“Back in the Dark Ages of the mid-1970s,… and didn’t step foot on campus until my first day of classes.”
I did the same thing, except that I showed up a couple of days early since I was back in the very dark ages where you had a day to move into the dorm and then a day to sign up for classes.
If I had done school visits back around about 1970, then I think that I would have made a different choice (between a “top 6” school versus a “top 30” school), and I probably would have been happier for four years. I think that visits would have been very helpful.
I think that @TS0104 said it well in post above. It is about the people, the culture, and the feeling for the school.