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Eleven in 5 days? Are you serious? That must be some kind of record. I've been shy about admitting that D & I are planning nine colleges in 7 days (including four in the same town), lest people think I'd gone bonkers. However did you manage?
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<p>Nope. 12 schools in 3 days here. They were only drive-bys with an hour or less on each campus. But a lot of miles!</p>
<p>We visited 14 schools in a leisurely 3 week period, interspersed with plenty of sightseeing and time-off. The complication was that we knew, because we live overseas, that our son would not be able to return for a second look so impressions had to last.</p>
<p>Like some of the others, we had a brief questionaire that our son filled out religiously after every visit. Basically it was
Things I like
Things I don't like
What worries me
What makes this school special</p>
<p>Plus some point that were of specific interest to him like the language requirement, art department.</p>
<p>We also bought the college tour video of all the top choices which helped a lot to kickstart the memory of what we'd seen after we were back home.</p>
<p>In retrospect the best thing we did was to spend the night on or near campus of his top choices. It was really helpful to wander around campus at all times of day and night.</p>
<p>D and I were in the "make a list of questions and take notes while on campus" group. One of the biggest bonuses of this approach was when it came time to write the "Why college X?" essays (I think half of her 8 apps required that particular essay). It made it much easier for her to specifically address what she liked about the school, who she had talked to in the study abroad office, whose class she sat in on and what she thought about it, which school served fabulous coconut cake (funny, that is the school she picked...), etc. This is such a huge financial commmitment, it just didn't make any sense to us to go without advance preparation and something tangible coming out of it that we could refer to later. I expect additinal benefit when D2 starts visiting in a couple of years; we can go over those notes to help her get a flavor for some of these campuses.</p>
<p>My sons also gave big clues from the tee-shirt purchases. I always want to see the bookstores to see what kind of stuff is sold beside textbooks. When they wanted to buy a tee-shirt, it was clear they liked the school. No tee-shirt, no application. I noticed they went for hoodies when they really loved a school. </p>
<p>I insisted they keep a notebook with the pros & cons for each school we visited. I demanded that they find some pros and/or cons and that their analysis needed to have some balance. My sons were pretty clear on which schools they liked. They often eliminated schools from the list for some pretty lame reasons. For ex., one kid eliminated a school since grass was growing in the cracks in sidewalks and there was some peeling paint on a classroom window frame (argument was that it reflected poor maintenance), a kid didn't like the fact that too many students wore school tee-shirts (argument was that it reflected a robot mentality), and another school was rejected because the receptionist for the Admissions Office was perceived as rude. I finally decided that they were articulating random reasons for rejecting schools where they just didn't feel comfortable. I only excercised my ultimate veto power twice, on schools that they weren't crazy about anyway.</p>