<p>while narrowing down my colleges, I have been researching them online but I haven't visited any of them.</p>
<p>My dad claims the purpose of college is academics and tells me I should just focus on researching the programs via the internet but from what I have seen on CC and other sites, it is best to visit the campus before the final decision.</p>
<p>Should I try to convince my dad it's worth the visit or should I just pick a college now?
Money is not really the issue - it's more like because it's kinda inconvenient because it's from one coast to another..</p>
<p>Also if I do visit, what should I make note of while there?</p>
<p>Where are you in your college search? If you are just starting out, visit schools near you (big/small, public/private, rural/suburban/city) to get a sense of what you might like. If you have been accepted and you are trying to decide between A and B, and you can afford to visit A and B, then you should do that. It will make you more confident about the rightness of your choice.</p>
<p>There have been many generations of students who attended colleges without having ever visiting them. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t if you can. Like Happymomm says, start by visiting local colleges, it will help you build a baseline. If you end up having to choose between two very similar schools, a visit could go a long way in choosing the school where you’ll thrive. If you can’t stand the general student body, it takes an exceptional student to just focus on the academics.</p>
<p>For G-D’s sake, visit the “finalists”. You are spending much of the next four years of your life there. Fit is hugely important and you don’t get any feel for that w/o visiting.</p>
<p>You should try to visit if you can, but I know that it would be hard for anybody to visit a college that’s very far away. So I would say if you are deciding between colleges, and some of them are close by (drivable distance maybe?), you should visit them. Visiting certain departments (the major you would like) also helped me a lot.</p>
<p>Try at least visiting some colleges near you. Though you may not be applying to them, you will be able to get a feel of whether you prefer larger or smaller colleges, and other similar factors.</p>
<p>Also, try to visit schools when it’s time to actually make a decision.</p>
<p>You should look up the admissions criteria for the college and determine how important “Demonstated Interest” is. If the college has posted its Common Data Set, you can get some idea from Question C-7.</p>
<p>In any event, what this means is that many colleges look at how much interest you have shown in the college and factor this into the decision process. As an example – when we visited Lehigh a year ago, they were pretty open about it. Demonstrated Interest is a factor – and one of the ways to demonstrate interest is to visit. We got the distinct impression that not visiting this school would be a distinct negative.</p>
<p>So … to the extent your interest is a factor that the college uses in assessing your candidacy, you should.</p>
<p>Your guidance counsellor may be able to explain this to your parents.</p>
<p>Haha yes visit it. The internet can paint you a pretty picture, but until you see it for yourself, you won’t know how you really feel about the campus. GO see them.</p>