other hand, I visited schools closer to me that I was not really that interested in. After visiting UNC Chapel Hill, my opinion was changed for the better, and that’s where I will be in the fall (partly money, partly weather, but I also fell in love with it over my other dream school).</p>
<p>I think it’s really important to see the atmosphere at a college during the school year. For me, the atmosphere at UNC is one of the best things. It fits me very well, while other schools (like Duke…) seemed more competitive and a little snobby to me. And that was before I actually liked UNC, so it’s not just that rivalry. Those are just my personal opinions, and I hope your college visits are fruitful.</p>
<p>If it makes you feel better, I pretty much didn’t visit any schools until AFTER I was accepted to them; the idea was that visits were used more to decide where to attend. (I did make an exception for a school that was an hour’s drive away bc at the time it was my top choice and close enough that there were no hotel fees and transportation was low). Not visiting a school you may not even attend isn’t really an issue. Also, I honestly don’t know how many institutions actually keep track of who visited way back when. If you demonstrate knowledge of the school, which can be found online easily, you’ll have no problem) Visiting after acceptance may be easier to negotiate</p>
<p>The other qualities, that of not allowing you to apply to too many schools, are you eligible for any fee waivers (due to grades, AP scores, or finances, yes the first two can get you fee waivers, and at some excellent schools at that)? That may make him change his mind.</p>
<p>As to how the admitees are chosen, does it really matter what he thinks about that? Just tell him the interview is a mandatory part of the application process.</p>
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<p>This is an excellent suggestion. Visiting colleges is a nice luxury, but not really a necessity. After a while, they all start to look the same. What you will find is that the glamorous “name schools” are rarely more physically impressive than lower-ranked yet respectable places. There is no magic fairy dust in the air at top-ranked schools. One advantage of college visits is the opportunity to gain that perspective. Visits are pretty much tire-kicking and marketing opportunities. They are not essential to the application process.</p>
<p>My son will be attending University of Miami in the fall. Last summer, we visited several schools during our family vacation. They were informative, but after visiting several more during the fall and spring semesters, (while classes were in session) made our summer visits seem almost a waste. </p>
<p>When you use your precious 3 visits, make sure school is in session. It’s worth missing a day of school to see your prospective home in the height of activity. Seeing the frenzy on campus can help you envision yourself being a part of it or not. </p>
<p>Just another benefit of college visits to consider. Good luck!</p>
<p>ToastedToaster, you can apply to U-Mich without paying an application fee.</p>
<p>Here is how I avoided the app fee. When you complete the U-M supplement, there is a section that asks if you had applied to U-M Flint or Dearborn for the same application year. If you did, then your APPLICATION FEE IS WAIVED! So before submitting my Umich application, I applied to U-M Dearborn through onsite addmissions (which is free). Less than a week later, I turned in my U-Mich application. I think I read somewhere that you are out of state, but you should still be able to apply to U-M Dearborn, for FREE (if you apply online). The U-M Dearborn app can be completed in a short amount of time. Unless there is some OOS policy I am not aware of, you should be able to save $100 on app fees. </p>
<p>Go Blue!</p>
<p>I only visited one of the colleges to which I applied before I sent in my applications. Although it’d definitely be easier to visit the colleges, all is not lost if you don’t (I visited the aforementioned college in the 8th grade anyway, during a family holiday to Boston. I never thought I’d ever apply). Here are just a few tips at choosing colleges without visiting:</p>
<p>1) Look at what you want to get out of college. What sort of peers do you want? Will extra curriculars be a big thing?
2) Talk to current students, and maybe even go to google blogsearch to find some candid opinions of the college.
3) Look at which colleges would match your financial situation. That should narrow down the list a lot.
4) Think about what sort of setting you want. How do you feel in small country towns? Do you prefer an urban environment? Even if you can’t exactly visit the colleges, you can look at how you feel in these different settings…
5) How close to home do you want to be?
6) Look at photographs of the colleges. Don’t just look at the photos taken by the university, but look at photos taken by other visitors. These should give an honest portrayal of what it looks like…
7) Consider special programs.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what to suggest about sending in more applications - I would recommend one safety that you’d be delighted to attend, so look into the above factors when choosing this school (special programs often make a huge difference). If you can’t visit colleges before you apply, try to visit once you get in. I personally couldn’t, but once you get in, you’re bombarded with a wealth of resources. Use these! Join the facebook groups for the different classes and talk to people. Look at the materials that the schools send you, but don’t take them too seriously. Good luck!</p>
<p>A small part of my son’s summer job is giving tours of his campus. People come from all around the country to visit and the thing that surprises him the most is the lack of questions from those taking the tour. If there are questions they more often come from the accompanying parent. If you travel all the way across the country and don’t ask any questions seems to me the visit was a waste of time.</p>
<p>Fanatika’s advice about the possibility of being able to do a little wheeling and dealing with financial aid is good – My D’s friend was able to squeeze a little more aid out of CMU when her parents told admissions they were absolutely committed to their D attending that Univ, but they just needed some more financial assistance. CMU coughed up some more $$ and said they would rather get a firm commitment than have to go back to the waitlist (and the uncertainty about their numbers for another month). Go figure – admissions loathes wading back into their own waitlists!</p>
<p>I only visited two schools (my dream school and a safety of sorts), but applied to six. I was accepted to all of them, but my financial aid award for my dream school was not sent to me until mid-April, leaving me very little time to explore other options since I had put all of my eggs in one basket. I had finally decided on paying the higher tuition to attend the private school that I loved, until I received a letter in the mail saying that there had been a “computer glitch” (their words, not mine) that caused me to be awarded $5000 too much per year in need-based aid. Needless to say, I couldn’t bring myself to accept that I’d be graduating with upwards of 100k in debt, so I chose the large state school where I was given full tuition. Looking back, I wish I could have done so many things differently, because once “dream school” seemed out of the picture I really was only familiar with one other school that I had applied to and had very few options. The moral of the story: you can never do too much research or have too many options, because stupid things like “computer glitches” or even a surprise rejection can ruin your plans very quickly. Best of luck in your college search.</p>
<p>Hi, I have to say I agree about the costs of college visits. If you want to visit a college that is out of state, depending on how far away it is, airfare for a student and a parent, plus hotel costs, quickly adds up. A trip to visit a school that is several states away could end up costing $1500-2000. That’s not exactly an affordable option for a lot of people.</p>
<p>Personally I believe college visits are a waste until you get into the college. Just think of all of the money you will waste traveling to a college that you will not get into. I think you should stay home do other things to learn about the school. Visit the form page on cc, watch videos on YouTube, visit the website, read books and magazines. Visiting colleges is this new thing that only pansies do. It should be like back ten twenty years ago when a large portion never even dreamed of attending school. College visits is just an excuse for rich kids to purchase a shirt or souvenir to show off to their friends and others saying that they are applying there. If you are paying for the visit then go ahead but since your father is then who gives you the right to use his money on something he doesn’t want? Who is paying to apply to schools? I bet it’s your father, so he should no doubt have the final say in how many schools you apply to. Who is paying for you to attend college? Once again I bet it is your dad. I live in a “rich” white town and the whole college nonsense ****es me off. I believe in the college method twenty years ago, when you walked into the sat, took it once without wee giving it a thought, and continued on. And there was no hoopla over college.</p>
<p>I think you would gain credibility with your dad to do the research on where to apply, then, once accepted, make your case to do a couple visits. But be prudent, and maybe your dad will see that you are heeding his advice and give you some lead.</p>