<p>Hi Wish! Congrats on the acceptance!!!</p>
<p>Your son sounds like he is quite good at checking out colleges, and you have so many fine suggestions here, so I will just wish you a wonderful trip. Have fun!!</p>
<p>Where are the nearest hospitals? Nearest police station? Nearest ATM, bank? I also look for the fun stores and resteraunts. If there is a Starbucks nearby or other chain, make note of it. When friends or relatives ask what they can get the kid, a nice gift is a gift card for a something that can be used there and so easy to tuck in a card. Order a yellow and white pages that include the area. Get a hard copy of the catalogue and student handbook. Your kid may bury his and you'll never get to see it. Just found my son's handbook when I was looking for some book in his junk, and I never knew his school had the thing. I know you can find everything on -line but a hard copy is useful for me as well because sometime you don't know what you are looking for and need to browse. Parking options are good to note while things are not crowded. No fun hunting for parking when everyone else is so note the parking garages.</p>
<p>This all such great advice.Thanks!!! We are starting college visits for D2(hs junior) during Spring break. Unfortunately, three (we plan to see 5) of the schools we are touring will also be on break,so much for timing, but travel distance and track season dictate life these days, so will only get limited info.</p>
<p>Wi****was,</p>
<p>Great ideas here. Mostly I second split up to investigate and eat in the dining halls (seperately too, if you want.) Walking up to random people and chatting gives a great general tone feeling.</p>
<p>Can your son stay in the dorm with a kid? Sometimes a coach, a prof, or someone heading up one if your son's ECs can arrange an overninght. It will give him a much better flavor. At least one night like this would be fun. Try to match him with someone who is personable and shares an interest...</p>
<p>One of my daughter's concerns is that the students stay on campus on the weekend. At one school we visited with a published 85-90% stay on campus figure, the students may have been there at some point but they were not in the cafeteria, the library, the gym, the student union, and the small town had no bars.</p>
<p>Soooooooooo (and here's the tip) we started talking to the maintenance people, the cafeteria workers, the guys with the golf carts, the security/police personnel. You'd be amazed at the things these "invisible" people know. Come to find out-the kids were there from about 3 am to about 6 pm on Saturdays to crash as they were all coming home from clubs in a town at least 40 minutes if not an hour and 15 minutes away. Stay on campus I guess means different things. To D it suggested a campus kids did not leave for entertainment reasons or otherwise as she will likely be 1500 miles from home without a car. For that school it meant sobered up there. That was one lonely looking place with all the kid's gone on a Friday night. Deal-killer, and we learned about it from our observation and the questioning of the "Invisibles".</p>
<p>More great suggestions. Thank you all and I appreciate the congrats, Cricket! When it seemed that "everyone" was posting his or her kid's ED and EA decisions, we were sweating the merit money determinations. So I figured I'd just wait to post until we knew just what was what. Still waiting on 2 schools but it does feel good to be visiting the number one choice, esp. as it is in a warm and sunny climate and that sure sounds good in February. </p>
<p>Although I will add an aside to those looking at Oregon schools like Carolyn and a few others. It has been a pretty mild winter. Today started out cold - foggy and even a touch of frost on the grass - but by late morning it was sunny and spring seemed in the air. The next door neighbors even mowed!!!!</p>
<p>Really like the suggestion about the Invisibles, Curmudg! Very good idea.</p>
<p>This sounds basic, but (i) print a campus map off the school's website and (ii) put the address of the Admissions Office into Mapquest and print that map. There is nothing worse than being on a tight schedule and searching around for the Admissions Office on an unfamiliar campus. Don't rely on your Rand McNally - the city maps have very little detail. We once got lost searching for the campus (in a larger city)...</p>
<p>If the campus looks shabby--buildings need paint, lawns unkept, windows dirty, garbage not picked up, it may be a sign of financial problems. This is silly, but one of the non-academic things that impressed me about USC was that the grass came right up to the edge of the sidewalks.</p>
<p>Others have mentioned the importance of having your child interact with students at the school. I want to add that if your child has an idea about any particular extracurricular activities he or she will likely want to join, it's a good idea to search out and, if possible, sample any available meetings and/or activities of these campus groups. It's especially helpful if your S/D can speak with people already involved in the groups to get a feeling for how well he/she fits in with the personalities he/she would be likely to encounter.</p>
