Yes but there are other ways of demonstrating interest. You can interview with an alumnus in your area, for example. You can meet a rep at a college fair. You can begin a correspondence with the adcoms, gently and not stalkerish, asking informed questions at first, following up as you go. Those emails go into your file. You can create a linkedin profile to show your progress toward the school. You can submit additional optional materials. There are so many ways to demonstrate interest that are low-cost and imaginative. @MaelstromMonkey
It is a lot of schools, in a lot of states, in 2 weeks. Your daughter will be exhausted, and you said that part of the reason she can’t go at different times is because she’s so busy with high school things. If she comes back exhausted and can’t keep up with the rest of her junior year activities, it won’t be pretty.
You can hope for good weather, you can hope for good air connections, but you need to plan for things to go wrong. I’d cut all the schools that are ‘solos’, like Grinnell and Middlebury. They are just too remote to be on the plan. Do the MSP schools, do the Boston-ish schools, do the Amherst schools. If none of those work, then look at the others, or if she absolutely falls in love with the midwest, then concentrate on that area.
Some of her choices just don’t seem to go together. Lawrence is a beautiful school, but it is nothing like Reed College, nothing like Vassar. You can’t look at every school in America. She has to make some cuts.
Personally, I think it’s too much. I got exhausted from just seeing 5 schools in 5 days. They started to blur together. When I visited schools, I liked to take time to get to know the place – sit in on a class, take a couple of hours to just wander around, meet with a professor, eavesdrop on the students, and eat at the cafeteria. My feeling is that if all you have time to do is take a tour and that’s it, you would probably have been better off saving the time and money and just looking at the campus on Google Images.
We did 2 separate 5-day trips. At the end of each of these we were impatient & burned out.
Consider breaking up your 14 day trip into 2 separate trips. After our 1st trip, we applied our logistical learnings to the 2nd trip. After seeing the first group of schools, we reevaluated priorities and revised the list of schools. The 2nd trip was more focused and efficient.
It sounds like you are going to visit the PNW schools first. From that visit and a few in CA, you may be able to pare down your long list. You have great colleges listed but some have a very different vibe than others. If the PNW trip helps you get a better picture of what she is looking for you can then pare down this list.
I agree with the posters who say it might be too much. Visiting colleges can be exhausting. We didn’t visit those “one off” colleges in remote locations. We visited the ones that were clustered together and told our D that she could apply to the others and visit if she was accepted and still interested.
Coming back to say, college visits help the student to narrow down the type of schools which feel right, and that does not mean having to seeing ALL the possible examples of that type of school. So, consider looking for overlap in types of schools to cut out some of the steps and narrow the focus.
For instance, you might drop the MN/Iowa leg and go straight to the east coast (much as I love Grinnell). Save the midwest leg for the summer perhaps – we saw Grinnell in July, and loved it, Plus, a CA kid has a pretty good explanation for why they didn’t visit midwest schools – as long as your daughter shows interest other ways – mailing list, college fairs, follow the schools on social media etc.
Consider some “pods” which would offer different vibes for comparison purposes – Middlebury, Skidmore, Vassar, (Bard?) – is it worth considering St Lawrence as a possible safety? Then, a pod of Boston and vicinity schools – Smith and Wellesley do have different feels, as does Clark, NE etc. As a BMC alum, I hate to encourage someone to wait on BMC and H’ford, but those could be combined with a DC trip another time. Or, leave those two in, for comparison especially with Smith, Holyoke, Wellesley communities.
It won’t help serve your interests, if any of you are so exhausted or bored or overwhelmed by the time you reach a school which might, under other less exhausted circumstances, been a great fit, but no one could appreciate it through weariness.
We took a similar approach, visiting 12 northeastern schools in 6 days during Junior year.
Lessons learned–
Air Travel:
- Enroll everyone in TSA Pre-Check to save time going through security at the airport.
Campus Activities:
- Class visits were very valuable. Schedule them when possible.
- Self-guided tours were not nearly as valuable as guided tours. The campuses start to look alike very quickly and it helps to have someone tell you the campus story.
- Attending an Info Session didn’t usually yield new information about the school, but it did help form the personality of the school.
- On-campus interviews were valuable and we did them whenever possible. Part of the value was getting experience talking about herself. Confidence grew the more she did it.
- Given the points above, trying to fit a class visit, guided tour, info session, (and where offered an interview) will make it difficult to have time to visit a second campus. I recommend doing these four activities for the schools that are most interesting and removing less interesting schools from the visit list.
Overall:
- Parents, refrain from providing your description/opinion of the school before you visit…the preconceived notions your child absorbs stick with them throughout the visit.
- Don’t push-back if you child is not “feeling” it at a school. Leave early, cancel the interview, and move on. The list of potential schools will be plenty long without that one.
