<p>My D is a sophomore and I want to do one or two college visits this year with her because of some family circumstances that may make doing one of those "5 colleges in 5 days" things difficult. However, I also think it may be too early since we don't yet know what types of colleges to look at - she has very little info at this stage on GPA and test scores although does have some. Any advice on this? Bad idea? </p>
<p>Separately - does anyone think early college visits help motivate kids in any way to prep more for SATs, etc?</p>
<p>We started visits with both my kids in sophomore year. With D1, we just went to a local liberal arts college that wasn’t super selective (top 50-ish) for her to go on a tour, sit in on a class, and see what it was like. For her it was a motivator. She liked it, but she told me later she thought she could “do better”. She kicked up her academics and work habits, had a strong junior year, and ended up with very good merit aid at a higher ranked liberal arts college. So that is one reason to do visits – it is a motivator, and gives your kid an idea of what this nebulous “college” thing is like. My D1 loved the liberal arts college idea, so we didn’t do more visits in sophomore year to check out other kinds of schools (bigger universities, etc). But that is another useful step to take in sophomore year for some kids if they don’t even know what kind of environment they might like.</p>
<p>For D2 we also started visiting spring of sophomore year, but for a different reason. We KNEW she was going to be a hard kid to find “right fit” for. We started using various trips in spring of sophomore year (a couple stops while on a spring break vacation, long weekends, etc) in additional to specific trips in the summer and then spring break of junior year. We visited 20 (yes…) colleges with her. And in this case, it was completely worth it. She was accepted everyplace she applied, including her reaches, and ended up at a college that is absolutely perfect for her. Without a very diligent search and a lot of visiting, I doubt her end result would have been as good.</p>
<p>Regarding the test scores, for D2 I would say we ‘wasted’ a few visits on school that turned out to be too low for her final stats. She had at least one great safety that she left off her final list because her stats were really so high, and she had a couple other safeties as well. I still sort of have a soft spot for that school… But if her stats had been lower, we would have been glad we had gone there. I do think a lot of families spend too much time on Ivies and very top school visiting too early. Use this time to figure out what type of campus and size she likes; you will have PSATs by Christmas of Junior year, so plan time in the spring and summer that year to visit as much as you can. It It is a relief to everyone if you can get all testing and visiting done by August before senior year so all the focus is on applications, and you can avoid the panic of needing to raise test scores and visit at the last minute.</p>
<p>Some of the best advice I got was to take my kids to visit as many schools as possible, even those they weren’t interested in. We also started visiting in D’s sophomore year. We took S along and he was only in 8th grade. It was beneficial for both of them. </p>
<p>Visiting schools allows them to figure out the traits they like and those they don’t. D thought she wanted to go to a small LAC until we started visiting schools and she quickly realized she liked the large research institutions better. There were schools she liked on paper that she didn’t like at all in person. She ended up at a school that wasn’t on her radar but I suggested we look at because we were nearby visiting relatives. </p>
<p>Our kids both went to see colleges in tenth grade. BUT, they were not specific schools of interest necessarily (although both applied to at least one school from that trip). We wanted them to see a large vs small, urban/suburban/rural, private/public. Our first trip with DD was to University of Richmond, U of South Carolina, College of Charleston, Elon, Davidson…with drive by visits to UNC-Greensboro and Wake Forest. </p>
<p>We combined the visits with a ten day family vacation visiting friends, and relatives. </p>
<p>The answer to your last question much depends on the kid. Neither of my kids wanted to spend time either learning about or visiting colleges before late in their junior year. So we didn’t press them. However, they each had visited several colleges. For one, we live in a campus town and I am a faculty member; but we had occasion to visit relatives or to spend sabbaticals in some other college or university towns over the years. As a high school debater on the ‘national’ circuit, my son also had plenty of exposure to colleges around the country (midwest to east coast). My daughter participated in pre-college art programs after sophomore and junior years. They both had seen my own alma maters (a small LAC + a large flagship U where my wife and I both attended graduate school).</p>
