<p>Midwesterner, thanks so much for the good advice. I have the same exact concerns about the distance. The theory (at least as far as hubby and daughter are concerned) is that if she actually goes there, we could (a) know the dates of arrival and departure far enough in advance to be able to make arrangements or (b) ship the stuff by UPS. Not sure how I feel about either of those options. The reason we couldn't go earlier this year is that my mother-in-law was terminally ill and we used up a lot of our vacation time caring for her so that she could be at home until her death, which she was, and the end phase of her illness was in the time in late winter/early spring period in which we really thought we'd do college visiting. Which is a long-winded way of saying that this particular year wasn't representative (God willing) of what most of our years are like in terms of scheduling and vacation time.</p>
<p>I'm so sorry about your mother-in-law. Certainly her illness puts many other things in their rightful perspective.</p>
<p>We have found a few creative ways to get my son to his school, an 11 hour drive with the pedal to the metal. Every trip there and back has been a new saga (cancelled flights, blown tires, no convenient public transportation, etc.) You do have to consider the disruption in everyone's schedules if your daughter winds up at that school. For fall, I am driving my son, his roommate, and all their stuff to school, then meeting my husband at the airport on the way back to help me drive home. Good luck to your daughter with her decisions!</p>
<p>I only visited to two of the schools I applied to, and it was only because one of them is only a five hour drive (not too terrible by TX standards) and the other school paid for me to visit during their Diversity Weekend.</p>
<p>In fact, I didn't visit the school I'm currently attending (Amherst) until after I was accepted, and to be honest, I didn't show that much interest beyond applying. Visiting may help, I don't know, but not doing it won't ruin your chances. Also, a lot of the top selective schools will often do informational sessions in major cities around the US; you could see if you could attend one of those. It's definitely not the same as visiting, but at it is contact with the school. They also usually take names at those things, so it'll also express at least minimal interest.</p>
<p>ZM, is either plane or train travel a subsitute for a 13-hour car drive?</p>
<p>Also, I do not ken your family situation but I'd normally expect one working parent to hold down the fort solo for 2-3 days at home without taking time off from work while the other parent is gone.</p>
<p>ZM, is either plane or train travel a subsitute for a 13-hour car drive?</p>
<p>Sure is, just not right now.</p>
<p>Also, I do not ken your family situation but I'd normally expect one working parent to hold down the fort solo for 2-3 days at home without taking time off from work while the other parent is gone.</p>
<p>That may be true in most cases, but in our situation, hubby is the driver and would have to do the driving with our daughter. Our childcare arrangements are that dad works evenings and does the childcare during the day, so I would have to take off and be at home to do childcare duty. The reason being that I have a day job with a 1 1/2 hour commute each way. Again, none of this is normally a problem, but when putting our life on hold for my MIL for those months, everything changed and we paid for a lot of the costs for her in-home hospice care. Which is why I asked the question in the first place -- because our lives were turned upside down and it will take a while for everything to be completely resolved.</p>
<p>Again, my S applied as a junior, last day possible. Only visited some schools he was admitted to. He had been to Boston for vacation, so had seen MIT & H, tho had never attended classes. He relied on friends for descriptions of other colleges (I emphasize if they were happy there, not looks of the campus). One college that we had heard about, but not seen, was having a meeting 1 1/2 hour away. We went to that. When writing his essay, "Why X college...", he referred to info gathered at that meeting. I think it helped, as he is at that school.</p>
<p>First of all, it is NOT necessary to visit colleges -- my son applied to all colleges without visiting -- in the spring of his senior year, he visited only those he was seriously interested in. He felt it was more cost-effective that way.</p>
<p>However, it really depends on the kid. My son is very laid back and resilient, and felt comfortable with the idea of doing his research on line or by reviewing college guide books. My daughter did want to visit, and the first thing that happened when she went on college visits is that she realize that she did not like any of the colleges at the top of her list, and she completely revised her list - so obviously visiting was important to her.</p>
<p>I would like to add that each of my kids visited all colleges on their own -- I put them on planes and made sure that there were appropriate plans on the other end for local transportation and accommodations -- and kept in touch with each by cell phone. This certainly made things easier in terms of finances and logistics-- though I'd also note that my kids were looking at colleges in urban areas served by major airports and easily accessible via public transportation. My daughter also arranged interviews during her first trip to the east coast, and she felt that the colleges were quite impressed by the fact that she traveled on her own -- so it may have helped, especially with admissions to the reach college she will be attending in the falll.</p>
<p>I'm sorry that JHS was rude to you, but I think the comment has some merit. Obviously if the college is in a remote area, or if your daughter is very shy or uncomfortable traveling on her own - then solo travel would not be appropriate. But the reason you put forth, 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. sounds more like a parental unwillingness to relinquish control. </p>
