<p>My best advice is to calm down. This can be a really stressful time for you and your son or a fun, exciting time. Part of the difference is being patient until he’s ready. For many boys that doesn’t happen until senior year. That’s really fine. (FWIW–I took DS#1 to two schools his junior year only because we were going to be in the area for other reasons. Except for dropping both from a possible application list, it was pretty much a waste of time. DS#2 didn’t do a single visit until his senior year. DS#3 won’t either.) I think it’s great to do some early visits if the kid wants to. But keep in mind this is his college search, not yours.</p>
<p>My daughter is also unmotivated to do more college visits. We will do some vacationing this year while looking at some UCs. But for real college visits, it has to be her call. I don’t want to waste money. I told her to look on line and if she likes to visit some colleges( out of California) then let me know. This way, it’s her game and not mine.</p>
<p>Although I already posted, one more note because we did a visit today. D had the day off from school, and a local top 25 LAC (literally 20 minutes from my house, 1 minute from her dad’s house) was in session today. So we scheduled time there today. She went on a tour, we ate lunch in the caf, and she went to a class today (she told me she even broke that cardinal rule and spoke in class when the prof asked a microbiology question she knew the answer to, and no one in the class knew). The sun was out, flowers were blooming. We got a smoothie from near campus and relaxed in the sun. And then drove home to sleep in our own beds. It was VERY low stress, since we weren’t traveling. She definitely decided to put it on her list (great, because it is good match/safety, and those are so hard to find). But you don’t have to do “the big trip” to start with.</p>
<p>By the way, it is almost impossible to find enough days off from school in the fall when colleges are in session to do much in the way of visits if that is important to you. Our school has a total of something like 4 days in the fall that match that criteria. You can’t really get any visits in over Thanksgiving or winter break (no classes, and sometimes not even any tours). And by winter break, apps need to be well underway (or completed for rolling admission schools). So you are probably going to want to do a few visits in the summer. We have had some nice summer tours, although they can’t sit in on a class (my kids have gotten a lot out of the classroom visits).</p>
<p>Oh, and IMHO, you should get over the idea that he will do the work on this. You probably need to be chief organizer for this. Again, it is his dream, but it is probably your money. Don’t let him fritter it… one thing to remember is that if he gets any merit aid where he goes, but decides to transfer because the fit is not good, he probably won’t get any at his 2nd school. Lots of people have the attitude that the kid can always transfer if they are unhappy, but it can cost you big $$. I would turn up the heat some on this, as it has an impact on more than just him.</p>
<p>I’m of the just do it school. Pick a couple of schools - make it a day trip during spring break. They don’t have to be school that you think your kid will love - in fact the first trip I took my youngest on was Bard and Vassar. It was a day trip. He loathed Bard (I thought he might, but there were things about he liked and looked for elsewhere) and Vassar ended up staying on his list though ultimately he decided it was too small and by the time April senior year rolled around he was pretty sure he was majoring in International Relations and other schools looked better. Later we did a weekend to see Tufts and Brandeis. And still later a weekend to see three schools in DC. It was all pretty relaxed and enjoyable.</p>
<p>In any event I chose the visits, he chose where to apply. (I’d have been happy to take him places he chose, but there weren’t any, though he did see a couple of colleges with friends.)</p>
<p>We did our visits during Feb break, Spring Break and Labor Day weekend while all the schools in question were in session. (Though we blew it a bit on Brandeis, not realizing that we’d hit the day before Passover and it was the afternoon.)</p>