<p>The only way to apply early decision is to visit and make sure you love the school. We visited about 8 schools in 11th grade to narrow down what DD was looking for. We were able to eliminate OSS, small liberal arts and focus on urban schools. By the time we got to Boston, early into 12th grade she was sure of what she wanted. It made the decision for her to apply ED to BU an easy and very comfortable decision.</p>
<p>My opinion is that visiting a college is for the most part a waste of time unless and until your child is accepted. With the Internet, Google earth, etc., you can pretty much see what a college campus looks like without a visit, know where it is located . . big city, urban, etc. Even after visiting, its really impossible to tell if the college will be a good fit until the student is actually enrolled and attending, meeting a number of students and the professors. I can’t conceive of visiting dozens of colleges the way some here on CC do.</p>
<p>Skiblack- I respectfully disagree. The kids getting stoned out in the open at the highly recommended CTCL school my son visited were not advertised on the college website. The horrid food and dark, depressing building interiors at another were also not shown on the the internet.</p>
<p>Luckily he was not deterred by the just plain factually wrong information about his eventual first choice he read on a discussion site (not CC).</p>
<p>It seems there’s a significant difference of opinion based on how many schools you are applying to where you are not sure your child will be accepted. D only applied to one “reach” school, and it was nearby. We couldn’t afford to send numerous applications to schools where we weren’t sure if she would get in, and if she did get in, she probably wouldn’t have received merit aid. So we needed a manageable list of schools where we felt comfortable she would be accepted, and where she ranged from very top to just below average on requirements. We visited about twice as many schools as she ultimately applied to (7) - while I’d have loved to visit more schools, time and money were constraints. If you’re sending out dozens of applications, and not sure you’re going to get in, then our approach doesn’t make as much sense. </p>
<p>I wholeheartedly agree with Sue22 though. While a visit won’t guarantee a perfect 4 years, it can tell you worlds more than visiting web sites, taking virtual tours, and reading forums. We didn’t visit dozens of colleges, but I can’t conceive of spending the money to apply to lots of colleges that she’d never even seen, might not get accepted at, likely wouldn’t get merit aid at, and might hate once she finally did visit. I guess we had a much more pragmatic approach than some.</p>
<p>We made our visits Junior & early Senior year. One school we considered was ruled out completely after visiting , it also had an early app deadline of Oct 1 of Senior year.</p>
<p>The school that our Son ended up at, he applied in Sept and was accepted in late October. We made a visit Junior year, again in the spring after he was accepted and then attended Summer Welcome.</p>
<p>For us, the PRE apply/acceptance visit is a must.</p>
<p>My personal opinion is after:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You really change a lot during the senior year, and I think you have a somewhat better grasp on what you want after you have been accepted, even if that is only a difference of a few months.</p></li>
<li><p>It is devastating to visit a school and have your heart set on it and then not be accepted.</p></li>
<li><p>It is expensive to visit colleges – and you may not be accepted – and you will have wasted valuable money – and time.</p></li>
<li><p>No matter when you visit a college, it is a difficult decision. Some make the “right” choice and some make a choice that even though it may not be “wrong”, regrets about the choice made may exist.</p></li>
<li><p>If you wait until after you are accepted, then you may know more about scholarships that are available. And with that said, I would ALWAYS take a full scholarship over any college not offering that option. Because, truthfully, ALL colleges have good and bad things about them – and often (even the Ivies) disappoint . . . just saying . . .</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So how many schools are your kids applying to where their acceptance is questionable? We only visited 2 reach schools, and D really didn’t like one of them after seeing the campus in person (and didn’t get into the one she did apply to, but we knew that was a the likely outcome so it wasn’t “devastating”). We didn’t have the money to send lots of applications to schools that were iffy - especially since we knew the scholarship dollars wouldn’t be there if acceptance was questionable. You’re not wasting money and time to visit campuses where you are comfortable you will be accepted, especially if you’re looking at a specific geographic area. As for scholarships, all the scholarship amounts did not come in until late March to mid-April. Visiting then would have been impossible, as it would have meant missing way too much school all at once. Spreading trips out - and taking advantage of Spring Break - worked for us (Spring Break senior year was out, as the seniors take a class trip D would never have wanted to miss).</p>
<p>I have to say for my youngest finding a safety he really liked before made the whole process much less nerve wracking. </p>
<p>But if finances are an issue by all means wait. My oldest only got into colleges he didn’t visit (or at least didn’t visit with the intention of applying - he’d seen and mildly disliked my alma mater at a reunion - he liked it much better when he actually visited officially after being accepted and met students instead of alums!) </p>
<p>Like others we timed visits for our spring, winter and summer breaks, when the colleges were in session. We have relatives and friends scattered around the country so we combined family visits with college visiting. We never did a big tour - two or three colleges at a time was fine with us.</p>
<p>We made a summer trip to the East Coast and saw many schools. It made it a lot easier for our DS to trim the list. There were 4 schools we could not visit. If he is admitted and the FA is workable, we will send him on a visit or two in the spring before he makes his final decision.</p>
<p>I didn’t visit until after I was admitted (HMC & Stanford).
