<p>I live on the east coast but I plan to apply to some schools in california. Does visiting the california colleges help me in admission? I know that the ultimate thing in admission is not if you visited that school, but does it help? Is it worth it to go to visit california schools even though i know I will apply there anyways?</p>
<p>Do you mean state schools or private schools? It generally helps to visit private colleges and universities, particularly on the west coast.</p>
<p>Colleges will certainly understand why you couldn’t travel across the country to visit, but I think it looks good to do it if you have the time and resources. If you can’t travel, I strongly recommend taking the trouble to communicate with their admissions offices and find out when representatives will be in your area. </p>
<p>You can check on the individual schools you are interested in to see if they consider “Applicant’s Level of Interest” in admissions. Google “(name of school) common data set” and scroll down to section C and skim through it. As woogzmama said though, schools in CA will not penalize you for not visiting if you live on the east coast. Most people don’t have the time or resources for cross-country college visits and the adcoms recognize and understand that. </p>
<p>It is fine to wait and see if you get in before traveling to visit a school across the country. If a school wants to see “demonstrated interest” you can do that in other ways such as 1) getting on the email list 2) seeing if you can schedule an alumni interview near you 3) going to a local college fair and visiting their booth (check to see if the school is represented before you go) 4) contacting the admissions officer for your area with a question (that cannot be answered on the website) etc.</p>
<p>On the flip side, depending on where you are located, it’s often cheaper and faster to fly from major East and West Coast cities all the way across the country than it is to places only halfway across. If you can string together a set of 4-6 schools that you can do over a long weekend, I’d consider making the trip.</p>
<p>Thanks so much everyone! And for the person who asked–I was thinking about ones like uc berkeley and ucla</p>
<p>Post #3 is the best way to tell for each college you are interested in. But can you afford the out of state tuition for UC Berkeley and UCLA? Very little need based aid will be awarded to an OOS student there.</p>