I wondered about the value of visits too. On the whole I agree with the OP that most colleges look and feel a lot alike. However, in D1’s case it made a difference. Two schools that on paper are very similar are Purdue and UIUC. They both are state flagships with excellent STEM programs, both are spread across two moderately sized towns/cities, both are rather rural and Midwestern out side of those areas and both are about equidistant from Chicago. The experience at the visits were very different for my D. We visited them both over a two day period and saw UIUC first. She came away from UIUC not liking it at all, she didn’t like the campus, the presenters, the buildings etc. she didn’t apply. Just the opposite at Purdue. She loved the campus, she felt welcomed and it was one of the best engineering presentations she attended. She graduated this past May from Purdue and the experience was everything she had hoped. I am not saying Purdue is in anyway better than UIUC, nor that if my D had gone to UIUC she would not have had a good experience, only that the visit had a profound impact on her decision. On paper UIUC seems to be the slightly better choice for a budding engineer, it was the visits that made the difference.