How Many Schools Did You Visit?
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Anonymous
| We have a very tentative list for our DC, and we’re starting to make plans for visits. Some flying, but also a lot of driving (VA, PA, NY and New England.) My sense is DC will veto some schools quickly which will help us make decisions on similar schools. We are, however, likely to be a donut hole family so I would like to take a few extra rolls of the dice to see what we get. If your DCs have applied recently, did you feel you visited enough schools to get a general sense of their options. Thanks for any advice. |
Anonymous
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Like 10.
Ended up applying to 5 of the 10 and then another 5 You can visit after you get in! |
Anonymous
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We visited 21 (a few years ago). It worked for us. We started sophomore year, which made it pleasant vs pressured. We added trips on to other planned travel (visiting family, return from speciality camps). It allowed us to check out the towns, get credit for showing interest.
Just have your kid jot down their impressions, so it is not one big blur when it comes time to write supplemental essays. (My kid—who had above average grades but not test scores—applied to 10 schools, and got into seven with nice offers of merit aid. (By the way, the high school counselor suggested applying to 10. Seven would have been perfectly adequate) |
Anonymous
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Visited 11. Too many tbh.
Kid applied to 22. Going to Ivy - not visited until after being admitted. |
Anonymous
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For child one "formal" tours at maybe 9? Investigated on our own maybe another 6-7. Applied to 12.
Child two, formal tours at 3 and walked through 1. Will apply to 4-5. |
Anonymous
PP. Now you got me thinking. Lots of walking, hotels and gas. OFFICIAL tours NEU, BU, Yale, CWRU, Pitt, Lehigh, UMD, Hopkins, GW, WM, UVA Walked the campus MIT, Harvard, Penn, Drexel, Swarthmore, Oberlin, WL, VT We had fun, but kind of silly seeing it in writing! |
Anonymous
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Visited 17–which is too many. Will target 10 for our next kid (you can visit far reaches after acceptance). Would suggest starting with a local college tour to see what your student might care about even if they have no intentions of applying (we toured Georgetown eventhough it was too close to home) and it did get her thinking about likes and dislikes which helped a bit for future planning and expectations of what happens on a tour. It’s easier if your child knows if they want big/small, urban/rural, etc. If not, maybe plan a trip to PA or Boston where you can see a bunch of schools in a short period of time to help determine the type of schools your child prefers. For us, guided tours were better than self-guided YMMV.
Try to fall in love or at least like with a couple “safeties”. Good luck! |
Anonymous
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8
5 were for official programs at the school - either a dance intensive or a day of dance. We did go back and do the official tour for one of these in the Fall because it was a non-residential intensive and they never got a full tour. 3 were tours set up ahead of time - one during VA private college week and then 2 others on that random Monday FCPS now has off in September |
Anonymous
| Both of ours ended up attending schools they had not seen before admitted. Visited 3-4 officially, an additional 6+ passing through as part of family trips elsewhere. Most schools visited actually didn't make it onto their final list for applications. For one of ours, 7 out of 10 schools she applied to she had not seen. These were large state universities, mostly entirely out of state. |
Anonymous
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Kid 1: toured about 10, ended up applying to 8 of those plus a couple others. Got in to her first choice.
Kid 2: tagged along on about 5 of kid 1's tours (ruled out most of them, also helped her figure out what she did or did not want for her own search). Toured 4 schools, applied to 3 of them and was accepted by her ED pick. We did insist on applications to in-state choices, which accounted for 3 tours for Kid 1 and 2 tours for Kid 2. |
Anonymous
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Kid 1 - 7, one was post-admission, 5 were incorporated into family vacations we would have taken anyway. We informally visited 2 other campuses on one of those trips. Of her 7 applications, she only visited one school before applying.
Kid 2 - 3 formal visits. Once he decided on a major, he didn't see the point and thought any college on his list would likely be fine. Ver laid back kid. |
Anonymous
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Kid 1 - 5 official tours. Applied 4.
Kid 2 - Not counting when she tagged along on 1st kid's tours, 12. Applied 6. |
Anonymous
| Five. DS is a good student but not amazing (mix of As and B+s) so we really tried to target likely admits and not waste time. |
Anonymous
| Four. Kid only applied to three colleges this cycle and got into his dream school. Very picky in general. |
Anonymous
Given that your kid went to a school that he had not visited does it even make sense to do a college tour ? |