Hi, I’m a junior getting ready to apply for college this fall. The problem is, I can’t decide what colleges I’m interested in or narrow down the vast sea of choices that there are in deciding where to apply. Part of the process has traditionally been visiting colleges. The problems I have, however, are 1) I live in a rural area in the midwest 2) Of the schools I am considering, I have only visited my safeties, which are all nearby where I live 3) All of the other schools I am considering applying to are far away and very competitive.
I would have to pick one to maybe three of the far away colleges to visit. However, the chance of getting into any individual competitive school is very slim for anyone, and the chance that I would happen to visit one of the schools that I end up getting admitted to is so slim that visiting colleges out of state does not feel remotely financially justifiable.
The only college that I have visited out of state was the University of Chicago because I happened to be in the area, and I loved it. My parents want me to visit more colleges (and I’m running out of time), but I don’t personally feel the motivation to visit colleges given acceptance rates/costs of travel/etc. For instance, I’m interested in the University of Pennsylvania for a couple of reasons, but I can’t financially justify visiting a college seven hundred miles away that I have ~9% chance of being admitted to (and I don’t know if I want to apply ED there because there might be another college out there that I would really love that I just haven’t researched enough).
It’s difficult to narrow down my options with what limited information I can read online about a university, and college visits sort of feel ridiculous, so I’ve been stuck in the same spot of the college process for the last year or so. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
First of all, college visits are not ridiculous if you can afford the travel. Visit some local colleges to get a feel of campus life, even if you do not intend to apply there.
There is a tremendous amount of information on most college websites if you look beyond the homepage. Also go to youtube and search by college name. There are many student produced videos there in addition to the universties’ recruitment videos.
Next go to google maps and search each college, go to street view for a virtual tour of campus.
You can also go to reddit to get a feel for what students are taking about but take that with a grain of salt.
Thanks, I guess part of the problem is I’m not doing enough research on colleges and I don’t know what I’m interested in pursuing yet. Also want to correct that I’m a senior, not a junior (I keep forgetting!).
You can visit them after you are accepted. Sometimes they will fly you in. You can research online and show interest by visiting college fairs, doing interviews if they are offered where you live or if any reps come to your school. We ran into this too…far away from most schools for my D. We did a few visits and recorded pluses and minuses then eliminated or added/adjusted similar schools from working list. We plan to visit ones she is accepted at that we couldn’t get to see beforehand. Just too much time and money to see all the choices…especially ones that have a low acceptance rate.
If your parents want to take an end of summer vacation that includes a couple of college tours, why not? I think by worrying now about whether you would get in to the schools, you are putting too much pressure on your self. On the other hand, as someone else mentioned, you can wait to see where you are admitted. But keep in mind that will be during the school year when things tend to be busy.
Could you find a good college counselor in your area? Even in just an hour + knowing your numbers (scores, GPA, EC, etc) they can help you with the list. I would recommend applying to 4 safe, 4 match and 4 reach schools. CC usually have visited most colleges and can advise you about campuses, student body, philosophy of the school, and which could be the right fit for you considering your preferences and personality.
When researching online, don’t forget to check YouTube for videos posted by the school and by students that give you a virtual feel of campus and buildings. If you can’t travel far at least try to visit a variety of schools in your state to get a feel for size. I’ve known kids who said they wanted small, that were put off when the small school only had one cafeteria that wasn’t open on weekends(for example).
And the biggest piece of advice you can get here is to nail down the financial end. What can you afford? Do your parents know how much colleges cost? Get them to sit down and run the Net Price Calculators on a few schools to see what turns up. Read the Financial Aid threads about what you can and should (or shouldn’t) borrow. Money alone may add or eliminate schools from your list.
If visiting colleges is not financially feasible, you can take virtual tours that are plenty available either at schools’ own websites or on YouTube.
By the way, of the seven OOS schools that my son was admitted to, we had ZERO visits to these schools prior to receiving acceptance letters. When deciding on which school to commit to, we only visited one top choice during its official preview day invite just to be sure that my son really wanted the school. Since the itinerary allowed us, we also paid an unofficial visit to another admitted school nearby simply because it was convenient without costing us any significant extra. In other words, don’t sweat the college visits if such trips are too straining for your family. It’s more important that you spend a good amount of time researching which schools you’d want to apply to.
It is hard to visit a lot of schools after acceptance. The timeframe is short and tickets are expensive on short notice. Just be realistic about this plan.
If the acceptance rate is really low as she stated in her original post it may come down to just one or two schools which could be manageable during school year especially if there were a few EA applications.
I agree with the others. Think hard about what type of college environment you might like, narrow it down from there and do some more research and watch some videos. You said you’ve only visited safeties, and don’t feel that visiting your reaches is necessary, so I would concentrate on coming up with a few match schools. Post a new thread listing your college environment preferences, EC’s, stats, financial constraints, and personality and let CC develop some suggestions for you. Post it in the Parents Forum, we love to give kids advice, lol! You said you’ve got some reaches that you are considering, so I’d go ahead and apply to them if they are financially appropriate, and then if you get accepted to one, you have four or more months to make a visit before you have to make a decision.
I would make a suggestion based on the fact that you haven’t decided on a major. I would think very carefully about choosing to apply to or attend a small school because you might find that you are limited in your choice of majors. Medium to large schools might be a better option so that you will have more choices. Also consider whether you would be comfortable going to a school where you didn’t know anyone. My daughter thought that wouldn’t be a problem at all and now one month before she leaves, she’s having a crisis because she is realizing that she will be in a new strange environment away from her friends and family and she’s kind of freaking out. She ran into my room a week ago wailing “How is Dad going to deal with Halloween without me!”, lol - he and she are our holiday people and she can’t imagine not being here for the next major holiday! She’s very outgoing, so I think she’ll be fine, but she’s an athlete and won’t be able to come home for a visit until Thanksgiving so that might be a little rough on her. I know for a fact that her younger sister would never attend a school without at least one of her friends being there - she is very shy, and I can see her even wanting to come home for the weekends a lot until she she adjusts to living away from home when she’s a freshman. So just keep in mind that you NEED to do some thoughtful research, because you will most likely be having the same types of feelings to some extent and you will want to be sure that you’ve made a good decision.
Based on indicated factors, you might be a good candidate for several of the NESCACs, a group that includes schools that enroll students from the top ~1% of college applicants as well as schools with somewhat more accessible admission patterns. In most cases, these colleges would offer you broad academic options in traditionally collegiate, undergraduate-focused environments.