<p>will a college really take seriously the application of a student unable to visit before applying?</p>
<p>It depends on the college. LACs like applicants to show interest and one way to do so is to visit. Other colleges, especially the most selective ones, do not keep track of visits. S was admitted by Stanford without his visiting.
If you cannot visit, it would be a good idea to initiate a correspondence with the admissions office and with members of the faculty (cc. the admissions office as profs do not necessarily share these communications with the office).</p>
<p>Thank you Marite. I'm going to suggest that darling daughter initiate communication. Can you stand one more question? In the instance of schools that only want a GC rec, would it be presumptuous to add a teacher rec where (as with DD's Geezer Counsellor) as here, the GC doesn't know the student from a hole in the wall?</p>
<p>I would certainly send in a teacher's rec. The worst thing that can happen is that it would be disregarded. It would be good if the teacher could explain that the GC is not familiar with the student. This happens at a lot of schools where the GCs are competent but simply overwhelmed by the number of students for whom they are responsible. So there would be no need to explain why an additional rec was solicited</p>
<p>most of the time schools have alumni all over the country that do a lot of interviewing/Q&As for students who live too far away to visit. check with the admissions office about that.</p>
<p>I just want to add that most GC recs use a lot of their space to explain the HS's grading/ranking system, whether the GC knows the kid or not. It's boilerplate to the GC -- the same in every rec -- but the college needs it unless it looks at a ton of kids from the same school every year. As I understand it, that is the main function of the GC rec; colleges understand that most kids don't have an extensive relationship with a GC, even if at small schools they do. A teacher rec isn't a substitute.</p>
<p>Many schools take applications seriously if the student is unable to visit. Look at the school's website and see how much space they devote to encouraging a visit. Also..in the commonset data, many schools now rate "interest in school" as an admissions criteria.</p>
<p>If applicant is unable to visit a top choice school that strongly wants students to show an interest...applicant will need to show that interest in other ways, and explain why he/she can't visit.</p>
<p>If schools only looked at kids who could visit, only the kids with means could visit school that require a plane ride, has parents that can take off work</p>
<p>That wouldn't be very nice</p>
<p>So if a kid has middleclass parents and lives in Mass. and they cannot afford to take time of school, work, etc, or parnets can't during breaks, any school that disregards that student would not be school I would want my D to go to</p>
<p>Sure, try and visit, but to expect people to fly cross country, stay in hotels, rent a car, etc, to think that a kid who can't do that isn't interested is just plain stupid</p>
<p>HOw does one locate the common data set?</p>
<p>There are quick and easy ways to show interest. If you can't make it to campus, contact the admission office to find out if they will be in your area in the fall. Often colleges will have sessions for interested students throughout the country. D # 1 attended these sessions for U of Rochester, Carnegie Mellon, UVA, Georgetown all in the NYC area. U of Rochester even set up interviews during a week-end in a NYC Hotel for those NYC kids interested but who couldn't make it up to Rochester. Again-- that was 3 years ago so I do not know if they still do it. If they are not having an official admission session, they may be sending alumni to a College Nite at a local HS. You can always pay a quick visit to a local college nite at the HS, fill out a form and let them know of your interest. By you contacting the Admissions Office and making that inquiry, you are also demonstrating an interest in the school. Of course if the school is only 3 to 4 hours away, I do think you should try to visit. But it is certainly ok to send in the application and set up the visit for sometime later on in the year.</p>
<p>We talk about visits as iff they are easy...oh, yeah, go hop on a plane, take that car, go visit...</p>
<p>not so easy for many many kids, and we shouldn't make them feel nervous if they can't- for time, financial, family, obligation, reasons</p>
<p>if they are in your area, of course go, if a representative is anywhere nearby, sure, go, but don't feel nervous or bad if you can't afford to fly willynilly everywhere</p>
<p>and if your parents can't tike time off, rent a car when they get there, etc, don't feel nervous or bad</p>
<p>The school in question is 13 hours away by car and my husband and I won't get vacation at the same time until early 2007, so there's no way daughter can do an overnight trip at this time. I just wanted to make sure it wouldn't be a huge problem. Thanks so much all!</p>
