When to Tour Colleges

College Search & Selection
1

I have a few questions about when and how to tour prospective colleges:

  1. Do summer tours give you a decent sense of what the student body and campus vibe is really like?
  2. How young is too young? If older kid is going on tours, how beneficial is it to take younger sibling along? In general, at what ages is it useful? At what ages does it do more harm than good? (I’m imagining younger sib might rule out a college or an entire region of the country because she was bored on the older sib’s tour. )
  3. Is it beneficial to go on tour trips arranged by your high school if you’re not really interested in the particular schools they are visiting? Is there something to be gained from examining different schools in general with someone other than your parents? What if this is the only opportunity besides summer you will have because of schedules and expense?

The whole idea of touring schools seems really costly in terms of both time and money, apart from, of course, those that are locally drivable. I think it’s wise to tour local area schools to help the student decide whether size and type of institution are important to them. I’m just trying to figure out the most practical (and cost effective) way for my kids to see areas of the country that are far away. We are not in a position to take off lots of time from work. And it seems like the only time we have available is when colleges aren’t in session. I’m just not seeing the point of touring at that time. What am I missing?

2

I personally think summer visits are not worthwhile. At that time a campus can only be judged on physical appearance and the same “Rah-Rah” self-promotion already available from the college’s literature, videos, and admissions staff.

However, if you are already vacationing near a college, it might not be such a bad idea. My S went to boarding school and the only time we could visit was summer. We were going anyway, for interviews, to maximize his chances, not so much to get a real feel. But you do get some idea of the place where you might spend 4 years.

I’m pretty sure said S did not set foot on any campus that he applied to for college, just wasn’t doable for many reasons.

My D and I, much later and wiser, visited colleges when we could. Even though she was adamant about not going to our nearby U, when we were in that town, we walked through campus, thought about how many students are enrolled and what that number actually felt like (not as overwhelming as we thought). I emphatically believe visiting almost any college is a good thing as it does help clarify what you’re looking for and what you may want to avoid.

D and I visited 6 or so colleges. She only applied to one of the 6. She is attending a school where she first came to campus on registration day. I will say, based on prior intensive experiences with boarding school selection, visits, interviews, applications, and attendance, we had a leg up on the whole process. On the other hand lots of kids do not visit their college before they first enroll.

Yes, I would be careful about impressionable younger sibling if they’re not into it. Maybe one parent could do an alternate local destination w/sib (shopping? museum? video arcade?).

We only did one deliberate college trip which was a spring break excursion in junior year. Even then you have to watch out to avoid colleges’ various spring breaks. We took a train part-way, for fun and to reduce mountainous driving. Then we rented a car, visiting 3 colleges in Oregon. We also did things we had never done before like go to an Apple Store and ride a city bus.It was really enjoyable and a fun bonding experience. Maybe because it was before senior year it took some pressure off.

After subsequent visits D got very tired of the official college presentations and I think I finally let her skip one or two, but we always enjoyed the tours. Aren’t we all nosy anyway? We tried to eat at each school, often getting 2 free lunch tickets. It’s a great way to see another side of life at that college.

If your child is up for it, has the time, and the cost is affordable, I would encourage the school-sponsored tours as an available option, even if they are not particularly interested in the college(s) being visited.

Make notes immediately after every tour (ideally both parent and student, or do it jointly)! Things will blur together rapidly!

3

Here are my answers to your questions:

  1. Agree with the above. I don’t think summer tours are particularly helpful. You can see the buildings but you can’t see the students, professors, and the activities of a normal school day. Some colleges host camps during the summer so the campus is filled with kids. If summer is the only possible time you can visit I guess it is better than nothing, but it isn’t ideal by any means.

  2. We starting looking at specific colleges early in junior year for both kids. We did bring younger D (4 years younger) on some college trips with older S but she was a good trooper and we tried to mix in a fun non-college tour day when we could. These trips really didn’t impact her decision (they wanted difference types of schools, different majors etc.) but I guess she kept some information from his visits in the back of her mind when she started her search.

  3. Our schools did not offer such trips so my opinion is really just gut feel. I’d say that if your child is unsure of the type of schools he likes (ex. size, location etc.) then seeing some different schools could be helpful. Just to see schools for the sake of seeing more schools may not be that productive but if friends are going and your child wants to go I’d probably allow it.

  4. We did start off by visiting colleges that we could get there and back in one day and did that on weekends. This helped us to figure out what each kid wanted before we started with longer trips. I think we looked at about 8-10 schools with each kid. A few were during weekends and we took two overnight trips for which we took a couple of days off.

I do want to also stress the importance of keeping files of where you went. We got a plastic tub and kept information from each school we visited that stayed on their list. We each wrote out some initial thoughts of things we liked/didn’t like/found interesting etc. about each school. One thing I learned was to get my kid’s opinion of a school before I’d give mine so as not to taint their gut feeling.

