I’m working on planning our trip up to visit schools in the fall. Yes, I know none of them will schedule anything this far out. But, I’m a planner, so here I am… So…what’s the minimum time to allow for a school tour + interview? I’m trying to figure out if there is any way we can squeeze two visits into a Saturday, since it appears that the schools only schedule Saturday mornings. Would an hour and a half be adequate? Not ideal, I know…sigh…
I would not recommend 2 on a Saturday. On a weekday, it’s doable if they are relatively close, but Saturday is a tough one to double up on.
I’d plan on spending 2 hours minimum on each campus. And ideally more. To do both a tour and an interview can take time.
@JustWinginIt We often did 2 visits on a Saturday day. Most schools will start their first visits around 8-8:30 am this gives you enough time to tour, interview and then go to another school if it is near. We created zones for schools such as St. Mark’s, Groton and Mx were all in 1 zone as you can get to each school rather quickly. We were able to tour Deerfield and SPS on the same Saturday but we really needed to rush between visits.
I showed this post to my Dad. He still talks about our trip last fall. I will PM some information.
If you plan your logistics well, you should be able to squeeze two visits in per day. Keep this in mind, though: if your kid is going to interview, it can be a grind, the schools will start to blend together, and the efficacy of your trip (and how certain schools are perceived) will get skewed by when the visit happens and how tired everyone is. We did 9 visits/interviews in 4-1/2 days (including 4 states plus Canada) and it was a blur by the end. But it’s doable with some good planning.
I will add, since BS visits typically involve interviews, that you should consider how well your child will handle 2 in a morning with a rushed transition between them. It really depends on what you need to accomplish.
@gardenstategal Fortunately this is my early bird kid. He’s usually up by 5/5:30 am on his own (I’m not!!). Best thing I ever bought when he was a toddler was an alarm clock that changed color when it was okay for him to get up… LOL!
The main thing I recommend is writing down everything about that school’s visit in the car immediately afterward. We did concentrated NE visits like this and the specifics of the schools sometimes starting running together. We caught ourselves going…was it this school that said…??? We quickly learned to write it all down as soon as we got in the car on ur way to the next visit.
I feel like two visits on a regular day is doable, but on Saturdays is not as much without being overly rushed, unless you can find a school that schedules Saturday afternoons.
Good luck!