You can decide if you want to go or not. I didn’t have to attend with my daughter, but I wouldn’t have seen the school and couldn’t have helped her decide in the end. As it was, the coach didn’t involve me very much and that was a big turn off.
Some coaches have the opinion that the choice of schools is 100% the child’s. That’s not how it worked in our family. I visited my non-athlete’s school choices too before the final decision. You may decide that you’ll let the student go first and then the family will only go to decide between the last two, but for use we didn’t have enough time for that. D looked as some schools in the summer, went to the OV in Sept and Oct, and had to decide in November.
Our daughter flew on her own to 4 of her 6 OVs. We had excellent communication with the coaches who checked with us every step of the way. She was picked up and dropped back off at the airport usually by the coach him/herself. We communicated with the coaches that we wanted to be involved in any scholarship/money talks so that was done via phone call after our daughter was back home from her visit.
Our DD’s experience with D3 visits was much like @kjs1992 (without the partying.)
We did the Admissions thing on Monday morning, and once we were done a player from the team came by and swept her away. They went to class, saw a practice, went to dinner with the team and hung out talking later on. Several team members met them for breakfast and I caught up with them there. The coach, DD and I talked for 30-45 minutes after everyone cleared out. She slept on a cot/mat thing on the floor, got passed around a bit as one of her hosts had a test to study for the next day, and met most of the squad.
Ask about roster churn, about fitting majors with labs into the season schedule, if freshmen get to play, and any other cultural stuff that you can’t find online. If you have an injury history ask about the training staff. (My DD had a concussion history she wanted to discuss.) In her case she liked the team and they liked her, and things have worked out well so far.
In her first two years at school she’s hosted or joined up with visits from a bunch of PSAs, and the formula doesn’t change much. Doing a weekday visit is better in some ways because it removes the obligation to entertain, there’s no gameday routine to work around, and it’s easier to see classes.
I and my D found these visits incredibly important. She is a basketball player. There was always a captains practice, overnight with a current player, attending one or two classes of interest to my D, and a meeting with the coach. We typically had already met with the coach (parent and D during previous visits) so the meeting was usually just my D. My D probably ruled out 3 schools with these visits, for various reasons. Considering the cost of 4 years of college, I found these visits very important.
I don’t disagree, but many leagues have their own rules. The NESCAC website will tell you what NESCAC schools are permitted to reimburse and other various rules about officials and unofficials.
Advise your kid not to drink…if they need to have an ‘excuse’ for the team, tell them they don’t want to blow it for the team "(being underage can get the host in trouble, too). They don’t want it to get back to the coach, etc. They are trying to keep off the calories for an upcoming meet, etc. Lots of reasons not to do it, and showing resolve and leadership might actually help them. I’ve heard of recruits not passing this ‘test’ and getting passed over for being a ‘push-over’, and subsequently being pushed down the coaches priority list.
I was nervous about the drinking thing before D went on her OVs last fall. It ended up being a non issue. She was never bought to parties and on at least 2 occasions she said the coach told her team mate hosts to not bring her to any. I would be surprised if the student hosts do not understand the issue. But, obviously many kids do get taken to parties and need to have a plan in mind ahead of time.