<p>You can do some test runs by touring colleges nearby, even if they’re not schools that your child wants to attend. If you know that your kid was energized by the feel of the local big state school, but found the small LAC down the road too confining, you’ve gained some useful knowledge.</p>
<p>Schools understand that not everyone can fly cross-country to tour. On the other hand, if your child is applying to a school an hour’s drive away and the school tracks visits AND your child doesn’t visit, you’re pretty much indicating that the school is a safety. When possible, show love. </p>
<p>Some families choose to save visits until after there are admissions letters in hand. That can work, but that can also lead to a mad rush to get to places, without the advance planning that can reduce the cost of airfare and/or hotel rooms. Choose your poison.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of the input; it has put a lot into perspective. I can see where campus visits are vital in understanding the location, campus layout and vibe. I attended the University of Rochester and thought I was headed to the big city. Turns out that my parents dropped me off on campus in August and I never saw the outside of the campus borders until they picked me up in December. So much for city life!</p>
<p>Before we began visiting schools, my D “thought” she wanted to attend a large, public uni. After a few visits she’s dead set on small LAC’s!!</p>
<p>Second, my D and I really enjoyed spending the time together. That can’t be replaced or measured…</p>
<p>Class visits are great. They aren’t just for seeing how classes are taught. They also are ideal way to observe and get a feel for the students at the college. Often conversations get started there and continue after class is over. Scheduling class visits forces you to spend time in the university course catalog and get an idea of how course sequences are structured. At UMichigan, after a math class visit, the prof offered to take my D on a dept tour. He took her to visit a math club meeting where they were having Friday pastries, took her back to his office and loaded her up with 3 t-shirts and a huge stack of reading material about the math dept. So nice.</p>
<p>At many colleges the kids can do an overnight visit with a current student in a dorm. My daughter is doing one next week at her 1st choice school. </p>
<p>I agree that many things you see on visits don’t come easily through distance research. We toured a dorm room with hallways so narrow there wasn’t really room for 2 kids to walk abreast. By the time we visited her 1st choice school, she knew enough from previous visits to go WOW on the honor dorm tour and to be impressed that their music practice rooms have windows. Always eat in one of the dining halls to experience the food and atmosphere. Often you can get a coupon at least for your child to eat free.</p>
<p>If you are thinking of places far away and haven’t done extensive traveling over the years, then visits show a lot about climate and atmosphere of a place. My D had been to the SE and felt that for her, the humidity and heat would be too much of an adjustment. She assumed that SW is similar and discounted SW schools for that reason. Until she visited one and discovered that she loves the SW climate, at least during the school year, and fits in well with the people there. If we hadn’t visited, she wouldn’t be heading off to the school she’s likely attending this fall.</p>
<p>That said, my niece never visited a single school, applied to over a dozen, and is very happy attending the one she chose, on the opposite coast from where she grew up. So it depends, like everything.</p>
<p>Not everyone benefits from visits. My older son maintained that he’d seen enough campuses from CTY, going to our college reunions and taking classes at Columbia. “All dorm rooms are the same.” I dragged him on a few visits spring junior year and he was adamant that the program was all that mattered. However, when it came to April of his senior year he was finally willing to do the visits (and ironcally he only got into colleges he hadn’t visited - well he’d seen one during a reunion several years before, but that was it.) Both visits were an entire weekend and included presentations by his major - at the end of the weekends it was pretty obvious where he should go, though it took him a couple of weeks to screw up the courage to say no to the much more highly ranked college.</p>
<p>Younger son used the visits to get clear what was important to him (urbanish location, defined campus), to figure out a major (IR) and to confirm his instincts about what size he wanted (medium). While you can use google streetview in a pinch to get a sense of the neighborhood, I really think driving around and seeing what it’s like makes a huge difference. I was totally charmed by Pittsburgh which I did not expect at all. Most colleges we met enough kids not to feel that the tourguide was the only representative of the campus type.</p>
<p>GolfFather-I agree–visit when you can. Sitting in on classes can be done on an accepted student day if need be but we were able to get a good feel of the student body just by observing them interact, especially in the cafeteria :D.</p>
<p>After we visited 8 schools in upstate NY we realized how important these visits were to us. Each school had a different personality and my daughter was able to immediately cross 4 off of her list. I can’t imagine enrolling in a school without visiting, but that’s just me.</p>
<p>Visit, visit, visit. </p>
<p>Step-D was applying (last Fall) for a very unique major that not every school offers. We looked at the list of schools (nationwide) that offer the major, and then we put together a list of around 20 possibilities. We visited around 15 schools with her (between Sophomore summer and Senior Fall) and her school took her on a trip that visited another 6-7 places. </p>
<p>Touring was IMMENSELY beneficial to us and to Step-D. For one, H and I could see the campuses and “check out” where our D might be living. In addition, Step-D had more than one visit where after touring, she realized the school just wasn’t for her. This eliminated the school from her application list which saved her time and saved us money (one less application fee to pay!) In the end, she applied to 10 schools. She has some great options, but she confidently feels that she will be happy at any of her choices. Hooray!!</p>
<p>Kids can be psychic. They knew the nanosecond they walked on the grounds which was his or her college. They put in applications to other schools, but their conviction was unwavering. They’ve graduated from those schools now.</p>
<p>They did craft applications that made them the poster children for those schools. One applied ED , which she could only do because of a long conversation we had with FA on that visit.</p>
<p>We learned to avoid the junior visit and senior visit days because we found them overcrowded and attended by a different sort of prospect than the type of student who ultimately matriculates. On regular days, tours and info sessions are much smaller and the prospect is more likely to be exposed to normal student life.</p>
<p>When I go, I’m looking for a lot of things. What’s housing like. What is the area around the school like. Is the student body mostly friendly and diverse. Do I feel like I can fit in.
