<p>There's a couple of schools I plan on applying to that I know I won't be able to visit before the Fall. Anyone have suggestions or words of advice for students who can't visit their entire selection of schools, but would like to apply?</p>
<p>I say apply anyway… I’m applying to USC and I live in NY. I think they’ll understand that, geographically, not every applicant can visit :)</p>
<p>Thanks. I posted this thread, because I’m sure everyone can’t visit every school they would like to go to. It’s just that people often say that once you actually visit a school, your opinion about it may change positively or negatively.</p>
<p>Apply anyway! If it’s your number one choice, I’d say try and visit it unless money is a big issue. If it’s somewhere that you think you’d want to go but not a lot, don’t worry about visiting. Just try looking at what a lot of people say about it on other websites, on here, and look at a lot of pictures, I guess!</p>
<p>You’ll be fine not visiting. I only visited four schools and I applied to 10+.</p>
<p>I can’t visit any of the schools I’m planning on applying to (besides Oregon State University, if I do decide to actually apply there). They’re all on the east coast…</p>
<p>Apply, and try to visit after you’re accepted.</p>
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<p>It may. But don’t put too much stock in what “people often say.” “People” often say a lot of things, but not all of those things are very valuable.</p>
<p>Your opinion may change, but it may not. My daughter visited all five of the universities she applied to–some of them multiple times. Visits didn’t change anything: the one that she thought was “too big” remained too big; the ones that she liked, she continued to like. The colleges and universities that she did drop from her list, she dropped before we even visited them. She based these decisions on the descriptions of academic programs on the colleges’ web sites, the information we learned about campus culture on CC and similar web sites, and so on.</p>
<p>If your opinion does change during a visit, the reason for the change may be valid, or it may not be. I have seen both students and parents on College Confidential report on visits and dismiss a college for reasons as trivial as, “It was raining,” or, “The student who led the tour was wearing flip-flops.” So you may form an impression of a college or university, but that impression will be based on a sample of a few hours–maybe as long as an overnight visit. Could you have predicted how high school would turn out based on the first three periods of the first day of ninth grade?</p>
<p>If you’re interested in colleges you can’t visit, research them online. Ask the admissions offices whether they will have representatives in your area to visit high schools or college fairs. If they will have, go talk to those representatives. And if you’re admitted, do see whether you can visit then.</p>
<p>In all honesty, I do think it’s better to visit colleges before you apply, if you can. But if you can’t, I don’t think it’s worth a lot of worry.</p>
<p>A few points:
– If you are reasonably close to a school, especially a relatively competitive one, and cannot visit for some reason (financial, for example), you might consider explaining that in a polite email to an admissions counselor.
– If you are far from schools, they will not consider it necessary to visit. However, if the school is important to you, again it might be wise to write a note saying that you don’t have the finances to make the visit but you have researched closely … etc. Also, if the school is in a particular type of location – you live in an East Coast city and the school is deep in the Midwest, for example – the school might want to know that you are seriously interested in a change of location and perhaps that is even part of the appeal.
– It is true that you might change your opinion of a school after visiting. However, these visits themselves are problematic as your opinion might be altered by something random that is not particularly true or important – how the people you happen to see are dressed, how the one tour guide you have speaks, etc. So, of course such visits are useful, but not everthing if they are not possible.
– It is smart to try to go to admitted students days for schools you are seriously considering and have been accepted at. There is some marketing during these events, of course, but we found that there was more time and oppotunity to make an informed opinion.</p>
<p>Everyone is making such great points about this issue. I really appreciate hit and now I can create my college list with better assurance.</p>