<p>I would like to visit as many of the colleges on my list as possible. I'd say as of now there are about 10-15 schools I would consider. I've already visited one in late April and loved it, I really got a good feel for the place. The only aspect of summer visits that I'm worried about is that there won't be as many students on the campuses, and I believe that I wouldn't get a complete view of what the school is really like.So, should I?</p>
<p>We visited a lot of colleges during the summer and found it very useful. Tours are usually given by students, so you can talk to them. You can’t sit in on classes of course, but sometimes you can find professors. Even if you can’t, just seeing the school and listening to an information session can help you decide if you’d like to apply. You can revisit your favorites that you get accepted to in the spring of senior year.</p>
<p>Certainly summer visits aren’t as useful as visits during the school year - you probably won’t see much of the student body or classes in session or get a feel for the kind of activities going on on-campus. Certainly, compared to the school you visited in April, all the others are going to seem awfully quiet. But that doesn’t mean summer visits are worthless. It just means that if you walk away from a school saying ‘wow, the campus seems kind of dead and nothing’s going on in town either’ and ‘I didn’t care for the one person I met - the tour guide’, you will realize that you aren’t being sensible.</p>
<p>Agree with M’s Mom. Best time to visit is during the school year and during the week when class is in session but this is not always practical. The summer visit will give you the tour and information session you would get during the year. Many schools also have some activity going on during the summer.</p>
<p>You won’t get as complete a picture of the school, but if you have a lot of schools you’re still thinking about, visiting will give you enough of a sense of the vibe and may help you take a few off your list (and you’ll have more time to do this than you would over the school year). I’m assuming you’re a junior?</p>
<p>Yes, I’m a junior. A couple of the schools I’m visiting are city schools so I figure those will still be somewhat lively. I think I’ll visit some if not all just to see if I like the campus and surroundings, and then my top schools and the ones I liked best from these visits I’ll visit again during the school year. Can’t hurt right?</p>
<p>It only hurts if you develop a false impression. Just as the campus and surrounding areas may be dead in summer, keep in mind that most places look attractive on a nice warm day, when the sun is shining. Before you fall too much in love, check the weather for November-March: snow, wind, cloud cover and a 5:30 sunset changes the look of a place.</p>
<p>^We’ll be doing summer visits with D and I have to agree about the weather. We’ll be seeing Pitt, CMU, Case and Northwestern and I have a feeling they will look and feel a lot different in January than in July. She’ll have to do her best to filter that and stick to comparing the campuses on the merits she can compare.</p>
<p>If that’s the only time you can go, at least try to make it when summer session is going on. It’s really hard to get a good feel for the students over the summer. My son didn’t really remember the schools we saw over the summer, as he was more focused on students than the campus when we saw some during the school year.</p>
<p>Yeah, I didn’t think too much about how different it’ll look in the winter and with the weather changes, good point. I guess I’ll just have to take all that into consideration and hopefully I’d have time to visit again during the school year.</p>
<p>Here it is reverse on how nice the campuses look in the summer with the sun and all the green. We are in Texas and in the summer, nothing looks good. It is over 100 degrees and being outside means a sunburn and nausea for me. But the northern schools would look great in the summer. Come winter, the southern schools would be great to look at. I am worried about visiting Texas A&M, UT Austin, or Rice come summer.</p>