We have two rising Juniors. Colleges are not offering visits during the summer, is it still worth visiting the campus to get a feel? what are peoples thoughts
It’s not ideal to visit schools when the students aren’t around, but for rising juniors, I think it would still be worthwhile. In our case, we did our first round of visits around spring break junior year, and the focus that time was on trying to figure out what type of college my son wanted - big, small, urban, rural, town you can walk to or do you have to drive, etc. If that’s the stage you are at, a self-guided visit is likely to be helpful. At most schools, there are still some students around, although at some schools they might be there just for summer programs rather than regularly matriculated students.
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I think how valuable visits are depends on the kid. The criteria they deem most important can tell you how many schools they need to see and some kids have very arbitrary criteria. D20 was really chasing vibes and looking for her tribe, which caused us to trek across 30+ different campuses over many road trips, all when classes were in session. She needed to see who her classmates would be. A friend of hers decided against schools because she didn’t like the model room on the tour (her mom felt they should have just stayed home and looked online).
Summer visits are ok if you aren’t familiar with the area, the travel logistics, or are trying to see what a big/small, rural/urban campus is like. Self guided tours can be ok, too, but if your kids need to meet other students or see a campus in action, a summer visit to a closed campus may not be very fulfilling. Info sessions tend to blur together but I found a few nuggets in presentations that gave me questions to ask at others.
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I would suggest waiting until spring break junior year, especially now. Your kids are coming off a weird year. The college kids are coming off a weird year. Your kids are too young to interview (one of the good things about summer visits is that interviews are more available and less rushed.) For a rising senior with less time and the need for information sooner rather than later, summer visits are probably better than no visits. But you can should be able to do better.
In general, I am not a huge fan of starting visits so early unless there’s a compelling reason. It’s hard for a kid to realistically see themselves at a college when they are no closer to starting college than they are to starting high school. Since some of this comes from a completely reasonable desire to not feel rushed., consder test prep over the summer…
Getting that out of the way will bea big reliefand also provide some guidance on college choice.
If you are really he’ll bent on visits, look at a few near home to get a feel for size, location, etc.
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We have college tours scheduled this summer so I don’t understand your statement that colleges are not offering tours this summer. You mean the ones your kids are interested in? There is one college my D is very interested in that has not yet scheduled tours but we may ask the Admissions office if we can talk to a student ambassador when we go. We visited one campus, Lehigh, that was not offering tours a few months ago but had a self-guided tour app for download.
That said, I just re-read that your kids are rising juniors not seniors so you can definitely wait on the tours.
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When D20 was a sophomore, she started saying she was going to win a Grammy for music production and didn’t need to go to college. DH works in radio and called a friend in “the biz” who invited her to his studio for an afternoon. He told her how important college was and introduced her to his interns. In the car on the way home, she asked if we could go look at some colleges.
We did a few casual visits that summer. She isn’t focused on music anymore but she is going to the school she applied ED, which she first saw on a drive through the campus on her way to visit her grandparents that summer. You never know!
In some ways, this illustrates my point. Her early interest didn’t match with what she grew to want (although I am hoping for her Grammy too!) A colleague stopped touring early when her son’s favorite school was one that had a club related to something she knew was a passing fad - maybe Pokémon? My own kid was leaning toward STEM at the end of sophomore year. By spring of junior year, he was more interested in economics and history.
With that said, visiting a college when you’re "in the neighborhood ", such as visiting relatives or on vacation, makes sense and you are an example of how that can work out. It seems many kids get exposure to schools (although not last year) for sports, MUN, conferences, etc. during the high school years and this probably informs their decisions to some extent.
In this case, though, the OP would be traveling solely to visit colleges without students on campus. It seems like there are better options, especially this year.
If you haven’t done so, it’s worth really checking carefully with the specific schools your kids are interested in. I was able to schedule normal, in-person tours for some colleges on my daughter’s list, but not others. On our schedule: the University of Washington, DigiPen Institute of Technology, and Rochester Institue of Technology. Not available: Penn State. Everyone in our family is fully vaccinated; if you’re not vaccinated, you will probably need to carefully check each school’s policy for in-person visit requirements. My daugher is also a rising Junior, but we are taking her on some tours this year anyway because our summers tend to be very busy, she wants to see certain schools for a very specific major, and the schools are spread out all over (CA, WA, NY, MI, UT…). It will spread out the travel costs.
I think it’s fine if the colleges are near you or part of another trip. I wouldn’t make a big overnight trip to the other side of the country at this stage with your kids just being rising juniors.
One thing to be aware of — many colleges are kinda dead in the summer and that may be a big turn off for your kids. We did a self guided summer tour of UNC-Wilmington two years ago when my D22 was a rising sophomore and it knocked that college off the list. It was hot, we were hungry, she was cranky, there were no students on campus, but there were some groups of senior citizens. She was like nope, nope, nope.
