We did a lot of visits, but we started at the end of sophomore year. We wove visits into other vacations a lot of time. Older kid has spring semester internship in DC? Fly there and spend half the week visiting her and half the week visiting colleges. In the summer, picking kid up from Quiz Bowl camp in Illinois and headed for grandparents in Michigan? Stop at U of Chicago and Kenyon along the way. Four day weekend in the fall? Fly to Oregon, visit relatives and check out Whitman & Reed. Kid at summer program in Reno (so her plane ticket already a sunk cost)? Pick her up and swing through California schools. Day off from school? Hit local LAC.
Some families can’t afford to visit, and you have to make do if you can’t, of course.
Several people have mentioned going to Admitted Students Day. Neither ds did any of them, preferring to go when the schools were in their more “natural” state. If you can’t make the official visit days, don’t stress.
Our Best most fun family times were during college visits. Between my two kids who visited about 20 colleges. I enjoyed almost all those visits immensely. So did my kids. We did Great deal on these trips besides visiting actual colleges : stayed at Colonial Williamsburg, saw the Liberty Bell, visited Coca-Cola World and CNN, watched the Durham Bulls game, ate at some of the famous “diners and and drive ins” in the Midwest, listened to cool music in Austin, attend the famous art fair in Ann Arbor etc. etc. etc.
@ColdinMinny - Good point about sitting in on a class or two if at all possible. D actually sat in on three during her visit, different sizes, different subjects. It confirmed her decision (and gave her confidence that she was ready for college work, which she’d been a little nervous about).
I think it’s great to visit beforehand if you can afford it. My d found a safety she loves, and that really took the pressure off. She will go back for admitted students events at a few of her favorites.
I think visiting beforehand is important in ending up with a reasonable list of schools. I am old-fashioned but think that applying scattershot to many schools is misguided. We visited and did the research and kept the number of schools down to 2-4 for two of my kids, and for one, it was 4 conservatories, 2 colleges. I would go so far as to say we felt it was rude not to visit before applying: we called one of my youngest’s two desired schools to apologize because we had to cancel a visit for health reasons and didn’t get there for a visit until after the application was in.
It also helps with admission to show interest by visiting. Colleges know that in this day and age, with the common application, and 20+ applications, that most applicants are not seriously committed to going to their school.
Every time you apply to a school that you do not know for sure you want to attend, you may be taking a spot from someone who really does want to go to that school. I have seen this happen even at the local level.
OI am starting visiting colleges now, spring of junior year just to see what they are like and figure out where to apply. II am looking at all close schools(within 2 1/2 hours) so this works. If you look farther away you probably have to wait.
We visited a number of colleges ahead of time. My strategy was to see various size universities that they might be interested in applying to…one of my sons applied to random places (so I thought), so I decided not to visit them until I had a better idea of why he had applied and whether he got in. We visited some schools again after we found out the financial side.
My H and I visited 10 schools between the 2 of us with our D. I have to say that I really enjoyed those trips and we did try to add in some leisure when there was the time and opportunity. Looking back now, for us 9 of those trips were unnecessary. D was accepted early to her first choice school and then withdrew all pending apps and did not submit the ones that were due January 1. Many people find themselves in this exact situation. So if I had it to do over again with this particular child, I might consider only visiting her first and second choice schools and then those schools where demonstrated interest is taken into consideration by the adcoms. But then hindsight is always 20/20 and how is one to know how things will go in the early round?
I think with some schools it might make sense to wait until acceptances are out. We may do things a bit differently with our second child whose school visits beginning this summer.
We visited about half the schools on D’s list of 7 schools (and a few others where she didn’t apply) but there was no time nor money to fly across country just to visit colleges. She got accepted to all seven schools. She ended up visiting two out of the three she had not yet seen. The third school had been eliminated due to expense.
What I leaned was going at a time that’s NOT the accepted students event may work best for kids who don’t like large groups of people, including their potential classmates.
D had a much nicer experience when she scheduled an ordinary visit with a tour, sitting in a class and meeting with a professor as well as an overnight. She was the only one on her tour so she and the guide chatted and changed things up.
With large groups of people, multiple sessions, a “mixer”, D was overwhelmed by accepted students events. I don’t know if that is a major reason why she is leaning toward the school above. I wish I had realized this earlier and only set up individual visits.
So lesson learned: whatever you do, make sure it fits with your child’s personality and quirks.
Also, start visiting as soon as decisions come out. If the child hears in November, visit in December. Don’t wait. That was probably one of our big mistakes. Time just flew by during D’s senior year.
Our current plan is to not visit super reach/dream schools unless the dragons are accepted and we see how expensive it is (too much=pass before they can fall in love with the brick and mortar), and to visit match and safety schools the summer of junior year.
“I think it’s great to visit beforehand if you can afford it.”
This is purely anecdotal, but I am merely reporting that the extreme majority of students I counsel can absolutely afford to visit beforehand, yet few of them do. Their admissions results reflect that poor decision, given that they would be the students with the biggest misunderstandings about differences among campuses and programs. Their Statements of Purpose for those colleges were transparent exercises in pain, anxiety, and guesswork. I feel sorry for none of them (i.e., obviously, the many who could have afforded to visit).
I can’t help but thinking @Harvestmoon that your D might have been able to know her first choice and confidently withdraw all other apps because you did those visits. Had you done it the other way, you may have had to make many of those visits anyway.