Why visit colleges before getting accepted?

[Anonymous]

I used to think the same way as OP. Visited some schools that DD was considering for ED-U Chicago; Duke; Emory; Rice.
Visiting does evoke gut reactions for some people--she thought Duke was very pretty but not her. U Chicago was majestic but did not feel 'homey' to her. She loved Emory and Rice. She got into her ED college but I remember stressing out before acceptance and wising that we had visited more colleges that would be likely colleges--it takes off the stress-you can say, hey so what if you don't get in via ED, you really liked So and So college remember?

[Anonymous]

Agree with the premise but worried about the idea that ED raises your chance of being accepted and can't imagine my kid applying ED anywhere without visiting...feel like we need to visit some to decide if he wants to apply ED...

[Anonymous]

Our reasons included that SLACs have different personalities & we wanted a good fit. Also, we knew the application would be stronger if the student knew why they liked the school & demonstrated interest. Plus, it was a fun way to learn more about our child, their goals & to reminisce about their past.

[Anonymous]

I have toured schools with my child and he enjoys it. It makes the work they do seem worthwhile as they can see the end goal. To each their own. I will do what fits my family, you do for yours. Why would you even care what other people do with their time and money. Why someone would post their thoughts as gospel is beyond me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand the need for high school students to get a personal feel for what a 40,000 person campus feels like compared to a 3,000 person SLAC. And seeing what things feel like at a very selective school compared to a school where it's easy to get in makes sense. But for anybody living in the DMV, this can be done by taking the metro or with a short drive to Baltimore or Richmond. You could even visit lots of small private SLACs and state schools in rural places by driving just 2-3 hours from DC.

But what is the goal of touring schools all over the country as a high school student before you've applied or been accepted? If you happen to be going to Chicago for a family event, sure, visit University of Chicago and Loyola while you're there. But why take time away from school and spend money on an airplane flight for the sole purpose of visiting a school in another part of the country? At my child's school, trips to see colleges get an excused absence. Are the people doing this those have never been to Texas and are worried that it's too full of MAGA people to put it on their list of places to apply, so they want to make sure it's acceptable? Or maybe they want to visit Boston in the dead of winter to see if their kid could stomach that environment?

I could see why someone would fly to view UCLA and NYU if they get into both and have the great fortune of needing to choose, and they live in Ohio and have never been to either LA or NYC. But why spend so much time and money when you haven't even been admitted? Just spend the $50 to apply, and if you get in then you can take a trip if you're worried there's something about the school that you can't see from watching videos and asking current students.

I didn't visit any schools as a high school student and I loved where I ended up, on the other side of the country from where I grew up. I applied to schools all over the place that met very clear criteria. The fact that one school might have had nicer landscaping than another, or that its dorms were nicer had nothing to do with whether I wanted to go there. There's a thread in this forum about ridiculous things that turned off kids when they visited various campuses, none of which should enter into such a major decision about which school to attend. Why indulge that tendency among some high school kids? Almost every school I've seen offers prospective students a chance to chat with current students about campus life, and they have really well produced videos of the campus. is this just sort of upper middle class rite of passage? It feels like when brides take their mom and best friends shopping for a gown and make an afternoon of the whole exercise, another thing I didn't do.

OP, can you not understand that not everyone is in the same position you were in, in many ways? My private high school limited us to applying to SIX colleges. SIX. They also strongly encouraged early decision applications. "Just spend the $50 to apply" is a ridiculous way to apply when each school you apply to inevitably knocks another one off your list which might have been a better fit for you, or more likely to accept you, or whatever.

That's nice that you went to school across the country and loved it, but the vast majority of college students go to school much closer to home. You are the exception, not the rule. Even at the elite schools, Stanford has a ton of students from CA, Harvard has a ton from MA, etc. You were lucky that your school was a good fit, because I know plenty of kids who went far away to school and felt homesick and miserable, which is one outcome people are trying to avoid by visiting schools in person.