I leaned so much about each one of my kids through the process – what is important to them, how their thought process works etc. It is a lot, but try to take time and enjoy the wonderful young adult you have raised.

4

We started tours between sophomore and junior year and called it our “family vacation”. We did local tours during her junior year. We started a bit earlier because she wanted to do a summer program between junior and senior year so wanted to have a sense of what her #1 would be to be able to apply to that program.

I totally agree about taking notes after each visit, pros and cons list for both parent and student, and our daughter kept a ranking after each visit and schools moved up and down as we made more visits.

She did go back for follow up tours for her favorite schools but we did get a lot out of the summer visits. Almost all the schools had summer classes, so we found the campuses still busy, and had good opportunities to meet with professors.

Honestly I’m not sure how effective her “why us” essays would have been without the on campus visits. I also don’t think she would have been able go gauge fit without those visits.

5

Thanks to @alooknac @happy1 @momofsenior1 . Very good advice!

6

Demonstrated interest is really important to some schools, so if summertime is the only time available to you, that’s better than nothing, and does help to see the physical layout of the school to see if it’s too big/small, rural/citified etc. My D did tour with her school also, but it was not helpful for her because by the time she took the trip she already decided university over LAC and in or near a city, so about 3/4 of the tour was wasted time for her. One thing I’ve read here is that if you live in an area that has a number of schools within a 4 hour drive or so, drive to several over different weekends so your kid can get a feel for the big picture items, which will help you form your list. Also, something I’ve read here a lot, but can absolutely say from our experience, try looking at a number of safety and match schools before you look at any reach schools.

7

Definitely agree with @melvin123’s advice about look at lower interest schools first. If you visit a top choice first, everything else will pale by comparison.

Another slightly devious parent trick: if there’s a school you want to discourage but know if you do it outright you’ll only meet resistance, visit on a Saturday or Sunday morning. Campus will be dead and very unappealing.

8

For my oldest, we visited 2 schools while on spring break of her freshman year. In retrospect this was too early but at the time I thought it made sense to go while we were in the area and give her an idea of a big school (UCSD) vs small (Pomona). We dragged the other 2 kids (then 7 and 10 I think) along on the tours and they did fine… both boys decided they wanted to go to Pomona because they’ll get thrown in a fountain on their birthdays ;-).

We got more serious with a spring break trip her junior year that was just her and me… we saw 3 Oregon schools and 5 CA schools in about 8 days. (She strongly wanted to stay on the west coast). Of those, she ended up applying to all but 2. That was a really useful time to narrow down what she was really looking for in a college. She ended up revisiting her top 3 during the admitted student days senior year.

Now my second kid is a sophomore. He’s been to his sister’s campus, and was on a couple of those tours back when he was much younger, plus he’s spent time on the Stanford and Berkeley campuses for other programs, but he just had his first official tour that was for him rather than his sis, at Berkeley on a teacher in-service day here. His little brother had school so it was just him and me. This summer we are going to the Boston area for a family vacation and I’ve been having him read some school profiles in the Fiske guide to see if he wants to visit any while we are there. So we’ll be touring Brown and Tufts, and maybe one more if he ever finishes reading the guide and likes Brandeis. We’ll bring the youngest (finishing 8th grade now) along on those tours. (Youngest is thinking engineering and is going to probably be looking at a whole different set of schools than my older 2 did. I thought about touring Northeastern while we’re there just for him but I think it’s too early).

More to your point/question - I wouldn’t spend much money and time trying to tour every school your kid is interested in across the country before he gets admitted, especially if the visits would be in the summer. If you are in the area anyway for a vacation go visit, or if a lot of his schools are concentrated in one geographical area and you can afford to take him for a look over spring break of junior year, that can be helpful.

9

The answer to many of your questions is it depends. Our schools only allowed three days per year in Jr. and Sr. year for college visits and we had plans for one of the spring breaks so many of our visits ended up during the summer. The first was just before school started his Junior year. He felt that was too early for him. He was not as interested until after Christmas his Junior year. We did three day weekends and did a few in the summer. The best was the one we did the week before school started. Kids were moving in, teachers were there and we had an excellent tour (he ended up at that college). Many of his choices were in places he had never been and for my son we knew he had to see the school to see if it felt right. He felt the visits with his high school were useless but he knew he wasn’t attending one of those schools.

10

Thanks @washugrad @momocarly This is quite helpful information. I really appreciate it!

11

“Another slightly devious parent trick: if there’s a school you want to discourage but know if you do it outright you’ll only meet resistance, visit on a Saturday or Sunday morning. Campus will be dead and very unappealing.”

Ha! We visited Georgetown on a cold, sort of gray, Saturday morning and loved it!! I can only imagine what it would be like on a warm May afternoon!