Hi all again,
When is the best time to start visiting colleges and taking tours. I have completeed an internship at MIT, so I know very well that I will apply their. However, when would be the best time to go out and take a look at what many colleges have to offer. My parents say now but I can’t even drive, so I would love for someones feedback on this. Thank you
You can never start too early. I took my first visit the summer after my freshman year. My dad visited the college he ended up attending when he was in 7th grade. There’s no perfect time, as long as you hit all the places you want to hit.
I would say Junior year…for both of my kids I took them on a spring break tour of colleges.
For one of them we visited local schools during Fall break of Junior year.
You want to know what colleges to apply to by senior year.
I can speak from experience that junior year is definitely the best time to start. Junior year is when you start to have an understanding of where your GPA will stand or hover around, as well as a good understanding of your test scores from the SAT and/or ACT. By the end of junior year, you should have a grasp of which schools you have visited fall in the three categories: safety, match, and reach schools. There are many open house visits during October and November for juniors, especially during the Veteran’s Day long weekend. The following year, during April spring break, go on a college tour road trip. During the summer, go on any other college tours but it is best to visit during the school year because you won’t experience the same type of atmosphere without the students in school. By midsummer, you should have a finalized list of schools (safety, match, reach), and begin to start writing our college essays etc.
This timeline is just an idea for you to follow. I know others who start looking at colleges during their sophomore year but I think that is too early because (1) you don’t know where you academically stand since junior year grades and scores make up a vital part of application and (2) you haven’t looked at any resources online or in paper about colleges and really don’t know what you are looking for.
For instance, I planned to visit colleges in Boston during the summer going into junior year but that was too early, because I had not researched prior to the visits and later on learned there are plenty of other options. The schools I planned to visit were “brand name” schools, but after researching what colleges were the best fits for me emotionally and physically, I was able to narrow down the college selection process from 50 to 20 schools. (I am still narrowing the list.) However, you can start early by researching types of colleges during sophomore year. There are plenty of college match surveys like CollegeBoard’s College Search https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-search. Try to pinpoint what areas you are interested in because if you want to be an engineer or a doctor, some schools will specifically cater to your interests.
I hope this was helpful to you and wish you luck finding your perfect 4 year home!
Start early. We visited Harvard with my D during the summer between her Freshman and Sophomore year. This served as a bit of a wakeup call on just how competitive admissions can be. We eventually visited a total of 20 colleges on about 5 separate trips between this initial trip and her final trip during April of her senior year. For us it was most effective to focus on different areas of the country - New England, Mid Atlantic, California, Southeast. It is helpful if you know early just how competitive an applicant you will be. Visiting a bunch of Ivy League and tippy top Liberal Arts colleges is not a good use of time if you are not a strong applicant.
I recommend visiting a couple of colleges in the fall of your junior year, just to get an idea of what different types of campuses feel like; try a large urban school, a suburban/rural LAC, and something in between. These should not necessarily be schools you think you’ll apply to. The idea is to get some information about what you like in a school so you can use that when crafting your list of schools to visit in earnest in the spring.
I recommend you listen to your parents. If they aren’t able to visit with you, then maybe you can take public transportation or arrange a visit as a side trip if you are in the area anyhow. Also keep in mind you don’t need to visit every school prior to applying. That can be very costly and time consuming.