<p>Hey all! I'm a junior right now, and I haven't visited any colleges yet: :(<br>
I was going to go visit my top choices out east (I live in Oregon), but Brown and a few other colleges are having their spring breaks at this time too. So I ended up not going</p>
<p>So...really, my only other options are to visit this summer or next fall during the school year. Or I could wait until I'm accepted before I visit...but at the same time, I want the colleges I'm applying to to know that I've seriously considered their programs, and their knowing that I've visited might help that. Could anyone give me advice on this?</p>
<p>The colleges that I'm looking at are...
Brown
Yale
Haverford
Swarthmore
Amherst</p>
<p>I guess what I'm asking is which colleges care that I've visited and have "seriously considered" them? And is it worth it to visit in the summer? </p>
<p>Thanks, y'all. I'm pretty confused about the whole college visit thing, so any advice you have would be great.</p>
<p>I'm going to visit the ones around home during the summer (Purdue, Michigan, Notre Dame, Northwestern). For me, it's more about seeing the area than being around during classes, so going in the summer isn't a big deal. </p>
<p>I'll visit the ones further away (Stanford, Air Force) if I'm accepted.</p>
<p>I sure hope it's okay to visit in summer, because here it is the end of March and I haven't visited, or made plans to visit any schools. Although, most of my schools are semi-close to where I leave(3-4 hours) except for American U. Can you visit once accepted to get the feel of the classes?</p>
<p>It's okay to visit in the summer, the only negative part is that you won't see tons of kids/be able to sit in on classes. I went to Amherst last August, and you can definitely talk to the students who ARE there (tour guides, info session people, etc.). Get a feel for student life from them, so you're not clueless about where you're applying.</p>
<p>If it is not financially difficult for you to visit, I STRONGLY recommend you do. A school like Brown, for example, receives thousands upon thousands of applicants each year. One way that they distinguish committed students from those who are randomly applying is by seeing if they visit or contact the school extensively. I'm not saying that if you don't visit, you won't get in, but it could count against you if you live close enough/have enough money to go.</p>
<p>Even if a college doesn't "care" as much about visiting, you should do it for your OWN benefit. It's the best way to find out if the college is a good fit or not. Before I visited Haverford and Swarthmore, it seemed like the schools were almost the same on paper/on the internet. After my visit, I was drawn a lot more towards Haverford because I liked the "campus vibe" better. So it is beneficial and advantageous to check out schools in person!</p>
<p>For my older son, we didn't visit until the late summer-early fall of his senior year. I suppose we were on the late side, but it didn't seem to have any effect on his acceptances and rejections. What it did do was help him decide where he'd really want to be or not be. I know everyone is in a rush to do all this right now this minute, but I honestly think you'll be okay visiting this summer. Just my two cents.</p>
<p>With a list of five colleges which are spread out and far from your home, a summer visit is probably the only way without taking several days off from school. If your high school starts later than some of these colleges, you may be able to do an late summer/early fall visit and catch some of them in session. Nearly everybody seems to have trouble fitting in the visits.</p>
<p>One thing you could do is to get on their list for interested students. My daughter went to local informational meetings for two different schools located some distance away (one of which was Brown).</p>
<p>Even if you can only go in the summer, you can at least see the areas, the campuses, etc. There will be some students there, as well as informational meetings, campus tours, etc. It actually might be easier to arrange to talk to an admissions person or a professor in the desired field if you visit at a less popular time.</p>
<p>My daughter is at Brown now and she didn't visit during the school year. But her summer experience proved to be a good indicator for what the school was like.</p>
<p>Thinking about it, it is kind of strange ... the only places my daughter wasn't admitted to were those where she didn't have any "official" visits. A couple of them we had visited with my son so we didn't feel the need to visit again, and the other (Yale) was only her 4th choice and it didn't seem worth it to visit (particularly since we didn't think it likely she would be admitted anyway, since they seem to have a problem with homeschoolers ... but that's another story!)</p>
<p>Another thing is to visit on a weekday if possible - we tried to do weekends and found most campuses deserted. When we asked if everyone went home we were told that " no, they are just college students and don't even wake up until 2:00 on weekends" . It was kind of eerie how quiet the campus could be.</p>