<p>That's o.k. too- if that's your style -- but that is not the same as it being impossible to visit. I'd tend to agree with the other posters who feel that if you are not willing to consider letting your daughter visit alone right now, that maybe you shouldn't be considering a college that is 13 hours away at any time. If she gets in, you are going to have a very short and possibly highly inconvenient time window to travel to the college. What is going to happen if you can't make it then? </p>
<p>For what its worth, I was very highly involved in the ultimate decision as to the colleges my kids chose -- its just that I didn't feel that I needed to be with my kids during the visits. Of course I heard the reports back and gave them my thoughts -- so skipping the visits did not leave me feeling in any way cut out of the decision process. In fact, I think in some ways it kept me more objective.</p>
<p>CalMom, my D is like your D: visiting made such a difference that it completely scrambled her application list. You're right, that it depends on the student to some degree. But I can't imagine <em>not</em> visiting, given how my D's results wound up. Some things may be "interchangeable" between colleges, others are not.</p>
<p>ZM, just to address a point that was made earlier, not all colleges require you to transport all your "stuff" there and back twice a year. At MIT they let you store your stuff, often in designated dorm rooms, if you don't have summer housing. I can't imagine we're the only school that does this. It certainly makes life easier for international students or others who live far away.</p>
<p>Even if you can't visit now, many schools have some sort of "admitted students' weekend" to give the kids and their parents a chance to experience the school in person before making a decision.</p>
<p>TheDad, although I agree with what you say, I have to note that my daughter did not visit her in-state safeties -- even though it was very likely that she would end up there. What she realized from her visits, unfortunately, was that she preferred the type of college that for her was only available in a reach school. While it worked out for her, there could have been a very different ending- and she very well could have ended up at a college she did not visit previously.</p>
<p>As a parent, I was comfortable with this because in the end - I simply didn't think it mattered. I still think that in terms of college selection, we place far too much emphasis on the courtship and not enough on the marriage. Most kids are going to manage wherever they end up -- and if they don't, they can transfer. Visiting helps tremendously in narrowing down choices, but visiting also results in decisions being made based on superficial factors. What I learned from my daughter's college reports was that one college was bad because the students were "too preppy", another had "too many trees." The main attraction to U of Chicago was to the gothic architecture and it's proximity to the city -- I'm glad my daughter decided to apply there, but even happier that she turned down the space -- I just don't think she's a good fit emotionally or academically for Chicago. </p>
<p>I think what was more important was simply the interview, and that of course applies only to schools that provide on-campus interviews. I know that her interpersonal skills are her strength -- and since test scores are her weakness, it was valuable to make sure that she had an on-campus, face-to-face with the people in the admissions office. </p>
<p>But all the visiting and agonizing aside - my daughter is going to be attending the same college next fall that I decided several years ago would be perfect for her. So basically, her traveling and visiting led her to the conclusion that I already knew. The other colleges, that she rejected after visiting, were match/safety schools that I was focusing on simply because I felt it unwise to focus to much on a reach. </p>
<p>Anyway, visiting has its place, but I still don't feel it is an absolute necessity. If my daughter hadn't visited, the outcome might have been different, but she still would have had a good set of choices in the spring.</p>
<p>Calmom: your posts were really um.. I don't know how to say this, but I liked your replies. =) But "too many trees"? That's certainly a.. unique reason haha.</p>
<p>I'd also like to point out that maybe the adcoms look at where you're located. Well hopefully they do. That way if you were living on the east coast or overseas, it'd be much more understandable if you didn't visit. Likewise, it would look worse if someone who lived close by didn't.</p>
<p>Melli, I think sometimes kids just don't like a campus and don't really know why... so they just seize on some detail they didn't like. The campus with "too many trees" also was faulted because it had "buildings that all look alike." My daughter did an overnight there in September on a cloudy or rainy night, so who knows -- maybe it was kind of spooky after dark. </p>
<p>But I have also heard of many kids who are on college visits with their parents who simply refuse to get out of the car when they arrive -- they haven't even seen the place yet and they decide they don't like it. I admit that one reason I was happy to send my kids on their own to visit is that they would be stuck there once they arrived, so they'd have to complete the visit. Though when my daughter went to Boston, she also completely changed her itenerary -- she was supposed to visit Tufts, Brandeis & Wellesley-- she skipped them all and visited Boston U instead, though in fairness to her it was pouring rain on the days she had planned to visit the other colleges. </p>
<p>There may be some validity in the opinions: sometimes we all just have a gut sense that we like - or don't like - something without really having any specific fact we can point to. But I think it's equally plausible that many colleges get rejected for reasons that are rather trivial -- after all, it's hard for kids to deal with so many choices, so it all becomes easier if the kid can eliminate some choices on fairly arbitrary grounds.</p>
