I understand that visiting colleges and showing interest in a particular institution can give a boost in admissions, but is this policy common?
If a school doesn’t give any boost in admissions to those who visit, why don’t people wait to see if they are accepted to visit?
Which schools, particularly ones with good STEM departments, don’t give a boost in admissions to those who visit?
Thanks
The reason to visit, if you can, is to see if you even want to apply.
The time between acceptance and commitment is short, and scheduling within that month can be an issue with logistics and/or academic or EC commitments.
Thanks
My kids visited some colleges they had no intention of applying to, just because of convenience, to determine what type of campus appealed to them.
College applications can add up, especially if applying to 10 schools with at $25-85 per application. It’s best to rule out some early in the process. I’ve known some people to pay close to $1000 in application fees.
People visit because they want to get a feel for fit of the campus.
You’ll be living there for four years. You’ll be going to local restaurants, shops and using the town facilities. If you feel that the school town is too small/large, too rural/suburban, too far/close, then you will find out immediately with a visit. You’ll be able to take off schools on your list of applications.
We live in California and for some reason, a number of students tend to think and assume that all California schools are on or near sunny beaches.
My daughter had this experience in Davis. UC Davis is in the middle of farm country. One day, one girl from her floor, came into my daughter’s room wearing a swimsuit. The girl said, “how come everybody on this floor keeps laughing when I ask them how to get to the beach??”
The three girls in the room just stared. They had assumed the girl was going down to the pool. The roommates explained, “The beaches are on the coast. You need to take a train to the coast, and even then, you need to get from the city, to the shore, by Uber. It’s cold water and choppy. No one really swims there”.
The girl looked, apparently, dumbfounded. My daughter’s roommate had a train schedule with a map and its stops. She pulled out the map and showed the girl, the stops. At this point, the girl in the swimsuit said, “No, this is a California school; its supposed to be near the coast”. She explained that she was from Arizona and wanted to go to a California school to be near a beach. Apparently, geography wasn’t a course that she took in high school.
The point is, you visit to see where you’re going to spend four years of your life making friends and connections and understanding what will be available to you. You have those four years at that site, so it had better be something you want to experience.
If making an economic argument for the utility of visiting before applying, it’s worth noting that visits are unlikely to be without costs unless the schools are within walking distance.
If someone said “I visited Illinois and hated it. Too big, too many giant classes, too involved in sports and too far from a major city. So instead I am applying to Michigan State, Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin” would we look askance?
If the answer is yes, one needs to admit that visiting one college tells you something about other colleges. (Well, actually it tells you something about yourself, but the net effect is the same)
Great point!
Some colleges track interest, including visits to campus.
Also, for some, it may be harder to write a convincing “why us” essay if they’ve never set foot on campus (or a letter of continued interest if deferred/waitlisted).
@tdy123 - I agree with you that application cost shouldn’t be the only reason to visit before applying. Previous posters already mentioned getting a feel for campus/surrounding area, getting additional information on specifics, etc. I wanted to add this to the consideration as well. We visited schools in advance for all of the reasons above and more. However, our visits were all on the East coast so we drove and used previously accumulated hotel points to stay for free in most places. So food and gas were our primary costs to see most schools on our list during spring break of junior year.
This, in addition to finding out what kind of college or university you might want, and whether you can see your self at a particular school. “Demonstrated interest” – including opening/answering e-mails from a university’s admissions office – shows a college or university how much you might be committed to attending their school; which addresses the school’s concern about “yield,” i.e., how many students accept an offer of admission from the total number offered. Some schools may not offer admission if they think you are not likely to accept; hence, visiting a school in person (along with other indicia of demonstrated interest) can be important in determining whether you even get an offer in the first place.
It’s so funny that you mentioned UC - Davis! We visited there a few months ago, and it’s a great (huge) campus. But it’s quite far from the coast, even if you have a car.
If recall correctly, they have cow and horse pens for the vet school near the fresher dorms. That added to the charm!
Edited to add: Lake Berryessa is not that far from UCD, is it? I’ve never been there, but a few months I was looking at renting a boat there for a family outing. That’s a possible option, but the Pacific shore up there wouldn’t really be good for a beach outing. Total digression!
We had an atypical pre-application visit experience. Due to various and sundry ECs including Quiz Bowl, History Bee and Bowl, MUN, Awards weekends, Summer programs like RSI, taking college classes in person while in HS, etc., my son had spent a fair amount of time on the campus of all the schools he ended up applying to (except for the safety school he applied to in case all else failed), so while none of the pre-application visits were just to visit the schools, they were still very useful in getting a feel for the campus.
Yes, my daughter stayed in the Tercero Dorm and could see the cows from her window! They couldn’t really smell the animals because of the wind and where the cows were situated in the pens.
Sorry, but there was no sandy beach within walking distance!!
For a student who is trying to figure out what they like (in order to come up with their list of colleges to which they are applying) college visits are pretty important. My oldest started out his college search as a blank slate. At the outset, he had no preference as to large, medium, or small; urban, suburban, or rural; or even geographic area of the country. It took visiting 5-6 campuses before he started to even be able to narrow down his criteria - small, liberal arts, preferably on the East Coast. I have a rising junior right now, and we are also starting to think about what she’s looking for, but she also needs to go and visit some campuses before she’ll be able to get a feel for what she likes.
Yes and no. Illinois and Wisconsin are 100% different feels and fits. Both Big Ten but not close when it comes to the campus.
I wholeheartedly agree that it makes all the sense in the world to visit your candidate list of colleges before you can apply. Of course, this assumes the family and student have the time and money to do so, which isn’t always the case.
But if you don’t go, at least for competitive schools, how can you make the case that you really want to go there without at least having seen the place and talked to students, AOs, professors etc? That’s what we call “due diligence”. And, as others have indicated, some schools probably do take note of a school visit as some form of an indication of interest.
Our D is just starting her search, but, pandemic permitting, we definitely would want her to go to the schools she is interested in and would like to go to.
Absolutely agree!
Plus, remember that we all pay for these schools from our savings.
Writing a ‘check’ for four years, if the student doesn’t like the school, wont exactly reap the expected benefits.