Some kids are a bundle of energy & are in constant motion, while others hate walking across the street. I have one of each. After visiting a lot of campuses, we realized the less-energetic one was generally going to prefer schools with these features:

1. A pretty flat campus. No Lehigh or WVU.

2. A campus that is fairly compact. No half-hour hikes to get to class. The school can have a large enrollment, as long as campus isn’t spread out over a huge area, and dorms are fairly close to academic buildings. So, no Michigan State, Illinois, or Indiana.

3. A business district right next to campus, so no long walks or bus rides to get to stores or restaurants. So, no Duke, Richmond, Wake Forest, or Rochester.

Since energetic one was going out & about all day, every day, she preferred schools that had enough people that you aren’t running into the same people again & again.

I actually think sophomore year is the time to start since it helps put a pot at the end of the rainbow. Sometimes visiting an extreme reach can make them realize it's what they want or helps them find things in common with other schools that are more targets.

I wouldn’t do a big trip with a sophomore yet. And when you do visit places just visit a convenient to wherever you are

Large public in a cool college town (Wisconsin)
Large public in a city (Pitt)
Small LAC in the middle of nowhere (Oberlin)
Small LAC in a suburb (..blanking here but someone will have an ex for you)
Small LAC in a city (Macalester)

Do not visit Ivies, super reaches, until you get in

Apply widely and fall in love with safeties and fits.

Believe us parents of current seniors when we say it’s a much harder game than when we applied to college. You might hit the lottery, but you might not.

Good luck

Cute idea to have the middle school kid take pictures!

I loved going on tours with my DC. Enjoy your time and you kid will figure it out.

Thanks for the tips.
I have middle school kid tagging along and I asked him to take point on taking pictures.
We are signed up for official school tours and both schools will be a "likely" (the SCOIR scattergram for the school is all green for 1 school and more than 90% for the 2nd school).
I wanted to do tours when students were on campus at least for the initial tours to get a sense of the broader campus feel - so this is the right time for our family to start. We are signed up for the information session / tour through admissions as I thought right now being there any longer will be too much - and I want to add some fun things into the trip!

Did your kid attend school specific tour/Q&A like offered by school of arts and sciences, etc. in addition to general campus tour and admission info session? Just to get a feel for the campus, is it enough to take only general campus tour?

Anonymous wrote:Just soak it in. Your child will probably start drawing some conclusions within a few visits.

Something that's occurred to me after getting two kids through the process is that you can kind of pick up on energy level and access to professors, even from a packaged visit. We've seen some schools where there was a feeling of warmth and excitement, and others that were a little dead or cynical. We've seen some where the main point of contact is an admissions dean, and others where they very easily connect you with a professor in your kid's field of interest. This all adds up as you move through the process.

Oh, my husband and I like to grab a student newspaper when we can. THAT usually sheds a lot of light!

+1 My daughter always makes sure to find the school newspaper and reads it on the way home