did you visit all the schools your student applied to? When to start?

[Anonymous]

We have a sophomore. Did you start doing college visits sophomore year or wait til junior and senior year? We have such busy schedules, I can't imagine finding the time to visit all these colleges without starting now.

[Anonymous]

Junior year. My kid had zero interest sophomore year. I always feel a little sorry for the sophomores on college tours. I assume they have overzealous parents.

[Anonymous]

We only visited the ones who offered the most merit. Top three. Otherwise, it just clouds judgement.

[Anonymous]

Junior year. Start with safeties. The first schools you visit will always seem more interesting so you never want to start with the best schools out there.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn’t attempt to visit “all these” schools. Try to find 4-5 that represent different types/sizes of schools—urban, large public flagship, SLAC, etc. When they get a sense of what type of experience feels right, than you can plan a little more efficiently.

[Anonymous]

I would start casually… wherever you’re traveling, take an hour and drive thru a local campus and see if your student has a preference for rural vs city. Walk around Georgetown, go to UMD for a basketball game. Junior year you can be more strategic. The research triangle in NC is a great start.

So many schools within driving distance. We did a few 36 hour trips including UF, Vandy and Northwestern and a long weekend in NYC to see NYU, Columbia and Princeton. DS was accepted to a high reach that he had never visited for REA so we traveled there after he was admitted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t attempt to visit “all these” schools. Try to find 4-5 that represent different types/sizes of schools—urban, large public flagship, SLAC, etc. When they get a sense of what type of experience feels right, than you can plan a little more efficiently.

+1
I would caution against visiting big reaches and getting their heart stuck on that.

[Anonymous]

We visited 3. First choice, safety and one in the middle. Will wait for acceptances and merit results before visiting anymore.

[Anonymous]

Just a few, not all. You will find out they all sound the same.

[Anonymous]

This has been a lot easier for my younger son who, as a tag a long on older son’s college visits, saw about 10 schools before his junior year.

So I say go to a college hub like Boston or Philly or Chicago and see 4-5 in a burst. More info is good.

[Anonymous]

No. Both kids visited maybe 5 out of 10. I think it’s good to visit a likely to ensure that there’s at least one school the kid is confident of getting into that they feel good about attending. And if planning to apply ED, definitely visit. Otherwise, you can visit schools after admission if the school is a serious candidate, especially with so many schools offering EA.

We did visits as early as sophomore year but mostly junior year. Never did a big “college visit” trip because we didn’t want it to feel like a slog; we visited a number of schools while on other trips and then a weekend here or there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t attempt to visit “all these” schools. Try to find 4-5 that represent different types/sizes of schools—urban, large public flagship, SLAC, etc. When they get a sense of what type of experience feels right, than you can plan a little more efficiently.

+1
Doing some visits by type was very helpful during sophomore year. Your DCs preferences might change by the time actual application time happens (mine did), but at least you didn’t curate a college whole college trips based off of one type of school.

[Anonymous]

Sophomore year Presidents Day weekend we visited several schools in our region that were within a 4 hour driving radius. A large public, and a couple LAC’s -to take advantage of that time, see nearby relatives and get our kid thinking about what they might like. That summer I had a social thing in a different part of the country so we took advantage of that trip to see a few more places. It was early-ish but junior year was very busy and we had several major family commitments/priorities that year as well. It’s really what works for your kid and your family.

[Anonymous]

Visited all of them, started Sophomore year.

Visiting made a big difference in deciding which schools to apply to and which to pass on.

It’s a multi hundred thousand dollar investment, well worth the time and energy to at least eyeball the place. Schools that looked like great matches on paper turned out to be inadequate for one reason or another. Same story with underdogs that turned out to be a lot more interesting in person.

Keep it to one per day, though. It really took a lot of energy to try and focus on each school.

[Anonymous]

No, visited around half.

One piece of advice for visiting reaches: if you can afford to, visit any school that might be on the table for Early Decision OR might knock an ED school out of clear top place on the list.