<p>I waited until the Fall of Junior year…then they are starting to think about college. If your child shows limited interest as a sophomore, I would wait.</p>
<p>Like others, we did a very low-key college during D’s sophomore spring. It was more of a fun mother/daughter road-trip over April vacation, with a trip to NYC and a Broadway show (we were ostensibly visiting Barnard.) But we saw 6-7 colleges on the loop through New England, and it definitely inspired her and helped her narrow her focus. She’d previously thought she wanted a big-city school -or maybe even an international one!- but came away from it realizing she preferred small, rural/suburban LACs and didn’t want to be more than 6 hours from her home state.</p>
<p>She was then able to look at colleges online and narrow her search MUCH more effectively. Junior year visits were much more focused and productive. She was able to send in all of her applications early senior year (even the RD ones) while some of her friends were still completely unsure of where to apply! I think it takes the stress of late junior/early senior year to get some of this underway earlier :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And as a parent you let this stop you? :D</p>
<p>We found it useful to do a few very low-key visits at the end of sophomore year - limited to schools within a reasonable drive so that it was a fairly mellow day trip. One of the benefits was to give my son a visual of what an urban campus was like vs. a rural campus, or a large university vs. a small college. We visited one college in each category to give him a sense of the options early on. </p>
<p>And I do think it hepled to motivate and focus him academically - made going away to college seem more real than abstract.</p>
<p>We started college visits the summer before my daughter’s sophomore year, and I’m glad we did. We learned as much from the schools she didn’t like as we did from the ones she did like. It has really helped her narrow down her search, and we’re starting to go back to favorites now that she’s at the end of her junior year. </p>
<p>“We learned as much from the schools she didn’t like as we did from the ones she did like.”</p>
<p>This is important - a visit to three schools far from cities reinforced by daughter’s idea that she wanted to go to school in a city. Understanding what you don’t like is an important step to learning what you do like.</p>
<p>I agree with the majority who say that it is not too early and to make it fun and low key. I also think that, yes, it could be a motivating factor for some. </p>