Deciding what schools to visit

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ED is for colleges, recruited athletes, and suckers. Be sure you know which of the three categories your kid will fall into before you spend too much time obsessing about that part of the process.

Or those for whom cost is not a consideration.

No, there's not a fourth category. It's just colleges, recruited athletes, and suckers.

[Anonymous]

For prior to junior year we focused mainly on driving distance schools - VA and PA options. DD wasn't super into the search process and we didn't want to waste a flight if she wasn't totally bought in to looking. During Junior year the search fleshed out to other states.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First school my kid visited was Wash U - just happened that way. When we got to dorms I realized what a mistake I had made. First school sets the standard and we have yet to see better dorms.

Yep, unlucky. We had the flipside experience (also by happenstance; no brilliance claimed here): saw Temple first and the kid totally could see their life there being so much better than HS--got them very excited about college generally and made us all realize that the floor was pretty darn high.

[Anonymous]

Agree with sentiment that they may fall in love at first sight - I would visit the school you think is the most likely actual school for them first. Then work from there. We visited a safety and they never came around to matches and reaches. Its worked out fine but I might have visited another school first if I were doing it again.