- The people you interact with on campus will shape the opinion of the whole school, so the more people you meet the better.
- If possible, make time to meet with organizations on campus that align with your student’s interests. We had a terrific meeting with the Director of the LGBT Resource Center at Georgetown simply by dropping in and saying hello.
Our kids got a lot out of spending a little more time per campus. They went on the tour, sat in on a class, and ate in the cafeteria where possible. I personally think that a little more time spent with the Fiske Guide to Colleges and assessing her chances based on grades/test scores could help pare down the list before you make the trip. We occasionally did 2 schools/day, but typically they only did the tour at the second tour. Info sessions are mostly a waste of time. I am not sure I have ever heard anything in an info session that was not on the school website, and there are a lot of questions asked that are either very easily found on the website or in a guide like Fiske, or are so nitpicky specific to one student’s background that no one else cares.
Agree that Grinnell is really off the beaten path. That is a school that you might wait and see if your kid gets in, then have them go to accepted student days if it looks good on paper compared to the other options.
Whew! Just reading your itinerary made me exhausted! We did 4 schools in 2 days and had to drag ourselves to the last one. Just be mindful that many schools are hilly and guides like to keep a quick pace. For BMC and Haverford, were you planning on renting a car? You could take a short drive by Villanova and/or Swarthmore for a quick glimpse. Alternatively, you don’t have to rent a car. Easy train ride from the airport and between campuses you could walk, hop on the train, or maybe take the college Blue Bus between the two (not sure if you are allowed?) Maybe you could even fly in and out on the same day?
@Midwestmomofboys You say that you saw Grinnell in July and loved it… so many people say that you can’t get the vibe of a place in the summer. How did your son fall in love when there were no students on campus? If going to Grinnell, and getting in summer is a possibility, that would take a lot of pressure off doing so much in this trip!
We do really want to go to Philly and like @MomOf3DDs says, I think we can shoot over from the airport on the train and see BMC and Haverford all at once. BMC has a 10:00 tour and Haverford’s is at 3:45. I did also find an airport hotel walking distance to the train stop, so we could overnight and then flight right out again. If we flew in and out the same day… can we check our luggage for our outbound flight when we
I do also agree Philly could be combined with the summer DC trip, but BMC is a must see for D, whereas DC schools are not.
I’m going to play around with a slightly shorter trip and see how it looks if I cut Grinnell and Middlebury. It’s a shame to cut Middlebury, because there would be really hard to combine that with Maine later. There just isn’t an easy way to get from one to the other aside from a 4 hour drive. Or we just wait and see if she gets in and wants to visit then. Cutting Middlebury would also cut Skidmore (and Bard, but Bard wasn’t on her list anyway).
I’m also fine with cutting Tufts & Northeastern – those were added by me anyway. I’d rather do Clark than any of the other Boston schools.
D’s stats are all A’s and a 32 on her first ACT, so I feel like she’s in play for these schools. Her essays will be way more heartfelt if she visits and can honestly convey why she loves the schools. I plan to encourage her to keep a journal and take lots of pictures to remember (maybe even short video clips).
@magtf1 I’d love to hear your itinerary!! Thanks for the tips!! I agree that we want a real tour guide, not self-guided. Your kid did interviews as a junior? We will seek out the theater at each school and hopefully find some theater kids to talk to.
@intparent I have some schools as one per day, so we aren’t rushing off campus. I definitely want to try to soak in as much atmosphere as possible. I have been to one info session & tour (CMU) and you’re right, I could have done without the info session. I will keep an open mind on whether we need to attend those. I can see burning out and just going on tours.
FYI, You cannot check luggage with most airlines more than 4 hours before the flight.
@craspedia Yes, all her interviews were as a Junior or rising-Senior summer. Visiting schools was going to be tough once Senior year began and she wanted to be prepared to apply ED by 1 Nov.
We visited 10 schools in 5 days. Our itinerary was:
Sun - fun day in NYC, including going to see Hamilton!
Mon - Barnard, Columbia, Vassar
Tue - Williams, Smith
Wed - Amherst, Holyoke
Thur - Wesleyan, Brown
Fri - Wellesley
Sat - fun day in Boston
Good luck with your trip! I started visiting schools with S17 junior year - I think we saw 7 during the school year and 7 more in 2 separate three-day trips over the summer.
A few lessons that others have already mentioned: most helpful for my son was attending a class, eating on campus, tour, and lastly the information session, but much easier to do 1 college per day. Possibly helpful tip: in addition to taking pictures on campus, take a picture of your tour guide - as the parent, I found even the buildings stared to blend together, but I could distinguish the tour guide more clearly (not that you want the whole college impression resting with that one person, but I could link the other, overall impressions/vibe with the person more easily than with a building or a campus quad). Having your student write down impressions immediately in a notebook is,also critical when visiting so many schools back to back.
