For a school that looked like a match that was further away, we attended the virtual tour first. Then when that looked good we planned a trip over summer break and had DD come up with a list of schools that we could visit along that way - some with virtual tour first and other went to see the campus first. The closer 1-3 hour schools were as a combination of a day trips during breaks or a school day off like Oct 11 which had lots of kids on college visits. For schools that weren’t near the other schools in the list, it was virtual tour and visit if get into school and it’s a top contender.

The downside is not being able to see the schools with students going to classes but at this point it’s a logistical challenge trying to fit so many schools into a tight window - we couldn’t go in person until this summer. You have to plan ahead with capacity limits etc and not wait to sign up for the open house/tours once you know there are dates available. The plan is to visit while school is in session once the acceptances are in and it’s down to 2-3 schools.

Our was very certain about the location (large cities with few exceptions and the area of the country) where she wants to be in when she was a Junior. That narrowed down what we needed to cover. We visited a few schools near by to figure out the size of the school she prefers and then rest of the visits were based on her interests.

Anonymous wrote:We had time this summer, and my kid really had no idea what he wanted, so we did “drive through” visits of colleges that represented a range of options — small town/big state university, big city/smaller private, etc. We did a few in-person tours of the colleges where DC is a legacy (all of which DC is seriously interested in). We’re going to make one more visit to a school that DC may choose for an ED II application.

That said, I think the approach of applying, seeing where you get in and then visiting is a good one. One advantage of visiting is that it’s a way of showing “demonstrated interest,” but there are lots of opportunities to do that on line, as well.

This is what we're doing now with our Jr. Trying to get a sense of preferred environment before starting to create a list.

Anonymous wrote:Visiting can also help winnow down the list before applying. Some kids will have a gut feel about places they decidedly do not want to be, and that can help narrow down the list.

This is too late for you, but we started narrowing down the list in sophomore year - some safeties to determine preference for public/private, small/big or rural/city.
Visit matches in junior year, then if they are accepted, reaches at senior. Luckily, my kids have limited their list to the east coast with some minimal flying.

You can easily drive to places in the Midwest and New England. But you may need to actually plan a trip if you need to go to CA - maybe over Spring break or early next summer.

We visited all the NE schools, but did not visit midwest schools, and DC not considering farther out. We'll see....

Demonstrated interest is through ED and EA.

only virtual visits. If some college will dismiss my kids because there is no demonstrated interest in person during a pandemic then we don't want to take our full paying, top student ass there, In-state works fine for us.

Visiting can also help winnow down the list before applying. Some kids will have a gut feel about places they decidedly do not want to be, and that can help narrow down the list.

We had time this summer, and my kid really had no idea what he wanted, so we did “drive through” visits of colleges that represented a range of options — small town/big state university, big city/smaller private, etc. We did a few in-person tours of the colleges where DC is a legacy (all of which DC is seriously interested in). We’re going to make one more visit to a school that DC may choose for an ED II application.

That said, I think the approach of applying, seeing where you get in and then visiting is a good one. One advantage of visiting is that it’s a way of showing “demonstrated interest,” but there are lots of opportunities to do that on line, as well.

We found in person visits useful, especially when tours were available but even when they weren’t. We visited several schools during spring break junior year (only 50% were offering tours at that time) and a few more this summer (no tours). All were in driving distance or on the way to our summer vacation destination. If we had to fly I probably would have waited for acceptance.

Virtual tours now. In person visits for jus the schools where they get accepted.

That is an approach Op. Most of our DC's schools were out of state (they ended up going out of state) and most they could no see before applying. One thing ~ it's extremely empowering to tour as an accepted student. They ask better questions, tougher questions, they have a more critical eye. The balls in their court. Of course if "demonstrating interest" is important to be admitted, that's important. DD was accepted to one Ca school ... and her dragging her feet about when she had free time to visit ... gave us her answer in advance: the school was too far away for her, she wouldn't be going there.

my child is crafting their college list (current junior) and has a number of schools on his list that are clear across the country. if your kid also had a lot of faaaar out of state schools on their list, did you try to visit them all? I'm trying to figure out how we're going to have the time (not to mention money!) to visit all these schools (before application season comes up. my thought is we'll try to visit some, but we won't get to all, and for the ones we don't get to he can apply and then if he gets in and still wants to go THEN we can go.