Also, keep in mind that if you have an especially important question, you may want to ask it more than once. At several of our revisits, we got conflicting information from faculty, parents and administration.
We are in town for a revisit day, staying at an Airbnb owned by faculty and having coffee tomorrow with a classmate of mine at a cafe owned by the AO who interviewed my daughter. It doesn’t get more personal than that! I love it! 
Call me cynical but I am viewing these days as similar to what we used to call “sell days” back in the days of on-campus recruiting. It is our responsibility to assume the students, parents, and administrators are on their best behavior and it is up to the prospective students and parents to ferret out the information to make an informed decision. In fact, we are trying to get in contact with a student my DS saw being a tour guide at a school but knows from a summer program two years ago because he “will speak the truth” according to DS.
@TheSwami: Totally agree. One has to assume a certain amount of “Revisit Theater” is going on…
@CaliMex Without going into personal detail, the specific college matters in fields where they are hiring you for knowledge. If you are self employed you are regularly having someone review your CV. It’s like going thru HR over and over. That stands as one component. It isn’t the only one but it can be the only thing a client can hang their hat on. In some fields it does not matter. But in some fields it matters a lot. I have been in three fields ( all highly knowledge based fields) and it got me hired and keeps clients coming in the door. IF I worked for someone else it would matter less. ( Though even at the corporate job it helped with promotions)
Most clients tell me directly it was one of the reasons they hired me. I also know folks in some industries where if you are raising capital, going IPO or being seated on a board it matters a lot. When I was in my twenties I was asked to join a board (mainly due to education and expertise). I am 100% certain wouldn’t have happened without X school.
Back to the discussion at hand…
Every year, I remind parents to assess their own feelings about the schools they are visiting. Do the values and objectives resonate with you?
Your kid need not choose your first choice, but if you are truly queasy about their first choice, take note. At some level, you and your child’s BS will be co-parenting. And odds are very good that at some point in the next 4 years, you will be at odds in some way with the school. It could be a big thing, like a disciplinary issue, or a little one, like a desire for an absence that breaks with policy, or a roommate issue, etc. It is far easier to work through these if you believe in the school’s approach and values and can trust that they are operating in good faith.
Yes, look at the other parents and assess your comfort with them. They too, through their kids, their input, etc., will shape the community in which your child is living. They don’t have to be your tribe, but they should not be folks who represent something you dislike.
@gardenstategal Couldn’t agree more?.
@TheSwami I don’t have a true basis for comparison because we cut our revisits short and made a decision after the first school we revisited, but I think there is a limit to how much lipstick you can put on a pig. Other than the food being better than what’s available on a day-to-day basis, I didn’t find notable differences in the behavior of teachers, students, and staff, and no difference in the maintenance or grooming of facilities between revisit day and thereafter. Based on our experience, I’d say what you see is what you get. Of course, different people may walk away with completely opposite impressions from the same revisit day, but that’s another topic.
Just to add to what @GoatMama said, beware of making quick judgements or having emotions cloud your view of initial perceptions. Here is a quick scenario: We went to a Revisit last year and saw what we thought were cliques of kids - all looking similar in our eyes - sitting together in the dining hall…so we rushed to judgement and thought something like “this place has firm cliques” - then we saw these same groups bunched together in the hallway hanging out…I mentioned this observation to kiddo and was quickly brought back to reality by “You know ther are games this afternoon and you’re seeing TEAMS in their travel gear having lunch together before heading to the bus”…LOL!!
@GoatMama and @Golfgr8 thanks for the posts. We will be careful but certainly observant and follow-up with questions on campus about anything overly positive or negative about the schools. I’m trying to shift into fun mode versus being the skeptical shopper. I view revisit days as a time to figure out the best place for my investment $$$ and more importantly where my DS will thrive and be happiest. That feels more like work than play.
Also keep in mind that depending on the day of your visit, you might be on campus on ivy day. This is traditionally a super stressful time at many BS, as seniors will get college admission results for all the ivies. This year it is Thursday the 28th. So any revisit day Wednesday through Saturday, this week might be filled with some potentially stressed out kids.
Also, they might divide your kid into small groups and go off to classes or lunch. Just because the kids in their group aren’t like them doesn’t mean that the group is indicative of the entire grade.
We found some families at revisits sniffing out the school. It was actually funny. As though, even though Junior applied and was accepted they weren’t sure if it was good enough for Junior. Make sure you don’t give that impression. Most families are just trying to make a hard decision for their family. It can be stressful for all.
I thought I would circle back now that we have completed four revisit days.
For us, the revisits did reveal a first choice. And it wasn’t the one I would have guessed going into revisits! For my daughter, the differentiating factor had to do with her classroom experiences. Three of the four schools had a dynamic you might expect from a high school classroom: several students dominated the room and other students were quiet and didn’t contribute. But at one school, the teachers managed the room to require engagement from all of the students and didn’t allow just a few to dominate. This was across several classes at each school. For my daughter, this classroom dynamic combined with school location allowed a clear first choice to emerge.
So happy for you @westcoastmom987! Revisits can be so enlightening and I’m thrilled that a first choice became so clear.
When multiple people at one school remembered meeting my daughter months ago at the interview/tour and continued their conversations about things they had talked about previously, my daughter knew that it was the best school for her. She felt so welcomed and wanted. We only went to two revisits. The other school’s admissions team or students never once approached her or me during the entire 7 hour day to connect and attempt to make us feel welcomed. That made the choice pretty clear.
@ABJ8888 Just a heads up that some schools use revisits to really “sell” the school to key applicants. There were a couple of schools that really wanted our kid, and my husband actually noticed the AO at one of them encouraging the head of school and a couple of other key faculty to seek our kid out. She felt like a VIP and loved it, but ended up at a different school.
@CaliMex That definitely happened at both schools (and at the local day schools she revisited). The difference was the tour guide that passed us and remembered being with us in January, the teacher that taught a class she sat in on acknowledging that they had met before, a faculty member I met at lunch asking a current student that is a twin whose sister had stayed back at their local day school to talk to my daughter about how that went, etc. These things were genuine and seemed to be happening to those around us too. That, combined with the fact that the accepted and current students felt like “her people”, made her decision easy. Didn’t help that the other school’s adults and students were mostly talking to each other. I received the warmest welcome from a current mom that I introduced myself to. Just poor training and lack of experience on the school’s part I would imagine.
@ABJ8888 I can vouch for the fact that the friendliness was authentic, and a constant that I am confident you all will see all 4 years you’re there. Welcome - so excited for you!
Oh, and @hellomaisy’s daughter was the student she shadowed. Bonus!
Mercersburg has the absolutely friendliest staff of any BS. We noticed that when we visited, too!