<p>Gaining a sense of what college was all about wasn’t something they needed special exposure to. My son stayed minimally engaged in the college search until March of his SENIOR year. He was too busy! But he did work with me to develop a list, and he took the application process reasonably seriously. Of the 7 colleges to which he applied, however, he had only visited 4 prior to applying. (These days, colleges may care more about such pre-application signs of interest than they did 15 years ago.) </p>
<p>My daughter suddenly decided, at the very end of her junior year, that it was time to visit some art schools. And so we took one big trip during which we visited 10 colleges in 10 days in OH, PA, NY, RI, MA, VT, and ME. Since she took a friend along, the colleges we visited were selected by both of them. It was a mini-vacation as well as a tour of colleges. This wasn’t the best time of year to see the campuses in action: mid-June. But it was better than nothing.</p>
<p>Waiting until they were ready was the right thing for them. They were very happy with the colleges they ultimately attended (UChicago and RISD), even my son who had never seen that college’s campus until he went to admitted students day in April of his senior year. Personally, I think if you want to take your kid to see a few colleges, but your kid is reluctant, you should only treat it as an adventure/vacation. Visit and tour some campuses. Don’t get into the pre-interviewing thing unless she truly wants to. It’s likely she will be under enough pressure, even frenzy, beginning with all the tests in junior year, whether or not you start the campus visit process now. Personally, I would wait until she is truly ready to actively search for colleges.</p>
<p>We did early visits in Sophomore year to determine the basics - so we saw a small LAC, a large state school, a school in the burbs, a school in the city. This helped my daughter to determine which basic attributes she wanted in a school.</p>
<p>If your kid is interested, then soph yr would be a great time to visit colleges. It’s a survey of the types of colleges available: large, med, small, public, private, urban, suburban, rural, etc rather than the exact colleges that kid would be applying to. It’s great to go a more relaxed pace than when you are trying to squeezing visits in during sr year. Yes, it also can motivate your kid to try harder in HS, when the kid sees the real and tangible possibilities of their future.</p>
<p>We did a few visits d’s sophomore year and it was a range. She had already been on a few college campuses (UMD-CP, Penn, and UNC-CH) but not as a prospective student, just either as part of a weekend school or going to an event. The colleges we visited were kind of random; I just wanted D to see the different types of colleges: rural versus urban; small versus large; LAC versus research university. From the few visits, she decided on small ( <5000) and she thought rural. With more college visits, she expanded the location beyond rural into suburban and small city; but her preferred college size remains <5000.</p>
<p>FWIW, the college visits had an effect but not one I expected. She didn’t like the top 10 universities/LACs; she felt the students were too intense (but those schools were Swarthmore and Penn, so that may have been a mistake). As a result of the visits, she saw the need to focus on her schoolwork but she didn’t feel the need to work overtime for straight As. So, she’s looking at good schools but not the top 50 on anyone’s rankings. I guess there is something to be said to be comfortable with who you are and seeking what fits your needs best.</p>
<p>It’s never too early to look at safety schools. It can give a kid a lot of confidence going into the process knowing that he or she has a decent option or two in the back pocket.</p>
<p>I agree with several posters who have mentioned that soph yr visits can be more basic, looking for what type of school interests a student. There is so much talk about “college” but if a student has never set foot on a college campus, how can they know if they even want to go? And how does internal motivation start to kick in?</p>
<p>My shy D needed to loosen up a bit and learn to speak with admissions staff. Visits during her soph yr were much more relaxed. She had no SAT scores to report, and she wasn’t ready to interview or apply. So we found a sense of relief that the admissions reps were nice to us, but they weren’t trying to pressure us or “sell” us anything. “We’re just looking” was our catch phrase, along with “we’re just getting started”.</p>
<p>My D will tell you we visited way too many colleges, but she was able to form opinions on what she liked and didn’t like. Merit aid was crucial for us, and we wanted the best chance of getting the “fit” right freshman year, since transfer students often lose so much aid.</p>
<p>Plus, the schedule just keeps getting busier and busier for the student. I was so glad we got started in soph year!</p>
<p>Definitely not too early. Use early visits to start to draw contrasts. Visit a small school in the country and compare it to a big school in the city. Give her some context, then she can have some context for the information in the guide books that she can look at Jr/Sr year.</p>
<p>The other plus in that at that age it should be VERY low pressure. Make it no big deal so she learns to be comfortable listening to tours and information sessions. This will help reduce the inevitable pressure that will arise when she is making actual decisions.</p>