Chatting with students pre-selected by the admissions office or viewing their slick videos (which never show the ugly buildings or the terrible cafeteria food or anything bad) is not a substitute for the sort of things you might see and experience by chance while visiting. You will only get positive information from these sources. Personally, I would like to have a more realistic and balanced view of what these schools are really like before committing a small fortune and my child to them.

OK. Wait. SIX schools? That's just not enough. Even if you are a high stats kid, these days, you have to apply to 1 Safety for everyone. Let's say you also do 2 Safeties and 2 Targets. 1 Reach?

That makes no sense. A student that gets rejected from Duke can potentially get into Emory, Wash U, Williams, etc. And vice versa. You don't know what will happen. But if you have to settle for a lesser college because your fancy school doesn't want to do more paperwork?

What is the thinking here?

[Anonymous]

We toured some schools to narrow down what DD would apply to. We did not do anything that was beyond a drive, and we were able to visit 14 colleges in 3 trips. 1, we combined with an award event DD was already at (that the sponsor paid for), another we combined w/ a family vacation, and the 3rd was NJ and PA schools, so not far. They gave us insight into campus conditions, aesthetics and feel. Really helped DD rule out a few places.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because it's fun? My DD and I had a great time touring colleges. OP, you do you and MYOB.

+1 It also helped get my DD more interested in the college application process. It's different from reading about it in a book or looking at the website. And, after distance learning she absolutely hates watching online lectures/info sessions. She also wants to study environmental science so the actual environment the college is in and the facilities they have is really important to her. Those often aren't featured on the website. I will say I'm not going to make an effort to visit reach schools. The most important thing is figuring out targets/likelies you can love so focus on that. If she happens to get into a reach, we'll visit after.

Visiting a few LACs, it helped her to see that even if the student body is smaller than her HS, it's still a college and not at all like HS. And, she likes that better than the huge schools she visited with DS (who ended up at VT).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would anyone take a general comment like this and apply it to their very unique and unusual situation, then act as if OP is crazy for not concerning themselves with the poster's highly unusual scenario?

Why would someone make a general comment about how everyone else is doing the college search wrong, as though everyone does not have an individual situation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would anyone take a general comment like this and apply it to their very unique and unusual situation, then act as if OP is crazy for not concerning themselves with the poster's highly unusual scenario?

Why would someone make a general comment about how everyone else is doing the college search wrong, as though everyone does not have an individual situation?

Yeah. It wasn't really general. It was actually quite judgmental.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We don't have the time or vacation hours to take a bunch of trips spring of DD's senior year. We'll do a Boston/New England Swing and visits to Virginia and NC schools when DD has nearby tournaments.

This what we did and will do.

[Anonymous]

My kid is not applying to any schools that he doesn't visit first.
He will be applying to 10 schools, any of which he knows he'd be fine attending.
Makes it easier to decide when the admissions come in, rather than scrambling between February and May 1.

[Anonymous]

We are visiting all the schools DC is interested in prior to applying. DC looking not just for academic fit, but equally important, social fit. We can afford to do so and thus will. Although I understand not everyone can and some might have to make decisions without visiting.

[Anonymous]

My son wasn't thinking seriously about college, until we took him to visit a quintessential school (not going to name it, but it's beautiful). We walked around, his jaw dropped, and he said, "Now THIS is a college!" And from that point on, he took things much more seriously. Very helpful to visit and picture yourself on a campus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand the need for high school students to get a personal feel for what a 40,000 person campus feels like compared to a 3,000 person SLAC. And seeing what things feel like at a very selective school compared to a school where it's easy to get in makes sense. But for anybody living in the DMV, this can be done by taking the metro or with a short drive to Baltimore or Richmond. You could even visit lots of small private SLACs and state schools in rural places by driving just 2-3 hours from DC.