<p>Map, that is a great suggestion that we have done before. </p>
<p>S emails someone from the athletics dep't and gets an email address for the coach and/or captain of the Lacrosse team, who he gets in touch with ahead of time. That usually turns into an offer to stay overnight in the dorms, a tour of the campus, someone to accompany to class, etc. I am talking club lacrosse here - not a recruiting trip. He has already made contact with a lax kid for this trip and will even be able to practice with them one of the days we'll be there. He's done similar things by contacting kids who were active in the same youth group he is and who now are on that campus.</p>
<p>Tsdad, one thing my H does is he goes online and looks for copies of the President's report to the Board and/or equivalent. That is usualyy chock full of info on all kinds of stuff, from financial to academics to priorities to goals they hope to achieve in the coming years. Can make for interesting reading....</p>
<p>He also looks at who teaches there in the areas he knows, and contacts someone as he usually knows or knows of a least a few of the people. This time we will see someone who was a colleague at an ivy back in the 80s.</p>
<p>Go to the off-campus places where students hang out, and grab a bite there -- Franklin Street at UNC, the block at UVA, etc.</p>
<p>Visit cold weather places when it's cold! Madison is a lot colder than NOVA, yes tsdad?</p>
<p>Dudedad:</p>
<p>Indeed, but I have been told that the last three winters have been relatively mild although we usually don't have too many days in the DC area with highs of -4 and lows of -11 like we did one weekend last month in Madison. Actually, I think we can get more snow in NoVA then here in southern Wisconsin.</p>
<p>The main difference in weather though is that it stays warmer longer in NoVA and gets warmer earlier than in Madison.</p>
<p>HS students, considering UW, may want to walk from the bookstore all the ways down State Street (blocked off from cars) to Capital Square to get a good feeling for off-campus life in Madison. Also as much as I have defended the area around USC, a visit to Westwood was quite pleasant.</p>
<p>Besides a map, make sure you know where you can park your car.</p>
<p>These suggestions are fantastic! Timing is perfect for me, just starting the college visits w/D this spring. So many things I didn't even consider .... special thanks to digmedia for the list!</p>
<p>I do have a question (please bear with me, this is very new to me!) from what I've read on the college's web sites, the visits/tours seem very formal & programmed. Can we venture off on our own?</p>
<p>Here are a few more suggestions:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Check out the career center and its offerings.</p></li>
<li><p>Visit the residence halls and (probably more important for Ds) the bathrooms.</p></li>
<li><p>Read the student newspaper(s).</p></li>
<li><p>Consult the events calendar--what sort of offerings are available on campus both during the week and on weekends?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>And yes, you can and should venture off on your own. Sit in on a class or two (may need permission beforehand). Wander through the library as suggested earlier. Just explain to whatever security folks you encounter that you're a visiting accepted student family.</p>
<p>Would you mind sharing the name or general location of the school that kids disappeared from the campus on weekends?</p>
<p>thanks.</p>
<p>Hopefulmom - The actual tours and presentations are very programmed. After that you can wander off on your own. A hint: we've found that if you ask the admissions rep after an interview or the presentation if it is OK to eat in the cafeteria, they will usually offer you a free dining voucher.</p>
<p>This is really helpful. I love these ideas! Just in time too, as I'm going to visit my college on an open house date, April 1.</p>
<p>Tutorial Centers -</p>
<p>If you are visiting during the school year, check out the Writing Centers, the Math Centers, etc. for activity. Evaluate the staffing and whether or not students use these resources. See if it's easy to get immediate help, or if you have to wait for appointments.</p>
<p>infopls, the school I spoke of was a well respected LAC in the South and to be fair, they were there-so to speak. But I have heard that it could be applicable to many across the country. I was talking to a student online about a well respected Mid -Atlantic LAC and they told me that Enormous State U. was only an hour away and that's where everyone went to party.They were lamenting the curvy two lane road back from partying late at night. Scared me senseless.</p>