We went on a ton of tours and never did this. Not all kids have a major in mind. And not all classes are the same quality.

Open houses are much better than the standard campus presentation and tour. Usually each department will have an opportunity to tour their buildings and ask questions. UMD for example, has several opportunities like this, including Maryland Day in April, where every building on campus is open to the public and most of the programs do presentations/tours/Q&A. This allowed us to do the engineering open house, computer science open house, and the dept. of music open house all in one day. This was in addition to the admissions presentation.

Anonymous wrote:Christ. We just walked around a few campuses to get a feel. Did not even hit close to all he applied to. I went to college never having visited my school in person.

Do you really think colleges want the 56,000 applicants flooding their classes and dormitories?

Do the tour and wait until admitted student day.

Who cares what the colleges want? Are you also anti test drives because you’re just wasting their time?? This is a 400k purchase.

Anonymous wrote:Although some of it is university specific. At U Del my kid did a regular tour one day and a much more personal, 3-person tour of a particular school on a separate visit. This was before applying, offered through that school on their webpage, separate from the admissions department page.

The above is correct -- OP, your DC may need to dig around on both the admissions part of websites and the departmental website for specific departments of interest, to find smaller tours just of departments.

Example (this is in 2017 as my DC is now done with college so not sure if things have changed): UVA had tours of specific departments/parts of campus. We went on a tour, just DC, DH and me with a student guide, of the "arts campus" area of UVA. Found that online by accident--these weren't well publicized so your DC needs to dig.

Also, back then at least, some smaller schools had student interest days which were not "admitted student" days but were much earlier. Students did NOT even have to have applied yet to attend these days.

These were full-day events where the student and parents were on campus for talks and panels by current students; professors; admissions; etc. Specialized departmental tours. Separate panels for parents to ask questions about financial aid etc. Lunch on campus for students and parents to try out dining halls. Usually an opportunity to sit in on a class from a list of available classes that day. In one case we stuck around and went to a play done by the drama department that night. You had to find these days online and register to attend. I know the colleges were putting on a show, but these days were incredibly helpful and detailed. (Since someone will ask, these were all at smaller liberal arts colleges, not huge universities; we did four of these days and again--these were for any student/parents who registered and you did not have to have applied already. They were in spring of junior year of HS, I think.)

Finally, OP, talk to your DC about contacting departments directly. It can't hurt to say you'll be touring there and would like to ask a question or two if someone has time. We were planning a tour to some colleges and saw another one near to those, which we hadn't considered. DD emailed the two departments of the most interest to her and asked if she could stop by briefly and ask some specific questions about the majors. Both departments got back to her quickly and she ended up invited to take a class in one department (she did), and got one on one tours in bot (she didn't ask, they just did it). They showed such a welcome to this random senior who had not even applied there. Guess where she ended up spending four very happy years? Yep, that place which hadn't been on the radar but where she had reached out with a simple request. Many departments just can't accommodate that kind of casual drop-in, and that's understandable, but your DC won't know until they ask.

Hope that helps. With the huge surge in applications to colleges recently, I don't know if smaller colleges/LACs are still doing these student interest full-day events for students who haven't even applied. The four of those that we attended were extremely helpful --all four colleges were on DD's shortlist, and these events helped her eliminate one place immediately and rank the others in her head. I hope these events are still around. Again, I doubt large universities do them but possibly the individual departments do, so ask!

I think you should always build in extra time to explore. The tours are usually with 1 or 2 students and they are pretty general. Don't let one student walking you around for a bit be your only on-the-ground research.

Anonymous wrote:For an ED/ED2 school, do all of this. Don’t do it for everyone.

Honestly, my kid ended up doing ED at a school that was most responsive in allowing to meet with professors, sit in on classes, etc.

It's hard to say to only do this for an ED/ED2 school, when the fact the school responded and the day went so well was the reason to ED.

^^ pp again.

Ignore the 'ht'. Fat finger.