<p>^^I agree that early visits were very low pressure. What I liked about them was D could ask questions without any concern. (She tends to ask a lot of questions) It was like a tourist asking the tour guide about the sights. She could be herself without thinking about making a good or bad impression.</p>
<p>My younger son got dragged on big brother’s first visits - I don’t know how much of an impression it made. I think it’s possible that sophomore year visits can help kids realize why they want to do well in high school. I agree with others - that focusing on types of colleges may be the way to go - big, small, urban, rural, suburban. I took my son to Bard, which I knew was too rural and too small for my younger son, but I did think there were enough good things about it that he should see it.</p>
<p>Actually, it was at those sophomore visits that we learned that DD had to take three years of lab sciences to be admitted to some colleges. She might not have done so otherwise. </p>
<p>My sons were a year apart in high school so I started Sophomore year with my older son and Freshman with the younger. We started with the local schools and then branched out. Luckily both my sons wanted to stay in-state so we didn’t have to travel too far. We were able to visit a total of 10 schools with my older son and my younger son wanted to visit an additional 2 prior to applying last fall. The school visits really helped weed out the type of schools both boys were interested in and help them come up with a balanced college list. I highly recommend that you visit as many schools as possible but keep to only 2-3 schools back to back. Having 3 years to spread them all out really helped since a lot of the tours can get very repetitious. Good Luck</p>
<p>Don’t tour too early. I started touring freshman year and barely remember the difference between the schools I toured. The best time to tour is the summer before junior year/junior year breaks. </p>
<p>start with whatever’s close, or near another attractive destination…as everyone has said, these early visit are so blissfully low pressure and more like sightseeing. We did several “visits” with both our kids that were literally drive-around campus. In the summer, we would get out and walk around with one parent (two is inescapably awkward) bc campus would be deserted, and we wanted them to have a visceral sense of being a student. it was a lot of fun.</p>
<p>S is a sophomore this year. Since he’s at a boarding school, we are thinking we should do some college visits this summer when he’s home. We started with college visits during sophomore year for D as well - sort of combined with athletics. She was playing tournaments in different schools and we decided she could tour those schools while she was there. She didn’t end up applying to any of those schools, but it did give her an idea of the different types of schools.</p>
<p>S was in 6th grade at that time and tagged along. He loved most of the visits - he was usually the most engaged We are thinking of hitting schools in the DC area this summer - making it partly a vacation, partly a college visit week.</p>
<p>My now-9th grader has been to our state flagship many times as it’s right here in town and H is an alum. She’s been to various sporting events as well as for school field trips. She knew 4 or 5 years ago she did not want to attend as a college student. Too big, too close to home, enveloped in the depressing Seattle rain every winter.
She also got to see the NH college her sister attended-small college, small town-also not for her, plus, it snows. And goes down to below zero sometimes. I grew up there. I don’t blame her. </p>
<p>When she started middle school at a gr. 6 - 12 school, it was built into the curriculum to begin at least thinking about college options beginning in 6th grade. By 7th they have learned to navigate college websites and have traveled to the district’s college fair. By 8th grade they have tentative lists of colleges to explore more deeply.</p>
<p>D has taken it one step further and has gone to HBCU-specific fairs with us, has a list, and has already spoken to ad coms from at least two of these schools. We’re going on a college tour this summer because none of us have been to the deep south and we want to both do some vacationing and look at the schools in person to see if she needs to change her list. But I know this is unusual for a rising sophomore.</p>
<p>In her case she’s following the recommendations I often see here-large and small schools, public and private, but she has a city size she won’t go below-she’s been in small towns when we visit family back east and is adamant that she not attend college in one. </p>
But if her stats had been lower, we would have been glad we had gone there. I do think a lot of families spend too much time on Ivies and very top school visiting too early. Use this time to figure out what type of campus and size she likes; you will have PSATs by Christmas of Junior year, so plan time in the spring and summer that year to visit as much as you can. It It is a relief to everyone if you can get all testing and visiting done by August before senior year so all the focus is on applications, and you can avoid the panic of needing to raise test scores and visit at the last minute.</p>