<p>People tell me the best way to determine if a college is for you is to stay overnight. I have like 12 schools on my list, and there's no way I could swing it for all of them. Plus, they're all in different parts of the country: New York, Ohio, Connecticut, Texas, North Carolina...it's not like you can just pick up and drive there from SoCal. So how do I pick which ones to stay at? They're not in a defined tier of preference, because I haven't visited them!</p>
<p>Well, you must have some sort of preferences. Pick your top 4 or 5 and try to stay overnight at those.</p>
<p>Is there any way that you can go on a big trip and tour all of these colleges? Being on campus will give you a good feel for the college. After that, if you still have 3 or 4 favorites, then see if you can arrange overnight visits at these colleges to find out which is your favorite.</p>
<p>When would I swing that? I'm in school now, and I can't miss all those APs. I've visited a lot of campuses briefly, but only IUB, Yale and Amherst stayed on the list afterwards. That's a good indication, I would think. Do they let you in on Thanksgiving or Winter break?</p>
<p>Try for things like Sunday-Monday Columbus day, for example. You may have staff development days. Use then wisely.</p>
<p>Make sure you visit safeties until you have one that you know you'd be happy to attend, and visit as many match/slight reach schools as you can comfortably visit without going broke or flunking out of school. You can still apply to the rest and visit later. </p>
<p>If you have 3 or 4 schools all in one geographic area, maybe you don't need to stay overnight at all of them. Maybe stay overnight at the schools where you are most unsure about fit and do day visits for the others. </p>
<p>No point making a special trip to visit HPY-type or other huge reach schools unless you get in. If you get into one or more of them, you can visit in the spring.</p>
<p>I'm not even visiting any schools until I get accepted into them. I can't afford to go and fly to these places, stay overnight, rent cars, etc.</p>
<p>Same here, I'm not going to spend a bunch of money to fly to these schools, only to find I dont' get in.</p>
<p>tkm256, I'd check to see if any of your schools have multicultural visitation programs, you should check with the admission counselors for your schools to see what they offer.</p>