<p>How did you guys set up your college trips? How many did you go to during one trip? Did you visit HYP even though the chances of acceptance to one/all is so low that it may be a complete waste of $$ (even if it is a nice trip)? How many trips did you go on?</p>
<p>Visiting 6 colleges took plenty of time. Looking back, I would not have visited the less realistic schools, it is a bit of a waste...but I really enjoyed Dartmouth even though I most likely won't get in, so it's your call. It wasn't really an issue of money, we were camping, but it gets exhausting. AAA did most of the setting up. Best of luck.</p>
<p>before i applied to colleges, i just took sample visits on my own. walked around a couple campuses for an hour or two, just to see if i liked that at least. then i did more research on it and applied. </p>
<p>it was only AFTER i received acceptance letters did i actually do the full college visit (attend programs, talk to staff/faculty, talk to students, take campus tour, take dorm tour, talk about financial aid, etc. etc.). </p>
<p>i think it'll be much worth your trip if you visit schools that you have been ACCEPTED to. you're more serious then and youll be on the search for stuff that matters (i.e. dorm life, honors program, financial aid, sitting in a classroom, etc.).</p>
<p>I visited some colleges with a friend. We drove down to LA and stayed at my aunt's house, driving to different colleges during the day. Still cost about $60 just on gas. (2 5 hr drives, plus driving all around LA and to claremont)</p>
<p>I disagree about visiting colleges only after you've been accepted. We've talked about this in the Parents Forum and for a significant number of our students, visiting schools completely changed where they applied. Schools that were #1 on paper weren't even applied to, schools that had been very hazy suddenly became favorites. Moreover, in a fair number of cases, students changed their criteria about what they were looking for, prompted by their experiences visiting. </p>
<p>To the OP, yes, we visited HYS even though the odds were long. I thought my D's reactions were interesting. Re Harvard, "I liked it better than I thought I would." Whereas she was smitten by Yale. Stanford was okay. Didn't matter in the end.</p>
<p>First, my daughter and I visited a college just 3 hours away. It's a safety for her, and it was a good way for her to learn how college visits work. Then we planned a 3-week road trip last summer, visiting 10 colleges and "driving by" 2 others. Did not include HYP, but did tour Williams, which is just as hard to get into. There is a map of the US available that shows the locations of most US colleges (Professor Pathfinder's, available at Amazon) which really helped in planning our route, which colleges were "on the way", etc. Since then, daughter has visited one other college, and we're planning on another one at Memorial Day. And then that will be the end of it!</p>
<p>PS - the road trip was an outstanding experience, not just for touring colleges. With one exception, we enjoyed every state we visited, had many pleasant surprises and changed our perception of what many states "look" like.</p>
<p>PPS - The colleges we visited were ones we had researched - checked websites, corresponded with, etc., and knew they fit somewhere within daughter's interests/abilities.</p>
<p>I'm from NY and currently a freshman at UMich. I was looking at several schools on the east coast, several in the midwest, and even a few in California (Berkeley was originally my top choice!). I visited most of my east coast schools in one trip (Tufts, BU, Wesleyan and Brown) that took 3 or 4 days. My midwest schools (Northwestern, Chicago, UMich) and my CA schools (UCLA, Berkeley) would have been very long trips to take and skip school for when I had absolutely no clue if I'd be getting in. My family decided for those schools that were farther away, we'd wait to see if I got in and then I would go visit. Which is what I ended up doing.</p>
<p>It's true though that one's opinion of a school may change with seeing it. In my case though, it helped me eliminate Brown. It's an excellent school, of course, but I really didn't like the location or the campus.</p>
<p>Another thing I've heard is that one of the greatest factors in a student's opinion of a school is whether or not they visited the school on a rainy day. ^^' Apparently, bad weather can have a serious impact on one's view of the school. So if it's realistic, I would plan trips to closer schools on days with a good weather forecast. ^_^</p>
<p>Before you schedule a trip, I would suggest that the student set some paramaters on the type of school in which they might be interested. Items such as number of students, rural/suburban/city, academic programs, etc. Then buy a college guide and spend some time looking for schools that seem to fit the student's requirements. Then look up the schools of interest on the internet and check for their schedule of information sessions, tours, overnights, interviews, etc. Print the map of the school in general, and the admissions office in particular - remember these are unfamiliar locations and you don't want to waste time looking for the campus (as I did with my D on a number of occassions). Don't try to schedule more than 2 schools in one day and then only if they are very close (one hour or less) to each other, and even then don't try to do it more than once or twice. Take a camera and take pictures. After 10 schools in 7 days it gets to be a bit like "If this is Tuesday, it must be Belgium" - they will begin to run together.</p>
