<p>Spend Thanksgiving enjoying a good meal together or doing something to celebrate your family and togetherness. </p>
<p>Do not waste it going to see buildings. You could spend 15 minutes on Google maps (satellite view, street view, etc) and get a sense of the buildings.</p>
<p>Can your child latch onto a friend that may be touring the school with their parents? During some of our tours it was obvious that some kids had a friend with them and there was only one adult with them.</p>
<p>we did not tours on holidays, but did several over the summer. Some had students around, others not so much. aside from the students, it was useful to see the campus, town, and facilities. So I guess it can help a bit, but may not be worth it - it depends.</p>
<p>Note, one of the schools DD was admitted to was one we had never visited. We did an accepted students day visit, and if that had been the only criterion (not their weakness in the fields she was aimed at) she probably would have gone there. (you might say THAT was a wasted visit, but we kind of made a little vacation of it)</p>
<p>i would agree that summer visits can work, but holidays don’t. Some schools, even small ones, are fairly bustling in summer with kids doing research, helping in the admission office, working at sports camps on campus, and so on even if there is no formal summer session or summer “semester.” Although you miss seeing classes (which many people don’t sit in on anyway until accepted student programs in the spring), you do get some sense of campus life. But on holidays such as Thanksgiving and longer breaks, things really shut down and you don’t get any vibe at all. (And I do think student-led tours are helpful and some info sessions can be as well.)</p>