Please visit - at least a whittled down list. We took our S1 to many schools, some with and some without all the family. One school in particular seemed perfect on paper - read about it on the Princeton list and how it described the vibe and the “typical” student etc and all seemed to totally fit my son. All 6 of us walked away from that visit with a “no way - no fit” decision. Never would have done that without visiting and would have paid the app fee and he could be there now!
Also important to see area around the school - while that is not always a deal breaker if you are not from that general region you have no idea what is there. We tried to look at as many as possible and those that were too far away at the time we waited until he got in and then looked.