Lots of people waste time visiting reach schools. Unless you are looking to ED or the school values demonstrate interest (see CDS) then this can be a waste of time. Visit target / safeties instead. Fine to visit a few reaches to get an idea of preferences for urban/rural and school size.

Any chance you they can hitch a ride with a friend?
Can you drive the night before and they go on the tour while you work remote?
It is hard to put the adult brain in the head of a 16 YO. And there is a lot of anxiety and FOMO.

OP skip the tours.
Establish to your kids now instate apps only.
There is nothing wrong with going instate.

After they apply then take them to see the schools. I know a ton of people that do it this way.

Try and not get caught up in the over thinking it crowd.

^ also summer tours can fill up quicker than you think, so figure out your schedule and register early!

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like you could use a good clear-the-air conversation. You and your DH need to get on one page about how you're willing to handle the college search process. It's got to be tricky with twins. Do they want different things? Have different abilities?

Then you need to tell the twins how you're going to approach the process. One big road trip? A couple of smaller ones?

You guys might benefit from a basic strategy that I often see mentioned here. Pick one city. Could be DC, could be Philly, could be Boston. They all work well for this type of trip.

Visit one big and one small school. One state and one private. One religious, one non-religious. One highly selective, one less selective. Etc. (There's some overlap here ... not saying you have to visit 8 schools.)

So, in Philly, you could see Penn, Temple, St. Joe's, Villanova, Haverford and Drexel. That starts to give you a sense of what the kid likes. Then you can make your next visit more targeted.

We are likely doing in state. It makes no sense to me to tour far away colleges if 1. it's too expensive and they won't go 2. they can't get in. To me SAT scores are key. Right now only dd has a goodish one and is probably okay to see some out of state. As for the stuff you mention they have already seen colleges and they know they want big, likely public, biggish city so we have that part down, and mostly region as well. We just don't know about selective aspect due to scores. I just don't want to fly prematurely and get their hopes up. It seems pointless.

We toured campuses the summer before 12th grade. It didn't matter that most students weren't on campus. We wanted DS to get a feel for geography, urban/rural, etc...

We turned it into our summer holiday, but touring the northeast colleges and McGill. This was very valuable to wake-up DS and made him see he was about to actually leave home and live in one of these places! It helped him build his short list, in which he included none of the rural colleges we'd seen, but all the urban/suburban ones.

Then the final decision point came during Admitted Students Days, which were also supremely useful - he was leaning towards one, but after visiting again, talking to profs, eating the dining hall food and visiting dorms (which a lot of colleges don't allow you to do during initial tours), he changed his mind and opted for his number 2 pick.

You don't need to go NOW, but you do need to visit a bunch so your kids can create a shortlist, before they start their essays.

In retrospect of course the bulk of our college tours were a waste of time. With 20-20 hindsight we would have toured only the school each ended up attending. However, for most people, and especially the prospective student, this is a huge part of the process. If you want them to go to an in-state school, and they have a regional campus they're curious about, get them to that school as soon as you can. Of course they are old enough to understand that you and DH don't have Spring break and can't drop everything today. But go ahead and pencil in the date two months from now, and have them schedule the tour. You need them to stay invested in the process, and if you are steering toward your expectations (in terms of cost or proximity), support that asap.

It’s fine, OP. Tours are very overrated and you have explained they will go later. It’s best to listen but avoid giving into the mania that some people have with respect to college admissions.

It sounds like you could use a good clear-the-air conversation. You and your DH need to get on one page about how you're willing to handle the college search process. It's got to be tricky with twins. Do they want different things? Have different abilities?

Then you need to tell the twins how you're going to approach the process. One big road trip? A couple of smaller ones?

You guys might benefit from a basic strategy that I often see mentioned here. Pick one city. Could be DC, could be Philly, could be Boston. They all work well for this type of trip.

Visit one big and one small school. One state and one private. One religious, one non-religious. One highly selective, one less selective. Etc. (There's some overlap here ... not saying you have to visit 8 schools.)

So, in Philly, you could see Penn, Temple, St. Joe's, Villanova, Haverford and Drexel. That starts to give you a sense of what the kid likes. Then you can make your next visit more targeted.

Anonymous wrote:Spring break junior year is prime time for college tours. Tours are best done when classes are in session at the college.

I think you are missing the boat if you don't squeeze in these tours. The alternative is waiting until fall when your kids are in the middle of the application season.

(My twins attend college about 2000 miles apart lol.)

Work stress is perfectly understandable. But, I would try to find a way to make the tours work. Parents don't need to attend - if they drive, consider sending them together on their own, or see if they can tour with their friends, etc.

I already said we are going. I just don't know what day next week. That will depend on work and meetings.

Anonymous wrote:I think you need to establish the parameters early.

They know it's either in state or out of state with merit, but we don't have new SAT scores yet to even know if that's a possibility and where. My feeling is we need these scores to establish a good list of possibilities and it makes no sense to get very into touring this or that place without the list. I really don't get why they are so fixated on these tours. I already said we are going.

Spring break junior year is prime time for college tours. Tours are best done when classes are in session at the college.

I think you are missing the boat if you don't squeeze in these tours. The alternative is waiting until fall when your kids are in the middle of the application season.

(My twins attend college about 2000 miles apart lol.)

Work stress is perfectly understandable. But, I would try to find a way to make the tours work. Parents don't need to attend - if they drive, consider sending them together on their own, or see if they can tour with their friends, etc.

I think you need to establish the parameters early.

They are anxious.

I am feeling so much pressure about the college process and we have not even started. They said their friends are going out of state for tours. Meanwhile I know for a fact most kids near us do in state. They want to visit two regional campuses, and MUST go this break, but they are 4 hours max from us so we could go any time. DH and I work a lot (from home a lot of the time, around their games, activities, talk to them constantly...we are very involved daily) but have a very stressful couple months with work and now is not the best time. I already told them we'd take a day for each college and they keep bringing up their friends' tours, obviously they have some jealousy about them. I am just very frustrated by it all and not liking their approach. We have gone to see colleges over the years on trips so it's not like they have never seen a college campus. In fact just this winter break we saw another. I am not sure why these two tours are somehow more important, especially since they will apply to both these places and many others and we can tour with more purpose after an acceptance.