Visiting schools in 2nd semester senior year

Has anyone else found themselves in the position of having to tour a lot of schools between applying and Decision Day?

We are parents of twin S and D, hs class of 2020.
We did some touring last year, enough for both kids to know what they were looking for in a school, and how to mix reach/target/likelies. They definitely got a better idea of what they DIDN’T like, which means they didn’t apply to some of the ones we visited. But neither of them could fully take advantage of the process without knowing whether they would be accepted. They didn’t want to invest a lot and grow to like a school if they couldn’t get in. They both said that they’d want to tour more seriously once they had real options in front of them.

Now we are realizing that we will have to look in depth at a bunch of schools for D20, maybe as many as 5, and maybe 2-3 (hopefully 4 if he gets any of the reaches) for S20. That’s ~8 schools! And we can’t get started til February for the EA ones, and will have to wait til March or later for the RD ones.

Thinking about these trips is keeping me up at night. The logistics, and the pressure of making a decision, and realizing that S20 won’t even know where he’s in for most of them until March as he applied mostly RD. They both want to attend classes and meet a bunch of students at their final choices. The schools are all over the Northeast.

Just looking to hear that people have done this before, and survived lots of touring at the last minute…
Any advice about how to do vetting in advance?

One thing that may be possible is for your son to contact admissions at schools where he applied and ask if they can put him in contact with a student from your area that he can have coffee with and chat during the Xmas break. Some colleges have explicit student ambassadors, even those that don’t may be able to find someone from your area. Talking to just one kid isn’t a replacement for visiting, of course, but it can help inform him.

@mikemac What a great idea. Not so much for S20 because he won’t want to do that unless he’s accepted. But for my D, who already has acceptances, that is perfect. Will investigate…

No point visiting after the apps, but before the results.

Why build anticipation for a school that might soon end in a rejection letter?

Visit after the results come out.That’s what accepted student and family visit programs are for.

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Assume they will each get into the schools they applied to. Start visiting.

8 seems a little overwhelming. ?

We ate up a lot of time visiting a reach school that in hindsight was clearly not a good option (cost, distance, etc).

Since I know my kids probably better than they know themselves, I would prioritize the list based on my own assessment of cost, academic fit, cultural fit, location, distance, etc. Most kids don’t know what it means to be hundreds of miles from home, but you can probably make an honest guess how they would handle it.

Your kids could view dorm tours, “a day life of” videos if they are available for the schools.

Then compare notes.

I don’t think it is unreasonable to push back on the kids to pare down the list, or at least prioritize it.

We visited a few schools after getting acceptances and before making a decision. Three of them required a flight over February break, but fortunately were close enough that one flight covered all (we stayed at a point pretty much equidistant in the middle of the three). Since we did mostly EA and rolling decision schools, we had our acceptances in hand before the beginning of February break.

One thing about visiting a school after your child has been accepted with an affordable offer: The child knows that they can really be here next year if they want to. It becomes very real.

“The schools are all over the Northeast.”

We will tell the snow to stay away while you are here! I am not confident that the snow will listen to us.

I might add that I think that prioritizing is a good idea. I would avoid the ones that are not affordable.

Lots of kids don’t visit colleges until after acceptances Roll in. They then choose the top three or so…and visit those schools post acceptance. Why not consider that approach?

I agree with having your student prioritize their acceptances and then visit the top 2 or 3 if there is a no clear favorite.

I will caution that Spring ended up being very tough for my D. She really wanted to go to her school’s accepted students’ weekend but she had major conflicts with every single date. Be aware that your students might need to make some hard decisions when it comes to freeing up time.

