Why do families wait until end junior and senior year for college visits? Why not 7th and 8th?

Parent Cafe
41

My BIL started taking his daughter to basketball and football games at his alma mater, brainwashing her that his school was the best. It worked. But while they walked around campus before and/or after afternoon games, I don’t think she really went on a formal tour until high school (junior year?). Her brother knew older students from their high school who attended his dream college. He went to visit and participated in some campus-wide events held at the school. But again, I don’t think he had a formal college tour until his junior year. They were both one and done at these schools. So, early “visits” helped in their specific cases. I don’t think it would work for everyone.

I took my daughter to an open house at a small instate public LAC spring of her sophomore year. She was already itching to get out of high school but she wasn’t quite ready for early college (neither were our savings). Then, we visited some local universities for size and location purposes, not exact schools. Parents of her classmates thought we were nuts, starting way too early but interestingly, parents of kids a year ahead thought we were smart. They all said junior year passed way too quickly to make a lot of visits.

With S21, well, he’ll be at an overnight camp at the state flagship campus this summer. But that’s about as much exposure to college campuses I’m willing to do. It’s important for kids to see colleges as places but they don’t need to formally tour specific colleges at this point.

42

My kids went to college campuses often before junior year of high school. Band camp, 4th of July fireworks shows, football games, school activities like science shows or Destination Imagination. They did youth sports on a local college campus for years, and even went to summer camps there so were pretty familiar with the skating rink, climbing wall, fields and tennis courts. The library? Not so much. They also went along with some cousins who are 3 years older on ‘drive thru’ college tours.

43

My 9th grade son is very bright. Not HYP bright, but top 20 schools will be plausible reaches for him, bright. When he was in middle school complaining about the “stupid” (I had to explain to him that they were pretty much all average to above average in intelligence and would all be going to college.) kids in his classes, I told him that if he wanted to go to college with kids who were all as smart as the smart kids in his classes, there were certain things he was going to need to do in terms of classes, grades, scores and EC’s. That was far more motivating than any college tour would have been because a college tour wouldn’t have told a 7th grader what he needed to know.

44

My daughter didn’t go on any college tours. She did attend band camps at two different colleges for years so knew what it was like to live in a dorm with a randomly assigned roommate, get around a campus and navigate a dining a hall. The school she is attending is not either of the colleges where she attended band camp (though she did apply to one of them) and she couldn’t be happier and she is doing very well. So you don’t even have to visit these schools to have it work out in the end.

45

My 8th grade son tagged along on my daughter’s visits to Arizona State and University of Arizona. He liked both schools. His main impression was “Girls in Shorts”. This is probably not the appropriate time for him to be choosing a future school.

46

“Shouldn’t the tours happen earlier to inspire students to work harder 9th-11th?”

How about a 9 hour shift at a minimum wage, manual labor job instead? That’s probably a good motivator and cheaper and closer than touring colleges.

47

I agree with the concern that signing up too-young students for limited number campus tours is not only a waste, but it “takes spots” that are needed for college-ready students. I’m sure I would be very annoyed to find out that I couldn’t get a tour spot for my junior because there were a few 9th graders (or younger) and their parents taking 10-12 spots.

And it’s not just the weekend and spring break tours that fill up. I’ve known many families who try to get a midweek tour at a school that hosts 2-3 tours each day, and all spots were filled.

If you want to self-tour with a young one, then fine. But, please don’t take campus tour spots to drag a too-young child so that you (the parent) is the only one paying attention.

48

And an addendum to my previous post…the visits to the top three choices AFTER acceptance were far more important in our kid’s admissions process than all those tours (although they did help her narrow the application field to three schools…but eventually applied to five).

49

9th grade is way too early. But for kids that play HS or club sports or have another EC that requires Saturdays and spring break commitments, it can be difficult to get it all in during the spring of junior year/ late fall of senior. My kid had weekend commitments for the spring and fall of junior year. The winter of his junior year was tough in our area. Most colleges don’t ahve tours on Sunday, so impossible to see more than 2 schools in a weekend. The spring break junior year tour was great, but too many schools in one week. End of sophomore year can be OK.

Even between late sophomore and late senior year, some kids change a lot. And some change a lot between fall of junior year and decision time.

50

I have a D16 and S19. S accompanied us on two college tours last summer when he was in between 8th and 9th grade because they were tied into our family vacation. He hated every minute of it. What was worse was that he looks quite old for his age and so when they went around asking everyone to say where they are from and what they want to study, they actually asked him, thinking that he was also a prospective student. It happened at both schools. He mumbled, “I’m just a brother” both times. He did like the gym facilities at one of the schools. That’s about all he got out of it.

51

We have friends who were taking their 7th grade daughter when her older brother was touring. Their mom told me they stopped taking her because she was kind of overshadowing her brother, asking questions of the tour guide about majors, housing, campus safety, etc.

52

I was in 8th grade when my sister was a senior in high school. I visited a few colleges with her. Don’t even remember which ones let alone what I thought of them.

