We drove through some local schools when in the area. Mostly, small liberal arts colleges. We have two boys and the oldest wasn't interested in small schools. So, that worked for him. The younger, now a senior, is all over the place.

We started at JMU on sophomore spring break because we were already at Massanutten. If you have a lot you want to visit, or student doesn't know what they're looking for, it's smart to start early. Also, we preferred doing the visits when college is in session as much as possible, to get a better sense of the school. There aren't many high school holidays to fit those visits in. (Didn't want to take him out of classes because heavy high school course load means a lot of missed work)

Didn't make a special trip for it but we have definitely walked through some colleges while in the area.

Not official ones but we walked through some when we were in the area.

We were visiting family that literally lives walking distance from a school that could be a good fit and hopefully on the safer side of things so we looked around a bit and talked about it. We debated doing a tour but the times didn’t work. Our child also went to reunions at our Alma maters around 7th/8th grade so is familiar but their mindset was different then. Alma maters are Ivy+ so far from certain so we are not pushing them too hard yet.

I would not make a special trip to see schools until junior year. I think starting to look fall if junior year is reasonable because it is best to see schools when students are there and that is limiting.

Anonymous wrote:Younger siblings being dragged to college tours is pretty common. You make a vacation out of it while the older sibling is looking at colleges. It's also very efficient.

Like, hey, do you remember when we visited Northwestern when you were twelve? What did you think? On the list or off the list?

"Brah, like where? Northwestern? What's that?"

Yes bc my child just can’t visualize what college is. He hates high school but we didn’t want him to rule out college based on that experience.

It was helpful bc he saw that it was more than just going to class, he’d have more freedom in which classes he took, etc.

We did and found it useful. It helped identify what mattered to my kids.

It's too early. There are a lot of uncertainty in terms of reach/target/safety. Grades, test scores, rigor, and ECs are not set at this point. A single B on the transcript may change what realistic reaches should be. Junior year may be the right time, particularly in the spring break. By then the kids more or less know how they will perform by the end of the junior year.

yes we toured 10th. the private school encourages preliminary tours in 10th to get a feel for setting and size, plus they meet with students in 10th for very early list planning based on courses and psat which everyone takes 10th fall with the 11th graders.

We don’t have that much free time, so we started doing “drive-bys” early, just to show the kids some different college campuses. My ds is a sophomore, so we’ll probably visit some schools that aren’t too far away this year.

DC wasn’t interested or we might have. We visited a few during the summer after 10th.

Yes, but b/c it was convenient. We took a long weekend trip to destination that had a school DC was a little interested in. So, since we were there, we took 3 hours and checked it out. I wouldn't have made a trip just for that, though.

Younger siblings being dragged to college tours is pretty common. You make a vacation out of it while the older sibling is looking at colleges. It's also very efficient.

Like, hey, do you remember when we visited Northwestern when you were twelve? What did you think? On the list or off the list?

I’ was surprised to see online that students often go on tours as early as freshman year in high school.