That said we did a self guided tour earlier this summer (now a rising senior) of VCU in Richmond VA and that went well but we was more focused on the vibe of the area of the city around the campus. VCU’s campus is still locked down tight and only VCU students and staff can access buildings, but we walked around the campus and got bubble tea and went to vintage clothing shops and she really liked it even though it was also hot. She said she’d like to go back went students are there.
When we were already in the mountains on summer we also did a summer tour in 2019 of App State and that went fine. We sat through the whole spiel and got taken around by a student tour guide and all that. She has since crossed it off her list, though, since she says too many people from her high school end up there.
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I think it’s fine to go on your own. You won’t get a great feel in summer but you can still start to determine what type of school is right for you size wise, aesthetic wise, campus environment wise so that you can start to build a list
If you do official tours you get way slowed down and you will quickly note of info sessions so just do one or two. In my opinion, doing your own thing, stopping kids on campus to chat, is a solid pre application strategy.
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Thanks all, I really appreciate all the commentary. I think I should have been more clear. We live in Texas (Austin), and have an opportunity to be in the Philadelphia area due to a kids activity. Thus the question. To be honest, it seems hard for us cost wise to justify making trips so early in the school life or for that matter later as well. Additionally, the high school gives barely two days in their school year for visits. We cannot imagine how one can do anything in two days. I am thinking, maybe we do a drive through and just see the campus but start the communication on line.
If you are somewhere, take a visit. If it’s not on your list yet, don’t do an info session - they are brutal. All are the same - we offer this, our admissions is holistic…there are no GPAs and ACT cutoffs. We have mental health. We have a writing center. Our dorms are this. They get tired.
We did a Philly day - we went to Penn, Swarthmore and Haverford. Just walked. Talked to some kids. It’s easy. My son new Penn was out (too urban).
If you might consider a city school, find one. A small school - there’s tons in Philly…just to get a feel even for size.
Spending an hour walking around a college is good exercise and fun to do. Eat lunch nearby, etc.
Going to info sessions - that is what starts to get the kids not wanting to go see the schools anymore.
If you find it’s a school you like, you can email the admissions counselor - hey, we were in the area, walked the school - I have a question about this. If they track demonstrated interest, that and a webinar you sign up for that you don’t even have to watch…just put it on…and you’re on the demonstrated interest track.
btw - most of the info sessions - all the info is online - it’s just the colleges justifying their admissions office presence - let’s be honest.
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thanks @tsbna44… makes sense. I like your approach, we will just visit, walk around. Probably cover the schools you mentioned. As regards city schools we have one too 
UT Austin.
I think there’s a,lot of overlap between tours and info sessions but I would recommend the former over "just walking around ". You can just walk around after the tour! But hearing what the school wants to highlight about itself is helpful both in understanding the school’s value proposition and in remembering it afterwards.
It’s usually pretty easy to sign up for a tour.
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Typically it’s both. That’s the issue. Plus they are rising juniors. After you do 6 or 8 info sessions, the kids never want to visit college again. That’s why I say…if you are just there and want to do something non serious that won’t make your kids hate the process, best to avoid the formal stuff.
I don’t know - a lot of people on CC don’t like info sessions, but we did the info session at every school we visited, and they were helpful, even the bad ones. I think they show something about the school and how the school wants to present itself. The last one we joined was the worst of all, really terrible, boring and disorganized. That school got zapped, and I think appropriately. A couple were really good, most were somewhere in the middle, but my kids never complained about doing them - commented about them, yes, but never said they were a waste of time. We visited mostly LACs, maybe it’s different if you’re looking at large universities.
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@tkoparent , I agree. We always did both the tour and the info session and it helped us understand what the school felt differentiated it. We too were only looking at LACS. (And I still remember the family at Bates that kept asking questions about summer storage…)
But if someone were going to give up one, I think that the tour is more valuable.
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Agree - my son who endured all those info sessions is now a tour guide!
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Agreed. We did all the info sessions too and D found them helpful. We found the tone and vibe of the presentations often mimicked what she felt later during the tours, both good and bad.
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IMO, visiting when there are no students on campus is a waste of time. I remember specifically visiting a campus with one of my daughters when no one was there. We went back in the fall when campus life was in full bloom and she loved it, and it became one of her two finalists. So, visiting with no one there was actually a negative experience.
The other factor is Weather. Students will not be attending college in the summer, so getting a picture of a beautiful campus with flowers in bloom is very misleading. Visit in February/March. If they love it then, they’ll love it all year round.
Bottom line is that the kids want to know about the students, not about the architecture, or the library, etc.