53

If a family is going to be in an out of state area where they really want to see the school tour - the LSU was a walking tour and it wasn’t limited on the number for their ‘tour’. They wanted to have a HS student as part of your group to schedule and the student received a LSU packet. Nephew was there in PhD program, so we used a spring break to go visit (their spring break was different than our kids’ school, so we saw ‘regular campus’ time, and in the spring with the campus coated with yellow pollen from the trees).

I do think if the family is familiar with colleges and knows their student well, that may cut back on the number and scope of school visits. However there are so many students that cast a wide net, and also do not know what they want to study - or the student thinks they want to major in XXX and they list out what they think are the 8/9 schools that would be great for them in this major (including many reach or distant schools). Some parents allow their oldest student to explore a lot of options and plan vacations etc around seeing schools. However some could limit this if they understood scholarships, their student’s placement as a ‘high stat’ student or not and what it means in various schools, and what it will cost for them with their student at that particular school (the need to look at NPC for each school and looking at that school’s scholarships and the type of students that receive school scholarships at that institution). Parents or the student has to understand where the student will be a match for school, program, finances, etc.

We visited a number of in state public and private schools when DD1 was in 9th grade - school days off, summer, spring break, fall break - the breaks when college in session except for one with summer visit. Good thing, as I had stage III cancer at age 52/53 when DD1 started 10th grade, and H took DDs and their two friends to a day trip college visit that was scheduled while I had my first chem session (Veteran’s Day, where the kids’ school was off but college had classes and tours).

You never know when family issues are going to come up. Some students are busier during HS junior and senior years - plus those are important years to ferret out career direction and explore all their HS has to offer them, plus you want the wheels going in their brain on sorting out what they like/don’t like and so they can also take advantage of summer career directed, leadership, other programs and think about classes and careers. Also where they can be successful in college and parents being open about affordability. Also ACT/SAT testing and preparation for potential scholarship during junior/senior year. If not doing their best at freshman/sophomore HS level, they will get a wake up call on what school options they have. DD got the needed ACT test on the last one her school would take, and planned to have the time during first semester senior year for the proper preparation - absolutely paid off in spades.

Many students end up visiting rushed at the end of senior year when they are choosing between schools where they had been accepted. This happened with my friend’s DD - she was high stat and ended up going to Coopers Union after being accepted to 8 of 9 schools (MIT sent sort of an apology letter that the quality of international student applicants were unusually high that year) - this student’s dad was a MIT alum.

We didn’t need to do any visits just with DD2 (2 years younger than DD1) - she knew where she wanted to go, and was participating with every honors activity with that state flagship. Did ‘make’ her go to engineering day at another school, and after the day, she said she would not attend there no matter what! Just wanted her to compare the schools and see what they had. We had clear decisions by DDs, and the school they wanted was a great fit in all ways.

54

I agree college tour fatigue is real. We had planned a Minnesota trip to see Carleton and Macalester and we cancelled it because we were all just worn out after seeing about a dozen or so colleges. Just too much.

55

I think a lot of second- or later-born kids learn a great deal from their older siblings’ college application process, including visits to campuses. But scheduling a visit to a college campus during middle school just for the middle schooler’s sake doesn’t seem to make sense to me. Kids (and most adults) just don’t seriously think that far in the future.

56

I love @me29034’s post. It made me think of our tour at LMU, and how D2 was “starving” so I had to leave the tour and take her to get a snack at the cafe. Her only positive memory of LMU was that they have good oatmeal cookies.

I think the possible drawback to dragging the younger siblings along is that they might form a negative view of a school because of the boredom they endured, and not consider it in the future. Despite the delicious oatmeal cookies, D2 didn’t want to consider LMU when it was her turn to look at colleges.

57

DS’s CTY summer camp was at Mount Holyoke. He found out BSA does not stand for Boy Scouts of America there and was unfortunately imprinted with the image of self exam from ubiquitous posters in bathrooms.

His next one was at Haverford and he considers it a very good school with a very nice campus.

58

We actually went on three tours the summer after my oldest’s 9th grade year, because we were in an area with a cluster of colleges that we weren’t likely to be anywhere near for the foreseeable future, and we wanted to give her an idea of what college tours were like (and one of those schools, kind of to our surprise, stayed on her list until her recent trim of the list down to ten schools).

Most of her tours, though, came the summer after her 10th grade year. She’ll have one tour this summer (after her 11th grade year), at a school that came on her radar belatedly, when a previously-planned trip to visit family will bring us nearish it.

So it looks like we did everything people here are saying not to do—we toured in the summer, we started touring early, and probably other stuff. But before you criticize the methods of others, do consider that there may be other factors at play—for us, for example, the logistics of college touring get tricky, since we have precisely three four-year colleges, all effectively open entry, within a 1,500-mile flight of where we live. Blanket claims about what’s good or bad in college touring may even work for most, but they don’t apply for everyone.

59

@dfbdfb, yes, as i was reading your post, I was thinking that you guys are a different kettle of fish – you have to take advantage of proximity while you are traveling!

60

@dfbdfb: I personally wouldn’t offer my experience as a criticism of others, just an example of my experience and perspective. I think there are kids ready for visits earlier than others, and families have to do what makes sense for them. That’s always been true in parenting, right?