<p>When has a campus visit made you consider/reconsider applying to a school? What about the school, the tour, the informational session, or the interview changed your mind?</p>
<p>you can’t replace a college visit in my humble opinion. A school may look great on paper, but that means little when a prospective applicant actual walks the campus & interacts with people.</p>
<p>Both my college age kids, when formulating their lists & winnowing them down, used the visits as their main focal point. Hard to distinguish which part of the visit (tour, info session, just walking around, interview, overnight w/ friends in some cases) is best or worst. The point is that all of these 1st hand interactions are very important in forming an opinion, much better than reading a guidebook, chatting with friends, or watching a video. My kids would definitely not have considered or selected their institutions (& be happy about it) if they hadn’t visited…and for their respective selected schools, they each visited twice before deciding, but at least once before applying.</p>
<p>A friend’s daughter was accepted to a college and received a very nice scholarship package. She thought it would be a good match and saved the visit for Spring Break. She is conservative, very smart, rather preppy, and the the ultimate “cheerleader” type and she didn’t see anyone like that on the campus. She felt very out of place on the visit, and knew within a very short time that going to the school would be a mistake.</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>Yeah, if you can visit a university… try and visit. Though also google street view, college click tv etc… may be useful.</p>
<p>My D had chosen a selective university as her dream school. It was on the opposite coast. We flew out and were on campus just 45 seconds when she turned to me and said “We can go now.” I insisted we stay a few hours, but each hour further cemented her opinion that this was definitely NOT the school for her. And she was right about that.</p>
<p>sure every school is able to take nice gothic pictures that they send you in the mail which may seem appealing, but you won’t know how it actually is until you see it in person. there is only so much you can learn from looking online</p>
<p>What if you live too far/ your parents can’t get off of work to go visit colleges?</p>
<p>I live in Washington state and I visited Columbia U and NYU my junior year. I realized I hated east coast climate.</p>
<p>Lots of times:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/705291-stupidest-reason-child-wont-look-college.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/705291-stupidest-reason-child-wont-look-college.html</a></p>
<p>DS#1 was very unsure of Dartmouth until he spend a few days there. He would have ended up at Georgetown had he not visited during the accepted student weekend.</p>
<p>When you’ve been waitlisted, and you need every little push to get you through.</p>
<p>I think that visiting a private school like Tulane, Emory, ect, it wouldn’t matter much as far as people are concerned. The majority of people who go to schools like that are from all over the country, so I am sure you could find your niche, and fell right at home. Maybe the weather might bother someone from the north, especially during the summer. Now, if you are from the north, and you don’t plan on visiting a southern school in the SEC, or BIG 12, like Florida, or Texas A&M, yeah, that would definately be a big mistake. The majority of the students are from that state, and you might be out of your comfort zone. Especially as far as political views are concerned. Seriously, a visit can make a difference.</p>
<p>A couple of years ago when I was applying to colleges I scheduled an interview with one school, even though it wasn’t required. They ended up putting me in the honors program, something that I directly attributed to the interview.</p>
<p>So, in some cases, a visit certainly can make a difference.</p>