If schools will let you do tours sans info sessions it’s better. Academic sessions are great tho.
The info session are all the same. Study abroad. Check. Clubs. Tons or start your own. We even have Qidditch. Dining. Yummy. Majors - don’t know what you want to do - great - you can explore and change.
Many you can’t tour without the session. If you want to self tour or do some sessions - do the schools that monitor interest. Self tour those that don’t.
I think this depends on the student. While some folks think kids shouldn’t choose colleges based on the tour guides, I know that many kids do. Some of the tour guides are really fabulous and give a good glimpse into the college. Self tours just can’t do that.
I do agree…the info sessions do seem to sound the same after a while. But as noted, at some schools, you must attend the info session first to then do a tour.
I’d rather take the school tour. Even a bad guide knows things. Today some schools have apps that talk to you.
We did so many schools tho my kids were gonna hate on me if I made them do another session.
Schools put sessions on line today too. Usually shorter. They sometimes capture your info. Ultimately you just need to see if the school is a fit or is not a fit. That includes the surrounds. Some kids know quickly. Others need time.
Madison and Lawrence may be difficult to do in one day. It looks like the early tour at Madison ends at 12:45. The last tour at Lawrence starts at 3:00. That gives no time for any hiccups.
Just seconding this. Even on two-a-days, I’ve tried to make sure we check out whatever is considered a nearby commercial district for a meal or snack or something. It depends on the college setting, but if we can walk around at least a bit, or ideally to the college tour, I like that too.
By the way, my way of cementing the visit is to ask for an immediate up, down, or the same reaction, which we then discuss. I wonder where I got that idea . . . .
Finally, I am by no means going to try to talk people into sharing this attitude, but I actually still like checking out the info sessions. Sometimes they are really dry, but then I end up watching the crowd a bit, which can be interesting to me. And sometimes they are actually reasonably short and/or the AO actually directly answers questions or is otherwise interesting.
Again, not something I would insist on, and I won’t say I never stifled a yawn, but overall I still like to give them a shot.
They’re fine. It’s just after 10 or 12 over a month or two.
Two a days aren’t great unless u really dislike a school.
But in the end given limited time you do what u can.
During covid we self toured 11 in four days. My daughter got the results needed. Wasn’t the best way.
But each is different. Only one of the 11 Elon was an info session and tour which were private. She knew b4 we started it was out. Dad loved it but I’m not her.
Yeah, the first trip we did 5 in 2.5 days (not including travel to and from the area). I concluded for us, that was really pushing it by the end. Next trip we did 3 in 1.5 days (again not including travel to area), and that felt a lot better (particularly in contrast!). I would have loved longer visits in some cases, but for various reasons we have not had that kind of time. But I think they have been valuable anyway.
As others have already mentioned, two visits in a day can be managed. But for colleges where there’s a deeper interest, attending a class, eating in the dining hall, walking around the “town” near the school, etc can be really valuable.
As it seems as though you’re at the beginning of the search (i.e. UMN-Twin Cities & Macalester), have you thought about visiting some local colleges, just to get a feel for the type? For instance, if the Salt Lake area is convenient to you, visit U. of Utah (26k undergrads) and Westminster (1k undergrads), both of which are in a big metro area. There is likely to be a preference between those visits. Or go see Utah State which would be a more rural location to see how she likes that. She can then evaluate the “type” of campuses without necessarily examining how well she likes “that” university. This could be replicated in any other location where you will already find yourselves, even if there aren’t colleges in that specific area that she’s interested in attending.
I 100% understand the desire to minimize the amount of time away from school. But, if you’re in Utah, I also wouldn’t minimize the fatigue & hassle of needing to travel out to these various locations. Rather than trying to do multiple trips flying out for 1 school day, I’d take a look at your D’s spring break and see how it aligns with different colleges’ spring breaks (i.e. no overlaps preferred) and try and do a series of visits then. Ditto for any other school breaks your D has that would happen during the school year. Additionally, capitalize on any school closure days (i.e. professional development day for the teachers gets you an extra day away…and they often will pair those PD days with another vacation/holiday).
This question is asked frequently. Two or even three colleges a day is doable. I think it depends on your priorities. If the goal is to have a vacation and see colleges too, two is standard. When my kids and I visited colleges, we sometimes did three in a day: morning, lunchtime, afternoon. My son and I once visited four colleges in a day, but they were all near each other. My family’s goal was always to see something else of interest in the area besides the college, so we packed them in.
Both kids returned to their top choice colleges for extended visits once they were accepted. For example, my son was accepted to IU Bloomington, which he hadn’t visited before applying. He and hubby went for a long weekend in Bloomington, saw the Speedway Museum, toured the university extensively, and attended a basketball game at night.
I do think people spend a LOT of time visiting dream schools, get burnt out, and spend less time visiting more realistic colleges. Really, there should be just as much attention given to the realistic schools. That’s why I don’t see an advantage to spending a lot of time at any one college during early visits.
Our counselors really like the idea of doing an early sampling visit to nearby colleges, even if none are really on the working list (and you never know what might change your mind).
And in retrospect, I really wish we had gotten our act together in time to do that. Instead, we ended up leaping straight to visiting actual possible-list colleges on trips farther away. And while I think S24 was learning what he needed to learn, I do think in practice it likely cost us some opportunities to do longer visits.
Of course there is still the post-admissions round. Still, I really think that idea of doing an early, very convenient trip or two to help the kid actually start understanding their own values, and THEN visiting a more targeted list, makes a lot of sense.
We did St Olaf and Carleton on the same day. Macalester and Minnesota seems doable.
Yeah, the two most valuable things I would say we have gotten out of visits so far has been entirely eliminating some reaches (and similar possible reaches) from consideration by learning they were just not right for S24 in some important way, and then also forming preferences among colleges in the “target” range.