<p>one other thing you can do is contact the admissions office and ask if there are current students in your area they could put you in contact with, especially since many are now home on break. Your D could meet for lunch or coffee and spend some time talking about the school and getting a student's perspective on it. And remember it IS a 2-way street; your D needs to like the school and find out if its a place she wants to attend so talking to a current student is a way to find out.</p>
<p>"The school in question is 13 hours away by car and my husband and I won't get vacation at the same time until early 2007, so there's no way daughter can do an overnight trip at this time."</p>
<p>You do realize that your statement doesn't make any sense, don't you? You and your husband don't have to make the trip with her together; neither you nor your husband actually have to make the trip at all. If you are considering letting your daughter go there in 12 months, you ought to consider letting her visit alone for a couple of days, and to sample what it will be like to travel back and forth by bus, train, cheap flights, however . . . Many/most schools will have some current student host her for the night if she visits when school is in session.</p>
<p>Of course, I agree with everyone else -- A visit is almost never required, and most schools are happy to set up a local interview (especially if you live in a place where lots of other people live).</p>
<p>Our son didn't visit half of the schools to which he was accepted. They were located around the country, so we decided to visit the schools he got in to. We didn't see the point in spending time and money to see schools unless he might actually attend.</p>
<p>My second son didn't visit any of the colleges to which he applied until accepted. The main reason he visited his top choices after that is that he is a music performance major and needed to have lessons with the teachers there to make sure they were compatible. (He made those visits alone, to save on cost.)</p>
<p>The only college my first son visited was his top choice--and then, it was only because it was close enough that we could go there on vacation. None of his other choices were that close, so he didn't visit them.</p>
<p>As cgm says, not everyone has the time or money to visit colleges, and I really don't think colleges hold that against the students. It is nice to visit if you can, but not essential.</p>
<p>Check with the admissions office to see if the college will set up appts to interview students during campus visits- that can be a measure of if they pay attention to college visits. For instance, Stanford doesn't care if applicants visit or not and they don't interview applicants either on campus or off. Others may set up interviews, but only after receiving an application. Also, you can check this chart, which lists the importance of many factors in application decisions <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/01/08/education/edlife/data.1.graphic.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/01/08/education/edlife/data.1.graphic.html</a></p>
<p>Common Data Set:</p>
<p>On school sites, it's in different places. Search site for "Common Data Set"</p>
<p>As an example...here is 2005-2006 for Brown:
<a href="http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Institutional_Research/facts/CDS2005_2006.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Institutional_Research/facts/CDS2005_2006.pdf</a></p>
<p>And here it is for MIT: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/ir/cds/%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/ir/cds/</a></p>
<p>You do realize that your statement doesn't make any sense, don't you? You and your husband don't have to make the trip with her together; neither you nor your husband actually have to make the trip at all. </p>
<p>That is YOUR opinion, not ours, but thanks for the insult!
My husband and I do NOT have to make the trip together with her, but one of us has to remain at home with our younger children. Including a 7-year old, thus the need for both of us to have time off. In OUR family, a decision this large is not made unilaterally and so our daughter will not be visiting any colleges in serious consideration alone.</p>
<p>Zoosermom -</p>
<p>If the college under discussion is so difficult to get to, why consider it at all? The logistics will only get harder when you have to get her and all her "stuff" back and forth twice a year. It's very difficult with younger kids, as you know. </p>
<p>One idea is to pair up with another senior and have the families alternate making visits; it's great for the kids to have someone to share the experience.</p>
<p>My concern over her not visiting a college until after acceptance is that the month of April is not long enough to arrange everything. Religious holidays, preparation for AP tests, and lots of senior activities make it a terribly crowded month, and there is little time for thoughtful reflection when under pressure to make a final decision.</p>