We live in the bay area. I will focus on Berkeley, Stanford and Santa Clara in spring. During summer I will try to take her to schools in LA
Pro tip: When booking hotels, ask if have discounted rates for visitors to [college name]. Oftentimes the rates are cheaper than what’s available through AAA or other discount programs.
@eb23282 I will keep that in mind. Never thought we can get discount for college visits.
A word of caution on summer visits. My daughter didn’t like any of the schools we visited when colleges were on break or during the summer. I think it was because it was hard to get a feel for the vibe of the school. There’s a lot you can glean from walking around a campus - types of students, how they interact with each other, do they look happy/are they friendly, are there groups in the library, student center, hanging in the quad, what is life like in the dorms, etc.
Probably depends on the college. My kids both wanted large universities. Large schools are still active in summer.
@taverngirl , thats a good point. I will make sure the schools are not on break.
My daughter is drifting more towards a CS major as of now. Do you think I should go for a Engineering tour if available. I see that Stanford has Engineering Quad tour and Berkeley also has an Engineering tour.
I vote for every tour that might turn out to have been of interest. When we couldn’t fit everything in on a tour, we did some divide-and-conquer. Kid did some stuff, parents did what wouldn’t fit in the kid schedule. So we did the athletic facility tour while she had lunch with a student, and came back with pictures of the pool (the only part of the tour she cared about). Professional pictures can make a pool look a lot nicer than it seems in person.
Also, make sure your kid is competitive for the schools you visit, and that they are affordable.
Not truly spring yet but our visits for Presidents Day weekend are at risk due to bad weather. We will have to see where the storm’s rain, ice, snow line impacts the Midwest before we can decide.
@Cheeringsection
We have not made the reservation due to the weather concerns. Last year’s snow storm in March derailed part of our college tour. Hope your trip goes on as planned.
Haven’t the weather heard what Punxsutawney Phil was saying a week ago?!
All of the colleges that we were hoping to visit during spring break are not doing tours because they are also on spring break. Would you visit them to get a feeling or forego until a later date?
Wait. Unless it’s just a drive by to get a sense of campus and location for a maybe school.
That’s what I was thinking. Since none of them are on my direct spring break path I will wait until later. I will however try and find another school further down our list just to get some experience visiting schools and to determine what she is really looking for.
Our first trip is in the books. We went to UNC and I was able to glean some information as to what D20 is looking for. We really liked the campus and I was really impressed with some of the numbers they threw at us. 97% freshman retention rate means they do a good job keeping them integrated (one of my main concerns).
Also this trip forced the money talk. It’s unfortunate that UNC offers very little in the way of merit aid and they mention it in the information session. So it’s Morehead-Cain or another school.
UNC also has the Carolina Scholarships and EXCEL@Carolina opportunities.
So, D20’s friend visited Bates over PDW and loved it. I’ve wanted Bates on D20’s list for a long time (as long as there has been a list!) and was simultaneously baffled by her putting Middlebury on the Spring Break visit list. (No offense to Midd – awesome school, just not a fit for my kid.) Hoping to subtly suggest a swap for March trip-- husband says not to push it, she knows she can change the schedule if she wants, has to be her call.
Re post #96 above. Turns out the friend visited Bard’and really liked it, not Bates. :)) Not sure where the communications glitch happened - we were at an open house on a local campus on PDW and the friend was texting D20 from the college visit! Not sure if the other kid didn’t realize where she was or my D20 can’t read!
I have a sophomore and we’re doing a short spring break trip in VA, mainly to give him a sense of different kinds of colleges – big Us in a “college town” (VA Tech, JMU), Urban campus (VCU), small liberal arts college (prob Randolph-Macon) since it’s a short drive from VCU. I don’t want him visiting and falling in love with any reaches at this point, so not stopping at UVa. Trying to just hone in on environment.
He’ll likely major in math or stats and my preference right now would be for him to end up at VA Tech, but I’m not telling him that.
Looking for merit. Physics/astronomy major.
April break- Mt. Holyoke, Wheaton, Stonehill, Smith (revisit)
Feb break did Conn College and UNH
Already visited in Fall- UVM, RPI