When I’m there I’d make sure students are on campus and I’d try to talk to some and see what they like and dislike about the school. I think college tours are THE MOST IMPORTANT tool in picking a college. For me, what’s going to decide where I choose to go is the campus tour. I’ve done tons of online research about the schools I like but numbers and a bunch of statistics never tell the whole story. Picking a college without a tour is like picking a husband without dating.</p>
<p>Take the official tour, and then spend time seeing things that are important to you that are not on the tour. Is there a dangerous neighborhood on the opposite side of the campus from the way the college tells you to arrive? What do some of the neighborhoods look like where many students live? How are the college’s facilities for your major? They showed you one brand new dorm, but take a look at the outside of some of the other older dorms. Are there stores and restaurants nearby, etc.? Eat a meal on campus not just to taste the food, but also to see how students interact.</p>
<p>If a college is relatively close, an initial drive-by tour can help decide whether it is worth $50 for an application. </p>
<p>As a parent, I went on numerous drive-by tours of other colleges to narrow down the colleges that I recommended to my kids. I did those drive-by and walk-by tours by myself, while on my way to other destinations for my work. In the process, for each kid, I was able to narrow down from 20 colleges to 9 colleges where I thought they should apply and do an official visit.</p>
<p>Visits are good to view various types of colleges. You may not need to travel that far from home to visit one large university, one Liberal Arts College, one urban college, etc.
One student might decide to rule out schools of a certain size or location.
If you are interested in applying to a distant flagship university, visit you home state’s flagship.
You may end up visiting the school you finally choose during accepted student days in April of your senior year.
Walking around campus you see the kinds of students who attend.</p>
<p>I will say that after acceptance, visiting the top 3 schools for their “admitted student” days, is vital!</p>
<p>S absolutely fell in love with a school. He felt that the fit was perfect. Their tour guide said everything that S loved and was what they were looking for. The school was his first choice when acceptances came around.</p>
<p>He visited during their admitted student days and found out more about the school, the curriculum, the students and decided that it wasn’t for him at all.</p>
<p>I think that visiting schools early (i.e freshman or sophomore year) is fine for the summer. It gave me an idea of what I DIDN’T want (sorry Bowdoin!)</p>
<p>Other than that if you can avoid it try not to go during the summer. I had to because volleyball and acadec doesn’t make for a free schedule, but visiting and talking to a student and actually SEEING the campus, not on paper, allows for a fuller picture. Sometimes that seedy neighborhood is a little closer than you’d like, or the “half an hour” commute to the city is more like an hour and a half. Little things like that when colleges tell white lies, or bend the truth fall away at a campus visit.</p>
<p>Also classes are important as well. Although one professor, good or bad, can’t reflect the whole teaching staff I found visiting a class very helpful.</p>
<p>All in all talking to someone who can’t self edit in an email is the best thing to get out of a visit. They’re worth it.</p>
<p>I think the visits are really important for helping kids figure out what they want (university, SLAC, rural, urban, etc.). And what they think they want at the beginning of their junior year and what they end up picking in the spring of the senior year are frequently quite different.</p>
<p>We all loved the college visits, 20 of them, about half during the school year and half in the summer. About 10 of the schools were safeties and I feel my son did a great job of picking his 2 favorites, though we did see them in the summer. We went to all 20 info sessions, though they were essentially identical. Could have skipped most of them. We revisited 6 after acceptances. We turned the visits into mini-vacations, visiting friends and relatives, seeing amazing museums etc. If we couldn’t have done the visits, our son would have figured things out, but the visits did help him focus in and definitely motivated him.</p>
<p>I’ve never found much use in guided tours. I prefer to nose around on my own and visit the buildings I’m interested in. This, though, is helpful, because it gives me a greater sense of atmosphere than any distance experience would. I can learn statistics about the college anytime and anywhere I want.</p>
<p>I agree that the guided tours don’t tell you anything you can’t learn on the school’s web site. Where possible, DD attended a class or two and eliminated one school because the students weren’t engaged even though it was a smallish class. It was important to her to observe and talk to students. This included asking them about what type of music and artists are popular at the school. For her, schools with an abundance of hipsters and/or LARPing (live action role play) came off the list. We also got a better idea of what Fiske’s guide meant by <em>small city</em> which to us was rural.</p>
<p>Note: She claims that the cafeteria serves better food when they know a lot of parents and prospies will be visiting.</p>