How college visits work, touring NY and New England schools
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Anonymous
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[We are going drive up to take approx 3-4 or so days at a time to visit schools this summer.
Can anyone offer some insight about how much time to devote to them. NY schools: Columbia, NYU CT: Wesleyan, Yale RI: Brown Mass: WPI, BC, Harvard, Northeastern, BU We were thinking NY and CT schools for the first 4 day trip. The Boston schools for another 4 days. How feasible is it to visit Brown and WPI for the Boston schools? Maybe take three trips? I guess so much depends on the times and length of of the tours. |
Anonymous
| Figure three schools a day. Write notes as you're leaving each school so you don't confuse which schools have what. Formal tours are pretty useless. Get a map, wander around, have your kid ask random students they find on campus questions. They'll get much more honest answers that way. |
Anonymous
| I think it depends on your kid. We couldn't do more than two a day, with one a full visit and the other a quick stop-and-see. |
Anonymous
I agree that two a day is more realistic, especially if you're able to do tours. Sometimes those go long--we had to ditch a tour once because we had another one scheduled 40 minutes away. The preceding info session was longer than expected, and then the tour was more in-depth than some we had attended. I do think formal tours and info session can sometimes offer insight into the application process at that school (and what the admissions office is emphasizing). Then the tour gives extended insight into the life of one particular student. If that's not possible, a walk through campus can still be better than nothing. We did a 5-day college trip once, doing 5 official tours and 5 more casual stops at other lower-priority campuses en route. It was an intense few days (and involved a fair bit of driving) but did help DS make decisions about where to apply. (Ended up applying to 4 of the 5 places toured, and 1 of the 5 places we walked through.) |
Anonymous
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Two a day and have your student take notes in their phones. They all start to blend... We did BU, NEU, Wellesley, Brown and Tufts over 3 days and were wiped out/exhausted. We did Wesleyan by itself.
WPI is outside off Boston, while BC, BU NEU and Harvard are all in Boston proper. I would do WPI on its own day *and check the suicide rates before you visit - yes really* and 2 additional days for the other 4. |
Anonymous
| I know you're trying to see a lot of schools, but I'd encourage you to slow down a little bit. For my DC (and for me), the best thing was to do a morning tour/info session and then look around the town a little bit and then drive to the next location and start again the next day. Seeing the surrounding area can be really instructive. Some of those same schools moved around on my DC's list based on the surrounding area. |
Anonymous
This was a very enlightening story about the suicides and WPI's response: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/22/magazine/worcester-polytechnic-institute-suicides.html?unlocked_article_code=1.mk0.4wZ3.tGXMmAZfWxJ0&smid=url-share (I heard it as a podcast: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/11/podcasts/the-daily/mental-health-education.html) Of course the suicides are extremely upsetting, but I found the information about WPI's response to be very thoughtful. |
Anonymous
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WPI is in Worcester, New England’s 2nd largest city; it is closer to Brown and Wesleyan than Boston is to those schools. My suggestion would be Yale and Wesleyan one day, and WPI and Brown the next. Boston could be a separate trip.
Worcester also has Holy Cross and Clark (more of a safety) if that’s of interest. |
Anonymous
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If you’re planning to do formal tours, you really can’t do more than two a day, fairly close together. Usually there will be a morning slot and an afternoon.
At least in the initial phases, the tours will help your kid get a sense of the similarities between all the different types and sizes of schools. Eventually they’ll be able to suss out the unique qualities of a school on their own—assuming they’re motivated to do it. If yours isn’t the type to research, read, ask questions, then tours might be helpful. |
Anonymous
It's doable. We spent more time at Brown because sibling was there and kid also did engineering tour in addition to regular tour, but if you did morning tour, you could do WPI in afternoon or vice versa (and, you might be able to do engineering tour at Brown that way, since that is in afternoon, and I know WPI has am sessions). We did WPI am session and tour, left tour a little early to make noon Olin session/tour, then picked up Tufts self tour around 4pm. Did Smith 10am and Dartmouth 2pm the next day. Did a Lafayette tour, session and interview am and Lehigh session pm. Also, with older sib did am Brandeis, early afternoon BC, late afternoon Harvard self tour. Did Wes am session/tour, Vassar self tour early afternoon and Bard self tour late afternoon. |
Anonymous
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In order to eliminate being stretched too thin (your schedule is tight, as written), I would eliminate visiting any school with an acceptance rate below 8% (unless it is likely your ED choice and you must verify that choice).
Why? 1. That class of school does not care about demonstrated interest, so you are not influencing outcome. 2. Why fall in love with a very unlikely choice? You will be able to visit during accepted students days if you are blessed with such possibility/ies! 3. You will have greater time to explore the schools that are good matches. This is a higher use of your limited time and will become the foundation of the oft praised yet rarely utilized balanced list. I am surprised when tour plans are overly aspirational. Set ‘em up for success and maybe a happy surprise. Sure beats the opposite. |
Anonymous
+100 I don't see any safeties on that list of schools. Your tour time will be much better spent visiting schools that are more likely admits. The top goal should be to find safeties they can love. Sure, fit in a couple aspirational schools if you have time but, really, touring Columbia, Yale and Harvard are a total waste of time. If you win the lottery, then you can visit |
Anonymous
If there were a lot of MAGAs |
Anonymous
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I would knock a few of these down to drive-bys/walk-throughs. Like, sorry to say, Harvard, unless it is really a realistic goal for your child.
We did a couple of two-a-days, and that was plenty. My DC responded better when we'd only see a single school in a day. So, for example, we did a PA road trip. Saw Pitt and Duquesne in a day. Traveled to State College. Saw Penn State. Drove to Bethlehem. Visited Lehigh, drove through Lafayette. Drove home. That's about all we could handle. |
Anonymous
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Two schools a day, max. Go to one in the morning, attend the dog and pony show, then if you like it, have lunch in the dining hall and go on to school #2. Rinse and repeat, hitting up the dining hall or cafe for an afternoon snack. (Or second lunch, if you have a perpetually boy.)
Build in some time to check out the surrounding city/town/neighborhood, whether that's driving around a little, walking to a nearby coffee shop, etc. If your DC decides they are not interested in a school, bail at any point. There is nothing to be gained by slogging through another recital of a tour guide's "Why I Chose School X" closing speech if you don't have to. |