As others have mentioned, we started visiting/driving and walking through schools while on vacations, when visiting relatives or in our local area a few years before our kids were seniors, so they could get a sense of what “college” or “university”, “urban/rural” really meant. Being in the midwest, we are fortunate to have many good MT options that don’t require airfare. For our family’s circumstances, we - and S willingly agreed - to limit all applications to schools within a day’s drive from home (8 applications total). We knew that regardless of whatever financial aid he received, getting him home on holidays and breaks - or going to visit him - would be difficult for us. That made school visits during his junior year through early fall of senior year less of a hardship. Most were done on spring break and during the summer. Summer can be an interesting time to visit programs. While there are generally not many students around, and very few have any kind of rehearsals or productions to see, it was a good time to meet with faculty. With adequate lead time, some faculty members made special accommodations to be in their offices when we visited, perhaps scheduled a voice lesson, and sometimes gave personal tours of the department.
Wright State (perhaps others) have a masterclass day on the Friday before MT auditions. Again with advanced lead time, S received permission to attend the masterclass day as a junior. This was a terrific way to get a sense of the faculty and the program emphasis, but it also gave him a taste of what he would be going through as a senior during the real masterclass/audition weekend. (This took away some of the stress when the real deal rolled around in November of senior year - his very first audition.) The fall audition weekend also lines up with WSU’s main stage musical. Masterclass day with a 3-hour musical that evening made for a LONG day and drive home, but again, it gave him more information a full year before he went through the process.
S did all auditions on-campus - MORE information gathered. One audition visit actually became a “turn-off”. After some February acceptances came in, S was also able to eliminate another school based on his previous “travel-pass-through” visit and canceled his last audition. That audition had been schedule for the latest possible date, with the idea in mind that perhaps he would have “better fit” acceptance(s) in hand by that time.
We also did two “let’s-be-sure” visits after acceptances came in, but by then it was April and near the end of the college semester. What S was able to see during those visits - even though the departments went out of their way to make him welcome - was not truly representative of a “typical” class day.
We really liked having some early “reconnaissance”, with additional layers of “intel” added during auditions. We came up with a game plan that worked for us and by the time S received his final of three acceptances he had a very good idea of where his heart was leading. As others have said, do what works for you and your family. If we had dealt with more than 8 schools, or had to go over longer distances, we probably would have only visited a few schools ahead of time, auditioned at Chicago unifieds as much as possible, and done visits to the “financially viable” acceptance schools at the end.
