<p>The problem is, if you wait till then there may not be time to visit all the schools you are interested in if a number of them admit you. Given the academic demands of senior year APs, if you’re on a sports team, etc.
You may well only have time to see only a couple of them, at that point. Which might curtail your decision in a suboptimal manner.</p>
<p>3 good reasons to visit before applying:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Saves the student time and money. The applicant may eliminate a college that is a bad fit. It may be less expensive to visit a college than to pay the application fee, as well as transcript costs. There is a significant time investment in the application process, even with the common app. </p></li>
<li><p>As monydad has pointed out, there is a limited amount of time for some students. They may not have time to visit more than a few schools in the spring.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>3, Demonstrating interest. Some colleges give weight to visiting a college prior to the application process. It might mean the difference. I saw this happen with my daughter. She and a friend applied to the same college that tracks interest. Even though her friend had higher stats, my daughter was admitted, while her friend was not. Her friend did not visit the college, while my daughter did.</p>
<p>Reading these, I don’t regret that we never went on any formal tours, simply visited on our own. (Or mostly, kids visited without me, which I preferred for their own sakes.)</p>
<p>As to this, “Virginia. Info session held in Chapel which you claimed " had no religious imagery” you mean except fir the GIANT cross on top of the building?" </p>
<p>The person who made the “claim” was either ignorant or uninformed. In fact, most chapels do have crosses, whether “GIANT,” in your emphasis, or moderate. Whether it was a good idea to hold an info session in a chapel is a separate question, but most chapels don’t look like civic buildings; rather, they resemble more a (Christian) church, while often toned down and with fewer symbols in a multi-religious location such as a cemetery, military base, or campus.</p>
<p>Since UVA is a public university, the chapel is probably interdenominational and used by many faiths, so symbols may be downplayed so as to not appear to be favoring one faith over the other. William and Mary had a big controversy a few years ago when a cross dating from the colonial period was removed from the altar in the chapel. Some got very angry. Thing is, W & M is a public university (honors college of the state of VA).</p>
<p>Funny thing, flip side is the poster who was upset that BC, a Catholic Jesuit school, had crosses and crucifixes all over the place!!! What did you expect, pentagrams???</p>
<p>4.(reasons to visit) My daughter’s school gave a $1000/yr grant if you visit before acceptance. That $4000 pays for many trips.</p>
<p>Yes, MADad, I hear ya! :-)<br>
To others, visits are very important for many students during the application process (more than after), because many find it hard to articulate differences among colleges without that personal visit, and even more difficult to express genuine enthusiasm. 'Early visits are money well spent.</p>
<p>I’m glad we visited before applying. It made everything tangible and I think provided some extra motivation to get through the application (and especially the essay!) process. </p>
<p>The only visits I remember doing back in the 70s was Accepted Student Days, in the spring of my senior year. I applied and got accepted to three colleges, liked them all, and made my decision at the last minute because I think I would have been happy at any of them. </p>
<p>Two kiss of death experiences, ten years ago:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Tour of a perfectly lovely campus on a beautiful day in June. Tour guide was perky, outgoing girl-next-door with amazing ability to walk backwards in flip-flops. D asks her about the impressive outdoor sculptures that dot the campus. Tour guide says, “I don’t know anything about the sculptures.” D’s translation of that was “I – and by extension all other students at this college – am a superficial, anti-intellectual know-nothing with contempt for the arts.” Mind snaps closed about that college.</p></li>
<li><p>Spring day, detour to take a look at a college D suspects is too suburban and too preppy for her taste. We find a parking spot on the town’s charming main street, less than half a block from the formal college entrance. Up ahead, what looks like another visiting family enters the crosswalk – Dad, Mom, right-aged boy, younger sister. Dad is wearing lime-green cords. D will not get out of the car to look at this college.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I’ve been a little surprised how many parents ask, during tours, whether a laundry service is available. Have not heard a prospective student ask hat!</p>
<p>For people like me, it can be a huge turnoff to go to a Catholic university. I have zero desire to ever go to another religious institution, let alone to speak to another religious if I have to (for those who didn’t go to a Catholic school, a religious refers to someone who has taken at least the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience and belongs to a Catholic “order” such as the Jesuits or Franciscans). My experience at a Catholic high school has been overwhelmingly negative, and my experience with religion classes have been even more negative. A lot of the “Brothers” at my school are bigoted, racist, and straight up rude, and I really don’t appreciate the mentality of my school. I wouldn’t recommend going to a Catholic school unless you don’t mind dealing with that; it can be pretty obnoxious hearing from people who clearly aren’t that well informed on the matter about sensitive issues. I’ve heard a lot of ridiculously offensive things come out of some of the teachers at my school (ranging from things that are just not necessarily kind like calling kids dumb, to saying things like all atheists have poor relationships with their fathers and just can’t internalize God as a father figure… sounds more like he was projecting his own insecurities but whatever).</p>
<p>It may be different at an institution of higher learning, but I see tons of hypocrisy and intolerance at my school that embarrasses even some of my Catholic friends.</p>
<p>“For people like me…”
And not everybody is like you. Thousands of students get a great deal from Catholic schools, as I’m sure the true is same of Jewish schools and secular private schools and many “religion-free” public schools.</p>
<p>Catholic <em>high schools</em> also vary enormously, depending on whether run by a religious order (and which one), and depending significantly on the culture of the local student body who populates the school. The same is true of institutions of higher learning, as you mentioned. I find the messages communicated by <em>some</em> Catholic institutions of higher learning to be, in your words, embarrassing, as they seem to be far more interested in a particular cultural message than an academic message, making the place sound much less interested ini academics than in different agendas. I do not have an issue with the existence of any religious-identified institution of higher ed, merely what the emphasis is: I believe strongly that it should be on the academics and include free inquiry. For example, I find Catholic U of America to be different in its tone from some of the much more narrowly Catholic institutions out there, many of whom attract students who are much more interested in a kind of Catholic activism and lifestyle than universities are traditionally designed to be built for. (I have enormous respect for the current Prez of Catholic U, who is such an intellectual himself.)</p>
<p>Didn’t mean to derail the thread, because I do think the poster micmatt’s observations are important to consider, in that they speak to the benefit of campus visits. Just understand that every private institution is entitled to project whatever image and priorities it chooses, within the law. No one is required to attend, but neither is anyone justified in claiming that a private institution cannot emphasize what it wishes to and set its own policies for student behavior and academic requirements.</p>