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Is this the wrong time to visit colleges?
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Anonymous
| DS will be in 10th grade next year. We will be visiting relatives in California this summer. I would like to take him to check out Stanford, Berkeley, Davis and Santa Cruz, if possible. Is he too young to bother doing this and will he be able to glean anything from visiting outside the regular school season? |
Anonymous
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Unless your son is super motivated to see these colleges during this trip, I'd not force it -- maybe do a drive-by tour?
I have one starting college and one your son's age. We've done summer tours with the older one. As it turns out, the schools we visited in the summer tended to go to the bottom of his list and the schools we visited during the year rose to the top of his college list. Aren't most kids looking for a great college vibe? Not only won't you get any college vibe during the summer visit, you risk turning the kid off from the school. That was our experience and it's keeping me from forcing our 10th grader to look around this summer. |
Anonymous
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We have gone through the admissions process with 2 kids and are in the thick of it now with our 3rd, a h.s. senior. I would agree with PP that I wouldn't push it unless your son really wants to do this. In general, summer visits are not as helpful as visits during the school year. (Though our youngest loved one school he saw last summer when we were vacationing nearby. Since then, he's seen five other schools, but he still likes that one best. Even so, he wants to return to see it this fall before deciding whether to apply, and we are in complete agreement on the need for a second visit during the academic year).
Moreover, regardless of time of year, in general, visits before junior year are not that helpful -- kids are still too young and college seems too far away to get more than a vague impression about the school. That said, for some kids early visits can be motivating. For example, our oldest went to a 1-week sports camp at Duke the summer before 10th grade and decided that if he wanted to go to a school as competitive as that, he needed to work harder. His grades went up and -- lo and behold -- he got into his first choice school (Not Duke, Princeton -- "the Duke of the North" for all you Blue Devil fans.) |
Anonymous
| I don't think it would hurt to drive through the campus a bit, but I doubt a full tour would be that interesting during the summer at this point. Its nice to see the campus and since its a long ways from here he might not get to visit again. |
Anonymous
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My eldest is a rising 9th grader, and we just got back from vacation in a city that happens to have a university she thinks she'd like. (of course, she's only 14, so a LOT will probably change in the next few years)
We didn't do a formal visit, but we did walk around campus to get a feel for it. At her request, we had lunch in the student center as well. It was very laid back and a brief part of our vacation - with lunch included, we spent about 1.5 hours - but she liked seeing the campus. So, I'd say if your son is interested in just seeing the schools on an informal drive/walkthrough, great, but don't push a formal visit with tour, etc. |
Anonymous
| Yes -- take advantage of being out in CA and show your son some colleges. |
Anonymous
| Thanks for all your insight. It's helpful to hear from you all that have gone through this before. I like what the poster with child at Princeton said about DS becoming more motivated to do well in high school in order to get in to a highly competitive college. I think this is what I should do with my DS as well. I think we will check out some of the schools in Cal, including Cal! |
Anonymous
| It doesn't hurt but I found the drive through tours were not really all that insightful - you are basically seeing some buildings and maybe the bookstore. When we started doing the real tours it was much more useful. I would pick one of those to do a real tour, maybe drive by another. But I do think 9th grade is a little too early for lots of visits. You also need to balance between motivating the kid to do well and making the whole high school experience nothing but a 4 year college admissions process. That can get stressful for kids. |
Anonymous
I'm the PP you cite and I'd still say just do one school. Cal would be a good one because there might be enough students on campus even during the summer for you to get a vibe on the school. (And I say this even tho DH and I went to Stanford  )
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Anonymous
That's hilarious! I just said Cal because I was making a cute play on words. We are actually planning on visiting Stanford. They have golf cart tours so my mom can join us. We are also considering having DS do a summer program there next year, probably in the sciences or economics. What did you and DH major in? My DH is worried about UC system going to hell in a hand basket. He works with scientists at Cal. He has heard the horror stories about the deteriorating conditions of the physical plant there. |
Anonymous
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I intern for a company called Mytonomy (www.mytonomy.com), and here are some links from the site AND Youtube Channel that might be helpful on college visits. They are videos one to three min in length.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9auotjdXjo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhsKWNClO1s |
Anonymous
| no anytime you can visit college.......... |