<p>I went the summer of my Jr. year. We went to Chicago, Philli, and boston. About 10 days or so. It was well worth it. Taxi's public tranportation are the way to go.</p>
<p>I also went to USC when i visted my grandparents in Cali.</p>
<p>And UofO is just 2 hrs away.</p>
<p>Look for set up programs. Such as UofO Duck Days</p>
<p>My Junior year spring break me and my parents flew out east - into Boston, out of New York, and hit just about every school in between - MIT, Harvard, Dartmouth, Williams, Wellesley, Smith, Yale, Princeton. Probably some others too, I don't really remember. I had done research before I went so I knew where I wanted to look - but don't be bound to your agenda - I didn't really want to go visit Princeton but my dad talked me into it, and thank heavens, cause I loved it and I'll be there in 9 months ;)</p>
<p>That was the same for USC, and I loved it too!</p>
<p>I actually prefer to visit a campus when they don't have anything special going on. It gives you a feel for what it's like under normal circumstances, not all gussied up for a party.</p>
<p>Totally agree with thedad, if it's at all feasable, visit before deciding where to apply. My daughter did, had interviews at each, and ended up not completing some of the apps. If your family travels, start early and visit schools on your trips. My 8th grader now has opinions on lots of schools from visiting with her sibs. Feel is everything and if you want to focus on doing just a few well done apps, look befor applying.</p>
<p>There are ups and downs to doing it when they have special prgrams. I did one at IIT and it was a private tour, which was nice b/c of one on one questions, but there no real big discussion where the school was telling you about them and where toher people are asking questions that you may hvae not thought about. Also it is interesting to see who else is interested in the school. Are there people that you can see yourself being friends with. Often they put like majors together for the tours. Plus, I don't mean to be rude, but you both sound like parents which brings on a different outlook of things. It all should depend on what your children likes.</p>
<p>If you are clueless about LAC vs Big State School vs whatever visit some schools near you of various sizes,etc.......may help you get a feel for what you're looking for.</p>
<p>I'm with oldman on this. Rather than viewing "college visits" as a single task to be done, break it into steps. Start by visiting a variety of types to get a feel; large and small, urban and rural. These should be nearby colleges, you're just trying to get a feel for each. And try to spend 1/2 day or more at each; sample some classes, talk to students. Just taking the tour shows you the pretty buildings and lets you meet a chirpy guide. "looking beyond the Ivy league" by Pope has a chapter about college visits, and there are other books that discuss it.</p>
<p>Once you've got a feel for what type of college you want, then make a list of schoold that interest you and try to visit, preferably for an overnite visit. For reaches, I'd take the tour if I was nearby but I wouldn't go to the expense of a trip across the country unless I was going to be there already; if you DO get in they will have an admit weekend when you can visit.</p>
<p>Also, certain places are surrounded by schools so its easy to hit many of them. Dartmouth, Amherst, Brown, Harvard, Williams, etc are all within 2.5 hours from Boston. Columbia, Penn, Princeton, Yale are all within two hours from NYC.</p>
<p>Interestingly, I never visited Columbia or Dartmouth on my "college visiting trip", and those are the two schools I ended up going to (transferred from Columbia to Dartmouth.)</p>
<p>Don't visit when school is not in session. We stopped at Mary Washington on the spur of the moment last summer because it happened to be on our vacation route. Spring session had just let out, and administration was locked up tight. The place was comletely deserted, like something out of the Twilight Zone. One dorm was open, apparently about to be renovated. The place looked like it had been evacuated in a hurry, and was full of dust bunnies and trash. My D was very turned off, no matter how much we tried to explain that we'd come at a bad time.</p>
<p>Oldman nad Mikemac have good advice - another piece of good advice I read an a different thread, if you are younger, say a sophomore, don't get too hung up on whether or not you visit a college you know you want to apply to. Just make your first visits the most convenient visits you possibly can, and try to cover a variety of types of colleges - sizes and locales. Establishing that you feel claustrophobic at small schools, or overwhelmed at large schools or that you don't want to fly to school, and a 5 hour car drive is your outer boundary, will make narrow down your choices considerably, and save a lot of time and money making visits later on.</p>
<p>Find some friends with similar college interests. I bummed trips to Wash U and Northwestern with a friend. Also, visit the colleges of interest in your area. I toured Duke, UNC, Wake, Emory, Vanderbilt, and Davidson. And if you're on vacation, make stops that way (which is how I went to Georgetown). Lastly, pick your favorites to fly to if you have the money. If you can't afford it, talk to people about the school, get a feel for it, and follow up on the "wait for acceptance" deal. But it's not good to have a first choice you've never seen.</p>