Visiting other reaches was important in the sense they were not eliminated, but then that is pretty much all the value we got out of that. But the sometimes subtle but nonetheless impactful differences among targets is a lot of where the really fun, exciting, and valuable positive stuff has come out of visits.
Thanks everyone, the responses are very helpful. Yes, a close-to-home visit is definitely in the works to get a sense of the difference between a big state school and a LAC. She has both on her list because her list is very specific (they must give merit to full-pay families and have strong physics, and have theater performance opportunities available to non-BFA students) so it is a hodge-podge of school types and locations.
I think the first tours are most important.
If a school is expansive and you are overwhelmed - you see it - regardless of what you thought before.
If the architecture bothers you, you know it.
If it’s too small - as RHIT was for my son - you know it
If you tag onto a vacation like @lindagaf said - we did FSU that way on a beach trip - it’s great.
But even if schools are far away and you do one at home - it can help.
of course, not all large schools are large geographically.
But my daughter - we knew after a few - had to be in a city-ish area - so we knew those off on their own would not work, not matter how nice - like Elon - gorgeous - but no chance with her.
So anything you can do to see a school - even if not for a ton of time or even if not on your list - they all help.
The reality is - we all only have so much time so we can’t do it perfectly - and when you travel far, you have no choice but to double up.
But you start early, take a break so you’re not burned out and get them done.
Take notes immediately after - what you liked, what stood out, what you didn’t - or it’ll be forgotten the next week and the kid will say i don’t remember.
Spend breakfast, dinner in the surrounding area, etc.
If you see something isn’t working…take note why - and haul out - so you keep the mind fresh.
Visits to schools you don’t like are just as helpful as visit to schools you do.
After 3 or 5 visits, you know exactly who to target and who to let go.
Especially when cramming lots of school visits into a short time, have your kiddo take good notes about each school There are some forms online for campus visits. After a while they all start to run together. Have fun!
I understand that HS students fixate on the architecture- because it’s the first thing you see, and because in the absence of knowledge about what college is all about, it’s an obvious data point.
But seriously-- do any of us adults know a single one of our contemporaries (or younger) who transferred out or hated their college because of the architecture???
Sure, 1960’s brutalist concrete buildings can be ugly and faux gothic (which on CC gets referred to as “traditional New England” which I find HILARIOUS from a historical perspective) can feel more “traditional” but I think parents can do their kids a huge favor by explaining that lots of things can make you miserable in college (most of which you cannot control BTW…) but red brick vs. concrete vs. clapboard, or ivy vs. wisteria is seldom even noticed once you are living somehwere.
Interior spaces matter more - classrooms, dorms, etc, than exterior architecture for sure!
Unlike architectural style, the weather is certainly something that makes a huge difference to quality of life. That is why we are visiting Midwest colleges in Winter.
I actually think liking the built environment is an important consideration. There are some interesting studies about how it can affect things like mental health, emotional state, test results, and so on. There have even been some recent brain activity studies looking into all this. Here is just a brief sample:
One relevant snippet:
One of Ellard’s most consistent findings is that people are strongly affected by building façades. If the façade is complex and interesting, it affects people in a positive way; negatively if it is simple and monotonous. For example, when he walked a group of subjects past the long, smoked-glass frontage of a Whole Foods store in Lower Manhattan, their arousal and mood states took a dive, according to the wristband readings and on-the-spot emotion surveys. They also quickened their pace as if to hurry out of the dead zone. They picked up considerably when they reached a stretch of restaurants and stores, where (not surprisingly) they reported feeling a lot more lively and engaged.
The writer and urban specialist Charles Montgomery, who collaborated with Ellard on his Manhattan study, has said this points to “an emerging disaster in street psychology”. In his book Happy City, he warns: “As suburban retailers begin to colonise central cities, block after block of bric-a-brac and mom-and-pop-scale buildings and shops are being replaced by blank, cold spaces that effectively bleach street edges of conviviality.”
Another oft-replicated finding is that having access to green space such as woodland or a park can offset some of the stress of city living.
Vancouver, which surveys consistently rate as one of the most popular cities to live in, has made a virtue of this, with its downtown building policies geared towards ensuring that residents have a decent view of the mountains, forest and ocean to the north and west. As well as being restorative, green space appears to improve health. A study of the population of England in 2008 found that the health effects of inequality, which tends to increase the risk of circulatory disease among those lower down the socioeconomic scale, are far less pronounced in greener areas.
How so? One theory is that the visual complexity of natural environments acts as a kind of mental balm. That would fit with Ellard’s findings in downtown Manhattan, and also with a 2013 virtual reality experiment in Iceland in which participants viewed various residential street scenes and found the ones with the most architectural variation the most mentally engaging.
Obviously individual preferences vary, but when I think about campuses I have liked better or worse, a lot of that seems relevant.
Of course with all such things, you might end up being fine at a college where you do not have a good initial reaction. But if you have an abundance of good choice on paper and are looking for reasons to narrow down your list, I personally think just relying on your gut reaction to the built environment is fine.
Yeah, most college tours we have been on go through some of the bigger inside common spaces and then a sampling of some other interior spaces. Obviously more would be better, but I think those can definitely be important parts of feeling out the campus.
If I was choosing now - I chose sight unseen - for me architecture matters. Atmosphere, environment matter. In 1986 Pearl Washington, Bob Costas and Marv Albert mattered.
I have one school, very well thought of, been twice - depressing both times. They flew my in recruiting me for their MBA. Left and visited another (with their permission).
My daughters school - old and somewhat dumpy - I’d never go but that’s me. She’s giddy on campus.
So yes I think it matters. To wake up, look outside and see beauty as it means to you is powerful.