We've done a bunch of tours for 2 kids and while each school looks special on the day of the tour, a couple of days later you'll realize they are all about the same from an infrastructure (classes, buildings, departments, amenities, dorms, food, etc.) perspective.
We got the most value from visiting and walking around and feeling the vibe. DC1 started college in 2021 and all we did was drive to colleges and walk around.
DC2 will start in 2024 and we thought we'd get more out of in-depth tours. Not so. For the most part, our opinions were set pretty much based on the factor.. whether DC2 liked the vibe or not. That's also really the only reason to visit. Everything else, you can find out on Youtube or reading reviews.

I know at Hamilton they allow you to pick a class to sit in on. We were allowed to at a few more, but most do not allow this.

For an ED/ED2 school, do all of this. Don’t do it for everyone.

Anonymous wrote:Kid is a Junior. We're touring now.

I hear of people sitting in classes, meeting personally with someone from admissions while on campus, etc.

When and how does that happen? I sometimes see a break-away tour for engineering or Northwestern had one for journalism, but otherwise we're on the generic tour like everyone else.

Do we need to get a shorter list and then pursue this? Does this happen after acceptances?

Someone mentioned getting to meet with a small team re: the IR school at Indiana. We would have gone to Indiana and not gotten that, and we're not doing these trips 2x.

I'm wondering how aggressive I need to be about this.

ht
You have to attend a department only tour that, ideally, is not on the same day as the general tour to avoid the crowds. The only time DS sat in a class was when he did a deparment-specific tour of the CMDA program at Virginia Tech. Everywhere else it was walk around campus, look at dining halls, engineering or business school buildings and interiors, etc.

Christ. We just walked around a few campuses to get a feel. Did not even hit close to all he applied to. I went to college never having visited my school in person.

Do you really think colleges want the 56,000 applicants flooding their classes and dormitories?

Do the tour and wait until admitted student day.

Any of the special things you mention were due to my kid reaching out directly to current students in order to sit in on classes, or emailing/calling the academic department of interest to see if there was a bite. Some never responded, while others arranged to meet with a professor who more often than not, gave a "private" tour of that department.

For current students, it is not that hard to find a graduate of my kid's HS that attends any of the big local schools (UMD or UVA) as well as plenty of Ivy schools and places like Pitt, CMU, and Big 10 schools.

You can also look for schools that host "Open Houses" for interested students. Case Western usually hosts several of these a year...you meet with professors and students from the various disciplines, eat at dining service, etcs. It is like an all-day thing on a weekend.

Anonymous wrote:My 2 cents -

1) Create an exclusive email account just for college admissions. Parents and child should have access to it and monitor it.

2) Click on all the links that are in the emails that the college sends to you. They are tracked.

3) Join their online Q and A sessions. Do your research and homework.

4) When you go for a campus tour, it should only be after you have evaluated the college and major at home or it is a waste of time and resources.

5) My kid toured only one college after he got an acceptance letter. He got acceptance letters from several colleges and he chose to tour only the one that was ranked in T-10 in his major. Finally, his choice was between UMD and that school. He chose UMD.

Excellent advice here - especially re: the email account

My 2 cents -

1) Create an exclusive email account just for college admissions. Parents and child should have access to it and monitor it.

2) Click on all the links that are in the emails that the college sends to you. They are tracked.

3) Join their online Q and A sessions. Do your research and homework.

4) When you go for a campus tour, it should only be after you have evaluated the college and major at home or it is a waste of time and resources.

5) My kid toured only one college after he got an acceptance letter. He got acceptance letters from several colleges and he chose to tour only the one that was ranked in T-10 in his major. Finally, his choice was between UMD and that school. He chose UMD.

Some schools do class visits when you do a tour. But you have to go on certain days. Check with schools to see if that’s on offer so you can start doing that.

See if their kids from your kids high school that attend the school so your kid can go to some student activities at serious contenders