But what is the goal of touring schools all over the country as a high school student before you've applied or been accepted? If you happen to be going to Chicago for a family event, sure, visit University of Chicago and Loyola while you're there. But why take time away from school and spend money on an airplane flight for the sole purpose of visiting a school in another part of the country? At my child's school, trips to see colleges get an excused absence. Are the people doing this those have never been to Texas and are worried that it's too full of MAGA people to put it on their list of places to apply, so they want to make sure it's acceptable? Or maybe they want to visit Boston in the dead of winter to see if their kid could stomach that environment?

I could see why someone would fly to view UCLA and NYU if they get into both and have the great fortune of needing to choose, and they live in Ohio and have never been to either LA or NYC. But why spend so much time and money when you haven't even been admitted? Just spend the $50 to apply, and if you get in then you can take a trip if you're worried there's something about the school that you can't see from watching videos and asking current students.

I didn't visit any schools as a high school student and I loved where I ended up, on the other side of the country from where I grew up. I applied to schools all over the place that met very clear criteria. The fact that one school might have had nicer landscaping than another, or that its dorms were nicer had nothing to do with whether I wanted to go there. There's a thread in this forum about ridiculous things that turned off kids when they visited various campuses, none of which should enter into such a major decision about which school to attend. Why indulge that tendency among some high school kids? Almost every school I've seen offers prospective students a chance to chat with current students about campus life, and they have really well produced videos of the campus. is this just sort of upper middle class rite of passage? It feels like when brides take their mom and best friends shopping for a gown and make an afternoon of the whole exercise, another thing I didn't do.

OP, can you not understand that not everyone is in the same position you were in, in many ways? My private high school limited us to applying to SIX colleges. SIX. They also strongly encouraged early decision applications. "Just spend the $50 to apply" is a ridiculous way to apply when each school you apply to inevitably knocks another one off your list which might have been a better fit for you, or more likely to accept you, or whatever.

That's nice that you went to school across the country and loved it, but the vast majority of college students go to school much closer to home. You are the exception, not the rule. Even at the elite schools, Stanford has a ton of students from CA, Harvard has a ton from MA, etc. You were lucky that your school was a good fit, because I know plenty of kids who went far away to school and felt homesick and miserable, which is one outcome people are trying to avoid by visiting schools in person.

Chatting with students pre-selected by the admissions office or viewing their slick videos (which never show the ugly buildings or the terrible cafeteria food or anything bad) is not a substitute for the sort of things you might see and experience by chance while visiting. You will only get positive information from these sources. Personally, I would like to have a more realistic and balanced view of what these schools are really like before committing a small fortune and my child to them.

OK. Wait. SIX schools? That's just not enough. Even if you are a high stats kid, these days, you have to apply to 1 Safety for everyone. Let's say you also do 2 Safeties and 2 Targets. 1 Reach?

That makes no sense. A student that gets rejected from Duke can potentially get into Emory, Wash U, Williams, etc. And vice versa. You don't know what will happen. But if you have to settle for a lesser college because your fancy school doesn't want to do more paperwork?

What is the thinking here?

The thinking is that they don't want one or two or five kids racking up all the acceptances and blocking their classmates from getting in (like those trophy hunters trying to get into all 8 Ivies... have you noticed that they always go to some random public school and not, say, Sidwell or St. Alban's? No elite private school allows that). The whole point is that these well-connected prep schools push for their chosen one to get into Harvard, and a different chosen one to Yale, and encourage the bottom of the class to think that Elon is a "good fit" for them. They have a lot of power to control the process, and they don't want selfish kids messing up what they consider to be the greater good of the entire class, and the reputation of the school for college placement.

[Anonymous]

This is going to sound trite but her it is. I got a chance to see what lit the fire for DC’s vision of what college would mean for them by observing their reactions to the campus visits. DC ended up with a list they absolutely loved, would be thrilled at any of them and really solidified the ED choice, where they were admitted in December.