<p>Now that we've gotten our acceptance letters, it's time to visit the colleges!! Do you feel it's okay for a student to visit a college by his/herself or should the parent always be around?</p>
<p>ta.. i wanted to go alone but my mom insisted she come too...</p>
<p>depends on the kid and the system the school would have on the other end to help them navigate. I wouldn't send a child inexperienced with travel to an urban center if they were expected to find their own way around. go on your comfort level and that of your child.</p>
<p>Mine has gone solo visiting this month, though DH or I have been with him to these schools once previously. All three schools are in major cities, but he is very comfortable with traveling by plane/train and negotiating public transit. We all felt that since this would be how he gets back and forth once he's in college, it was important to find out if he could deal with the hassles and distance. </p>
<p>I'd say it depends on the student and his/her life experiences.</p>
<p>Depends on a lot. The kid's maturity, whether the kid wants you to go, the location of the school, and how familiar you are with the school already. </p>
<p>If you're still selecting schools, IMO it's useful to have another set of eyes and ears to help with providing a different perspective. If there are different presentations at the same time, you can also split up and cover more of them to get a more complete picture of the school. The parent's perspective on presentations may be very different from a student's "take-away." They might have some presentations just for parents.</p>
<p>It also can give you some special time with your kid before they go off to college as freshman. We used admitted students' days to investigate the surrounding towns by car (which otherwise my kid wouldn't see), talked about the "meaning of life" and had some great times. It also gave me a chance to enjoy the process and to become more familiar with the school, aside from just being a checkbook.</p>
<p>There are always some kids on their own, but some kids might feel bad if the majority have a family member hovering nearby. Other kids are completely comfortable being alone, so this will really depend on your kid's feelings as well as your own wishes.</p>
<p>I happened to notice that Grinnell has a program where they will pick up an unaccompanied student who visits either of two close airports.</p>
<p>It may be a matter of practicality. A student under 21 cannot usually rent a car or hotel room, so extra accommodations will have to be made if there is no parent. And, if a student dearly wants a certain school, it's probably a good idea for the parent to go and see that it's a safe and welcoming place.</p>