I think if you know who you are and are honest with yourself, AND do a ton of research on the schools, you shouldn’t have to visit to “get a feel of the campus” or whatever.</p>
<p>One of the nice things about visiting beforehand is that you can do it when it’s both convenient and cheap. If you wait until decisions come in you’re at the mercy of the weather and the airlines.</p>
<p>Why waste the application fee applying for a school that you might scratch off the list immediately upon seeing it?</p>
<p>Before! It changed my mind about Harvard - I really couldn’t connect to the campus.
It’s a good idea to get a feel for where you want to spend the next 4 years. And if you are applying early (as I did) it will help you be make a better choice!</p>
<p>I never thought visiting colleges was a big deal, but my dad refused to let me walk into senior year without visiting at least a few. So we took a trip to the Northeast and visited all the Ivies. And now, I can honestly say that was one of the best decisions we ever made. Not only did I get a good idea of what each one was like (and fell in love with a couple along the way), my entire view of the future and what I wanted in a college changed (for the better). It was visiting that helped me pinpoint exactly what it is that appealed to me about each college and gave me perspective.</p>
<p>So, long story short - I vote visiting before. It made a HUGE difference in my life.</p>
<p>I think it is extremely helpful to visit schools before applying. My daughter ended up in a school we never visited. It was only because she got into a special program that we ended up visiting in April after having been accepted. As it turns out, it was the school she felt most connected to. We wasted several trips back and forth to a school she thought she wanted to attend that we visited early in college process. I believe we would have visited many fewer school if we had seen each before applying.</p>
<p>it depends. For me undergraduate, it was not needed. I knew exactly where I wanted to go, had spent a little bit time of campus in high school due to some high school events being there, and going there worked out great. it may have been only school I applied to. For grad school-I regret not doing visits. Ended up at school that was terrible match for me and visiting schools would have helped in process and maybe I would have realized some of my other choices were better for me. Since admissions decisions were not made until April, visiting beforehand was only viable action.</p>
<p>For my son, visiting beforehand was crucial(undergrad). Visiting schools not only helped in deciding what schools he liked, it really helped to narrow down what he was looking for(ie it turns out he wanted big urban school). Initially, we had schools of all sizes. It was actually the disastrous and unenjoyable visits where we both learned a lot as to what appealed to him. He is very hands on though and needed to spend time on campus to get a sense of its vibe and whether he liked it or not. The visits also helped weed out what appeared to be front-runners on paper which helped to strategize for his college apps. He has decided to only apply to one highly ranked school and several others that are good but may not be in top 50. that allowed us both to relax more on issues such as retaking SAT’s, not worrying about taking SAT 2’s, and not having to polish all college app materials 20 times. Again, the college visits were helpful in the entire process.</p>
<p>We visited just three colleges, and only one of them to a school D was actually interested in attending. </p>
<p>The summer before her junior year we were in Seattle visiting family, so we went to look at my two alma maters, a gigantic public university and a small Jesuit college. Neither of them was on her radar, but that trip was extremely useful in that she decided a large public university just wasn’t for her. </p>
<p>It would have been great to have had the time and the money to visit all of the schools she applied to (all small LACs), but they were scattered all over the country and none of them was close to home. So that simply wasn’t doable. </p>
<p>When the acceptances came, we attended the Admitted Students weekend at her first choice, and that’s where she ended up.</p>
<p>Learned today that a very solid LAC is going to pay for DS to fly 2700 miles to visit their beautiful campus! I am stunned really. DS is excited about the visit. Good deal.</p>
<p>I say if you have to choose, definitely go with after acceptance. I was accepted at my top two schools, and was torn between them. In April, I went to both of their Admit Weekends (in my case expenses were paid, this might be an option for your student). Staying at each campus for four days in the dorms, eating at the campus dining halls, walking around the surrounding cities, interacting with current students, and just getting a feel for the culture was invaluable. I knew exactly which school was right for me after my visits. </p>
<p>I feel that it was better for me to go after acceptance because when I arrived on campus I knew that I definitely had the option of spending the next four years there and was not simply hoping for acceptance; furthermore, I was comparing only two schools.</p>
<p>We only visited the 3 colleges my daughter applied to which were local (driving distance of 7 hours or less.) She also applied to 4 Southern colleges and 1 mid-Atlantic, and for those we waited until she was accepted and flew to the 3 with the best financial aid. 2 of them were Early Action acceptances, so we knew in January we were visiting them in April because of a Scholarship Symposium Day at one of them. Ironically, 1 Early Action college she visited twice (7 hour drive) had the worst financial aid offer, so it came off the list early. In April she also ended up visiting her top 2 choices (1 was local which she’d seen before) for admitted student events. Like a previous post mentioned, my daughter had a better sense of what she wanted in April vs. visiting colleges in earlier years or senior fall. We visited about 25 colleges locally during sophomore/junior years before she decided where to apply.</p>
<p>2 of the southern schools she was accepted to (but hadn’t seen before applying) clearly wanted demonstrated interest. She had a personal interview with one admissions officer and attended a seminar for the other when the admissions staff came to the Northeast. She also included a little known fact from the seminar video in a question which asked about demonstrated interest.</p>