Over spring break in April, we visited WPI, Clark, Becker, and Bard. It snowed in Worcester - maybe 2-3 inches. Actually, for us, it was Clark that my son got that “no way” feeling (he didn’t like the surrounding neighborhood), so after the great info session, we skipped the tour and the lunch with a Clarkie, and that’s why we added Becker College at the last minute instead.
Over the summer, we did visit 2 colleges per day (I think we did 7 colleges in 5 or 6 days, though we did split into 2 separate trips), because college wasn’t in session and son couldn’t sit in on a class. So - more colleges, but less vibe. Son used the road trip to eliminate about half of the schools we saw from his list. I agree that the in-person visit is something more tangible for the student than just reading the guidebooks and taking virtual tours. That said, we still have 4 schools on the list that we never managed to visit in person. Good luck with your trip!!
Did several 2 a days, albeit not consecutively. Duke-UNC, BC-Bentley, Northeastern-BU, and once did William & Mary evening with UVa the next morning. While you’re tired at the end of the day just from all the traveling, I honestly found the visits to be interesting and so wasn’t mentally “over it”. It seems as though both you and your daughter are very interested in the process which would probably make you less likely to be tired of the tours (at least early on).
I agree with some of the others that the list is frankly too long. I am going to make an assumption that if you can afford a trip like this, application fees shouldn’t be a huge deal. I would recommend cutting some of the ones that don’t track demonstrated interest and applying regardless, and if she is admitted and still interested, make a visit out of it. You may be able to attend an “admitted students day” in that case as well, which would probably be more useful than a typical tour.
Also seconding the recommendation to take notes, pictures, etc. immediately after every visit. They can surely blur. I actually enjoyed 2-a-day visits in this regard as I felt like differences were more pronounced when I had a direct comparison that day. Again, it seems like D is very into the application process, so it shouldn’t take much goading, but encourage her to really evaluate what’s important to her before the trip. You mention theatre, but consider things like academic calendar if not semesterly (and which might be preferable), location/neighborhood, diversity of the student body, ideal class size, specifics of the program (for example, some schools have a general “core” curriculum or mandatory courses while others don’t), etc… If you don’t consider your preferences ahead of time, things won’t register as a pro/con, and I think you look with a less critical lens. When paring down a list of over a dozen schools, you need to be a little bit critical. Bonus, it gives her a base list of questions for the info session/tour guide.
For example: I visited Duke and absolutely loved it; I left my visit asking my mom if I could apply ED (mom’s alma mater, was hoping for legacy boost). She just looked at me, confused, and pointed out they didn’t even have my intended major (no undergrad business, just econ; I had been willing to sacrifice this for Duke, but it didn’t hit me how silly that was until my mom made the point). I kind of “snapped out of it” and started to think about that, how it was much further from home than what I’d prefer, how everyone on campus wore Lilly P. and VV (I’m not like that at all)… and then didn’t apply at all. I was so swept up by all the marketing, the gushing tour guide, and the gorgeous campus that I totally forgot why I was there. Duke is an amazing school, but it wouldn’t have been the right place for me for a number of reasons. Basically, remember that the goal of the visit is not to confirm that all the schools are amazing (because they are), but to really figure out where you’d like to attend and where you would not.
Any school you visit on a weekend will be at a disadvantage. If there’s any school you’d rather your D doesn’t apply to or attend, just visit it on Saturday morning.
28 minutes to change planes in Detroit is just a big unknown. I personally never book that close of a connection, ever, at any airport. This comes from my experiences flying 3-leg (each way) trips once or twice a year and D flying 4 RTs (2 to 3 legs each way) each year for boarding school & now college.
My D & I would have burnt out on your proposed schedule. We did a Pacific NW tour Spring of junior year, just 3 colleges mixed with other fun stuff like 1st visit to an Apple store, Amtrak, even 1st public bus ride.
At other times we squeezed in 2 separate single college visits. D ended up only applying to 1 place we had visited but even so, the visits really helped focus her search. She is currently happily attending a Midwestern LAC where she never set foot on campus before Registration.
But I know the mega tours work for some families & students. Definitely make notes immediately after each visit.
I would not bother with Univ of Maryland if you are coming from CA
@craspedia For summer visit to Grinnell, there were students on campus doing summer research etc., so it was not completely empty. Our tour guide was a football player, who worked in Admissions and was doing research that summer (maybe pre-med, I can’t recall). The info session was with about 4 families, we each had our own tour guide, and campus was amazing – to us, at least. It was more than enough to keep it on kid’s list.
You are getting lots of good advice here. For what it’s worth, I found info sessions helpful – not because of the content, much of which can be found online, but rather because of what the school chose to emphasize – its “self-conception” shone through in the info session. Juniors interviewing varies by school but most of the smaller schools only allow spring semester juniors to interview, and there may be a specific date after which they can do so.
