Off-season campus visits are a crapshoot, but not necessarily a waste of time. End of summer was the only time I could get my son out to the Midwest for visits to a couple of schools he was interested in. On one campus, not even the athletes had arrived yet. But the student who gave the tour was energetic, personable and intelligent. The admin guy who gave the info session was interesting and compelling. And the campus was beautiful. Empty of students or not, my son fell in love with the school and applied early decision. He is now a very happy freshman there. Funny thing is, of the five kids on the tour with him that day, one other also ended up at that college–so clearly visits when school is out of session are not the kiss of death.
Between our two kids, we must’ve visited upwards of 30 colleges - on and off-season. What we learned is that a tour or even a day long visit is just a snapshot. In hindsight, no pre-application visit gave us the full picture we needed to make informed decisions. The only visits that seem to capture more of the school’s culture were overnights (which we didn’t do) that we heard about from others. In the end, my kids are both happy at schools they first visited off season. Revisits (after acceptance) ended up being the most worthwhile investment of time and resources.
Student vibe was very important to DD, and we learned never to visit a campus Friday afternoon even if school is in session. Lucky for us, the main schools we wanted to visit were in session over her high school’s spring break of junior year, but I had to map it out carefully because a school or two was closed on a random day for something or another. We couldn’t afford to fly her out post admission, but we spent an entire day at each LAC which included the formal tour, attending a class, interview with admissions person, and since choir is/was an important co-curricular for her, attending a choir rehearsal. She also talked to students and asked what type of music (musical artists?) was popular. I am convinced she ended up at the best place for HER.
Drivebys and.walk-arounds when no students are there are great for eliminating schools, but not good for making final choice. Like a drive by will tell a lot of people that Lehigh is too hilly, Mich. state is too spread out, NYU too urban,. Richmond too far from any store at all, etc. But once you narrow the field, if you have a few that are difficult to choose among, then seeing the students there is helpful. But for a lot of people that final choice will be made for them by the differences in fin. aid.
many LACs feel about the same on a gray winter day with no students - just a warning