I think your situation is workable so long as you can visit a couple of schools before spring break. We did an international trip to visit schools during my S19’s spring break late March last year, planning to visit four or five colleges in various locations. It was expensive and kind of nuts - we actually had to adjust our itinerary on the fly after one acceptance arrived in the middle of the trip with large merit - but it was clearly worthwhile, as my son did find his “it” school and is now very happy there. We organized the trip in part geographically and in part by anticipated order of preference, with the most likely schools coming first to the extent we could. Some colleges had their own spring breaks around the same time, so we also tried to steer around those. In the end, we decided to drop the last school on the itinerary and enjoy one day of rest and fun before getting back on the plane. The one disadvantage we faced was that most of the accepted students days don’t come until April, so he was able to join only one. On the other hand, I think there is a good case to be made that it is better to visit a school on an ordinary day rather than one where they are putting on their very best face.

We visited most of the schools my son /daughter were serious about before like in Junior year. If. he didn’t get into one that he visited then we would of traveled to his top 2/3 affordable options. No reason at all to go to all 8. Make a excel spreadsheet with costs, scholarships, financial aid, etc now
It’s useful for quick comparisons.

Time flies: how exciting to have twins as seniors! I can see that the twin part makes this very hard. Last year with my daughter, she didn’t hear back until the last few days of March, and ended up with 5 fabulous schools that final day, along with some other great yes-es earlier in the spring. She had one month to make a decision. There just isn’t time (or money or need?) to go to all the schools. She picked her top 3 to visit. Luckily their accepted students visits didn’t conflict with each other or her other key plans. Also luckily they were all driving distance, so not a huge deal to travel.

How to get down to 3? I like suggestions above such as meeting “ambassadors” for the schools. Videos, dorm tours, YouTube has lots, virtual tours, re-reading Fiske and other sources, talking to students, checking out curriculum, etc.

There has to be a way to pare down below 5. Fingers crossed for you.

My kids visited schools in the spring; I stayed home. Do your twins have any overlap in the schools they are applying to? I think the overall logistics were just a lot easier and definitely less costly with the solo travel.

We did a bunch post acceptances. In many cases, admitted student days were back to back. It can be a little nutty but it’ll work. The whole process - for both you and the school, is more focused when the conversation involves admitted students.

I agree and it’s really hard…and expensive. Most of my D’s schools are a plane ride away. Most we visited but over the summer so she didn’t get much of a vibe. I did a spreadsheet and several of her schools have accepted students days on the same day. Some are over our April break but that just makes the flights super expensive. And the longer we wait to book, the more expensive the flights become. She did mostly EA so we may do a couple scholarship weekends in Feb. and depending how those turn out, we may not have to visit the others. Any that are unaffordable we obviously won’t visit at all but the ones with really good merit we’d like her to go to admitted students days as maybe that will convince her that she can like a lower priced safety just as much as a higher priced reach. It’s a lot to fit in in a short period. Can’t even imagine doing this with twins. Good luck!

Something that might help rule out or in some schools is have them join the Facebook groups for the colleges. This helped see what types of kids were applying and a general feel for the school.

I second @Knowsstuff 's suggestion about joining the Facebook groups - this was very helpful for my S.

It is likely that if each kid has multiple acceptances there may be factors that drop some off the list without visiting. Make sure they understand that a visit can only tell them so much. One of mine did an overnight with a kid that had a big exam the next day so he was basically on his own and didn’t really get a good feel for the school. He still went! Even sitting in a on a class, especially in March, may be difficult as the class will be deep into the subject matter. I would not expect to visit every school that accepted them.

I had a spreadsheet that I plugged all of the admitted student visit dates into. Also on this spreadsheet were the dates that decisions were anticipated to come. Since DS went on his HS foreign language trip during spring break, this really cut into his spring visit time (so that’s tip #1…don’t make spring break plans if these visits are very important to your kids!) As for pre-acceptance visits, I think I would only do this for match or safeties that are near the top of their list.

As for narrowing it down, for my son, time and the incoming acceptances did a lot of it naturally. We also did much of the online research described in this thread. Many schools just naturally fell off, or when push came to shove on visits and there were two on the same weekend, DS just had to decide which one he liked better, and the other one was off the list. Once you have a few options that everyone likes, it really is OK to let some go!

Both my kids did a lot of visiting and at least in one or two cases revisiting schools after acceptances. March and April were busy!