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