<p>OK, so this is somewhat in jest. My H and I are joking that my D visited 3 schools before applying, and these were the 3 that she got into! </p>
<p>She applied to 5, and so far of the 2 we didn't visit, 1 is a rejection and 1 we are still waiting on.</p>
<p>The 1 we are still waiting on had no preview day or formal means to visit, or we would have visited. So we are joking that if we would have visited, we wouldn't still be waiting. (others have been admitted already.)</p>
<p>So, in some seriousness, do you think schools pay attention to who visits and shows interest before applying?</p>
<p>(ignore text below. I'm writing from iPad and it won't let me remove text at a certain point!)</p>
<p>Cannot confirm from experience, but schools that consider a student’s expressed interest state that on the Common Data Set. I have compiled that info in a little spreadsheet and will make sure that my son interviews where it is deemed considered.</p>
<p>You mentioned that the school you did not visit did not have a preview day. Did they not offer campus tours and info sessions? I know that some schools do not track attendance at these things and clearly state that on the CDS.</p>
<p>Depends on the schools. Some schools put a lot of weight on “shows interest” meaning, you visited. Look up the common data set for the rejection and waitlist and see if it matters to them.</p>
<p>It definitely depends on the school. Some want to see interest, others don’t try to track it. I think that it is probably safe to say that the lower the acceptance rate, the less likely the school is to try to track interest.</p>
<p>Based on my experience with 3 kids, visits REALLY matter. </p>
<p>7 visits - 6 acceptances
The one that waitlisted was what I’d consider a safety school. I was shocked. Then I remembered that we were late for the info session and never signed in, so there was no record of us having visited. </p>
<p>3 apps to “non-visited” schools - 1 acceptance
We eventually visited that school and enrolled.</p>
<p>Depends on the school. Two examples of large, well regarded, flagship universities:</p>
<p>UVA comes right out and says they don’t care, they don’t keep track, and there isn’t even a place to register for visits.</p>
<p>UNC-CH, on the other hand, has a site to register, where from that point on every contact you make, including calls, is tallied, and they specifically state that they consider interest in admissions.</p>
<p>I think it depends on the school. All of the schools that we visited asked my daughter to sign in and answer questions on line. Do you think that the schools keep track of who logs on to those on line chat sessions that are scheduled? My daughter joined every one that sent her an email and then kept re- joining. It got to the point where she looked at me one day and said she has no more questions and its time for her to stop attending.</p>
<p>This has not been our experience with both Ds. It matters when the school clearly states that interest is considered. The school my older D is attending is the only one she had not visited before submitting an application.</p>
<p>UMD-CP both kids visited, both kids accepted, one kid attending
Penn State no visits, accepted
St. Mary’s (Maryland) no visits, accepted
James Madison, visited and accepted
Ursinus several visits plus an overnight, (for a sport) accepted
Rice, no visit, waitlisted
Vanderbilt, no visit, accepted
UVA visited, accepted
Villanova, no visit, accepted
College of William and Mary, visited, accepted
Wake Forest, visited, accepted
Stanford, Brown, no visit, did do interviews, not accepted (high reaches, and kid sort of slapped together the applications, without a real burning interest in the schools. Sheesh.)
UNC-CH visited, accepted, attending</p>
<p>It just depends. We didn’t have the time or money to visit every one.</p>
<p>It all depends on the school. I’ve heard that it matters a lot at schools concerned about their yield, especially LACs in the Top 20-100ish range. I’ve heard that for the most part public schools and the super-selective U’s don’t care.</p>
<p>The Common Data Set contains info about whether or not a college considers interest in its admissions decisions.</p>
<p>In my son’s case,U of Rochester strongly recommended interview while we visited there.
Son got accepted.
UMDCP,we never been there even though it is our State flagship.
He was accepted,too.
I don’t think big public college cares about campus visit,interview et cetra.
We have more colleges that we didn’t visit or did visit…all accepted my son.
So based on our experience, it really depends.</p>
<p>I seriously doubt if visit bear any weight on admission decision. We live on the west coast and my daughter has applied to many schools on the east coast. I can’t imagine schools would expect students to demonstrate ‘interest’ by visiting. If visit is important, she is at a disadvantage.</p>
<p>S accepted at U of Chicago no visit. Visited Williams gazillion times accepted and attended.</p>
<p>We visited Bates and S interviewed with admissions officer and he was REJECTED. we were shocked. They must have decided he wasn’t a fit. They did take his best friend ( who had lower stats) who attended and loved it. Happy endings, but it does show that it’s difficult to predict college admissions.</p>
<p>Yankeedoodles, schools that use visits as an indicator of interest expect to see visits from students living relatively near the school. (Students living thousands of miles away should make an effort to meet with local alumni, make a point of introducing themselves & asking good questions when attending college fairs, and/or meet with adcoms visiting high schools.) Visits tend to be more helpful at LAC’s, but any school that has visitors make a reservation for tours & info sessions or fill out a card once there is tracking points of contact. This can be a factor in borderline admits and where colleges are under pressure to maximize yield.</p>
<p>In cases of schools where admission is not need-blind and a student’s EFC is low, colleges rarely expect a visit unless the student lives in the immediate area.</p>
<p>For schools that do a more ‘holistic’ review, I think visits really do help. </p>
<p>A student that writes in their ‘Why SchoolX Essay’ that they visited campus and could see themselves ‘standing under the arbors on the school common green’ or something to this extent absolutely may beat out a student who has never set foot on campus, hasn’t met with faculty, and didn’t bother with a tour or info session. </p>
<p>Is a visit going to help at a school like Harvard? No. Is a visit going to help at a small LAC where faculty/staff, when asked by an admissions rep, might even remember meeting with ‘prospective student X’? Absolutely.</p>
<p>We live on the East Coast and last month we (three of us) flew to visit the U. of Denver for a regular admissions tour. Just prior to starting the information session before the tour the admissions people divided the group into students who already had been accepted (we were in this group) and those who hadn’t yet been accepted or applied. I think the presentations were different.</p>
<p>It really depends. Older son didn’t get into the four schools he visited and did get into the four he didn’t. But none of those schools cared about “demonstrated interest.” When we are talking about the lottery schools it makes no difference per se. That said, my younger son felt that it was much easier to write the “Why ___ College” essays for the schools he had visited, though he got into one school he hadn’t visited. (His Why ___ College essay for that school was all about the reasons he thought his parents were crazy for suggesting it, and then the reasons he was wrong - sometimes tongue in cheek - i.e. Lake Michigan is practically a coast.) So sometimes just getting a better feel for what a school is looking for may mean that you target your essays better for that school, even if it’s not the visit that actually made a difference from the admission’s office point of view.</p>