<p>I agree with everything calmom says. And I apologize to zoosermom -- I really didn't mean to be rude, but I also wasn't being careful about what I said. I also agree that college choice should not be a unilateral decision for the child except in extraordinary circumstances. Believe me, my kids knew/know what I think, and what the boundaries are. And I wanted to go on some college visits with them, because that was a great opportunity to talk about what to look for, and what they wanted, and what was important or not. But I also let them visit places on their own, because I didn't need to see every school, and doing that was part of getting them ready to be on their own for long periods of time. And because the visits don't really produce meaningful information for parents.</p>
<p>Visiting information is inherently low-quality and deceptive (even more deceptive because it is so vivid). My daughter wrote off one perfectly appropriate school completely because the tour guide was jockish and not overtly intellectual. Another school shot up the list because the tour guide turned out to be the roommate of a friend's sister and had tickets to see the same rock band my kid was planning to see two days later, then dropped back a notch when the restaurant where she had dinner wasn't so hot. Even a substantial visit cannot really give meaningful information. A friend of my daughter's visited a well-known LAC for several days, and attended an English class. A couple people in the class made dumb comments -- end of consideration of well-known LAC, for that girl and several others she talked to about it. Was that representative of quality of the school? No way.</p>
<p>In the end, all you can really get from a visit are some negative check-offs -- Do I viscerally hate this place? -- some very broad-brush impressions -- How many kids are in the library? What stuff is going on tonight? -- and some comfort -- Hey, some of these kids dress like me, I could live here if I had to. Also, a chance to focus your attention on a particular school for a meaningful time period -- something that's not easy to do at a distance.</p>
<p>Back in the day, I visited the colleges I was interested in, and wound up choosing the college I had liked least on the visit, and it was a great choice. When I went to grad school, I chose one I had never visited, and when I got there I knew immediately that I would NEVER have gone there if I had visited first, and it was absolutely 100% the right choice for me. I thank heaven all the time that I never visited it.</p>
<p>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. sounds more like a parental unwillingness to relinquish control</p>
<p>I think my comment came off in a way that it wasn't intended. In our family, we make large decisions that will impact everyone after dicussion and input from the entire family, even the seven year old. Our style isn't about control, it's about respecting the wishes/needs/opinions/thoughts of everyone and we couldn't have a meaningful roundtable discussion if only one member of our family had visited the school. Hubby and I find that our vastly different observations are enormously helpful in coming to good decisions. It would be simply unthinkable for the one child to have sole opinon-giving responsibility for a decision that involves potentially hundreds of dollars, holidays, vacation time, etc for four other people. It's ok if other families do things differently, but this is the way our family communicates and it does work well for us. My daughter also knows that she might be looking at different things than her parents would and might miss something important if alone.</p>
<p>ZM, just to address a point that was made earlier, not all colleges require you to transport all your "stuff" there and back twice a year. At MIT they let you store your stuff, often in designated dorm rooms, if you don't have summer housing. I can't imagine we're the only school that does this. It certainly makes life easier for international students or others who live far away.</p>
<p>I did NOT know that. That's a great piece of advice and a good question for DD to ask. Thank you!</p>
<p>
[quote]
JHS writes: Visiting information is inherently low-quality and deceptive... In the end, all you can really get from a visit are some negative check-offs -- some very broad-brush impressions -- and some comfort
[/quote]
That's one take on first impressions. Since nobody has mentioned it, let me point to another perspective. </p>
<p>Malcolm Gladwell explains far better than I in his bestselling book "Blink" the power of first impressions, how we can often know things quite quickly without being able to spell out how/why we know them. <a href="http://www.gladwell.com/blink/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gladwell.com/blink/index.html</a> Of course Gladwell says that sometimes these impressions may be wrong, first impressions are not infallible.</p>
<p>Blink- excellent book</p>
<p>My D didn't like one college because it was soooo similar to her highschool...I thought it was really pretty and had that classic college feel, but for her, eh</p>
<p>She says things like "I can't see myself there" and that is that</p>
<p>
[quote]
Back in the day, I visited the colleges I was interested in, and wound up choosing the college I had liked least on the visit, and it was a great choice. When I went to grad school, I chose one I had never visited, and when I got there I knew immediately that I would NEVER have gone there if I had visited first, and it was absolutely 100% the right choice for me. I thank heaven all the time that I never visited it.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>JHS, your comment made me realize that much about the college selection process is counterintuitive. I try to base my life decisions on logic and reason, but in the case of helping D select colleges to apply to, I have to open my mind a bit. </p>
<p>Your comment leads me to ask you, how DID you pick your schools? If you liked your UG the least during a visit, what made you disregard your impression and apply there? And regarding your graduate school, how did you know that you wouldn't have chosen it if you had visited? I'm just trying to get a sense of how people make college decisions. </p>
<p>mikemac, thanks for the "Blink" reference. I'm going to pick it up and read it. Maybe it's just what I need!</p>
<p>Blink- excellent book</p>
<p>I'm going to look for that. Thank you!</p>
<p>CGM, there's a bit of chemistry in play. D just said, "It's a lot like choosing a boy. There are those you just like and you hope he likes you back."</p>