Definitely give yourself a full day at BMC and Haverford – a late afternoon tour at Hford is worthwhile, even just to see the other part of the BiCo community, so your daughter can get sense of what taking class, eating etc at Hford would be like as a BMC student. (Full disclosure, I am BMC alum).
For a kid who could be interested in schools like Vassar, Grinnell, Bryn Mawr, I’d encourage you to keep Skidmore on the list, perhaps go to Conn Coll if you are going to Wesleyan. Are the Ohio schools on the list, just not for this trip?
If it were me (which I’m grateful mine are both in college, and it’s not), I’d keep the core of the east coast schools, bookend the visit with some fun, touristy stuff in Boston or Philly, so that the “palate” is wiped clean, then perhaps fly out for the CA consortium schools to have some real contrast and do some fun stuff while you are in that part of CA. If everyone’s schedule allows it, you could do a summer trip to midwest, fly in to MN-St Paul, see Carleton, Mac (maybe St Olaf’s for comparison purposes), drive down to Grinnell, then maybe fly to Cleveland to see Oberlin, Kenyon, perhaps Denison, for some comparison purposes (or fly to Columbus and start with Denison/Kenyon and drive up to Oberlin and fly out of Cleveland).
@CoyoteMom Excellent idea of taking a photo of the tour guide! I feel like Clark can be a drive by. If she loves Lewis & Clark in Portland, I think that’ll be a good safety. I’ve just read too many bad things about Clark’s location, it would be good to just see it, maybe check in at Admissions to register interest just in case, grab some brochures and then keep driving.
@magtf1 Thanks for your itinerary. I need to build in some fun. I would love to hit a show in NYC, but we aren’t going to NYC. I’ll see what’s playing in Philly… I think we will be spending the most time in Northampton, what to do there?
@Midwestmomofboys That’s really good to know about Grinnell. I have another question for you – they are having a “Junior Visit Day” on the last Friday of D’s break, so another idea would be to end up at Grinnell for the last stop. It’s from 7:00-3:00 pm, so fly in the night before and leave the next day. Do you think that would be more useful than a tour on either a regular day during the school year, or a day during the summer?
One thing that’s nice about putting Grinnell off until the summer is I could just book all the flights on Southwest: Des Moines, MSP, Chicago, Portland ME, Baltimore, etc, allowing a full day of travel in between each.
Here is a revised, shortened plan, putting Grinnell last, cutting SoCal (you guys are right, D could take a Friday off school in the Fall and we can do all of those schools then), keeping Skidmore so I might as well keep Middlebury since I’ve driven all the way to Skidmore:
Tues Fly to MSP
Wed Carleton, Macalester, fly to Philly 7:55pm
Thu Bryn Mawr, Haverford, fly to Boston 8:30pm (or fly Fri am)
Fri Wellesley, drive by Clark on the way to Northampton
Sat Mt Holyoke, self tour UMass and Amherst
Sun Day trip to Wesleyan
Mon Smith, drive to Vassar
Tue Vassar, drive to Skidmore (pause at Bard?)
Wed Skidmore, drive to Middlebury
Thu Middlebury, fly to Des Moines 4:39pm
Fri Grinnell Junior Visit Day
Sat Fly home
I could also fly straight to Philly in the beginning and then drive to Minneapolis after the Junior Visit day and see Carleton and Mac on the last Saturday, but like someone said, Saturday visits should be for schools not on the top of the list. And a 4 hour drive at the end of this trip would make me really cranky. OR, that same 4:39 flight out of Vermont also goes to MSP, so we could do Carleton and Mac on Friday and Grinnell on Saturday.
I considered the Ohio schools, but D didn’t flag them in her initial search. I feel like we have so many options here already. I really like the idea of the midwest schools because they are closer and less expensive. Northwest & SoCal are even better in the “close” category!! How does a kid from CA even get back and forth to Vassar and Skidmore?
@Lindagaf Would you mind sharing your itinerary? Did you do that busy schedule in one trip?
Do you have any more safety schools on the list? I wouldn’t consider anything on the list above a safety (except possibly Lewis & Clark).
@rosered55 I was thinking Mt Holyoke (grandma was alum and donated every year for 50+ years, plus was treasurer of her class for many of them). Plus Lawrence, Clark?, American?, maybe UMass Amherst if it’s not too big/impersonal. If she likes Lewis& Clark, I feel that one is a slam-dunk.
Most rigorous course load, AP’s/Honors, all A’s, 32 on her first ACT, lead roles in theater productions, top 5-10% of class, etc. Well spoken/confident, so she should do well in interviews. What else do these places want? sigh
If she applies to 10-12 of these LACs, certainly at least 1 will come back a “yes”, right? She wants to be challenged intellectually among her peers in small classes with great profs.