Some schools value demonstrated interest. For those, you absolutely need to visit in-person. You should be able to find that out from a school’s website.

For other schools that may be farther away from you, I recommend visiting only after an acceptance.

The college tour slog is nothing that anyone has time for but we have found it to be invaluable (while also painful...).

Top benefits:
-Experience different sized schools. Our kids (twins) thought they would hate a small school (and wanted a big state school) but at least one is now going to ED to a smaller school.

-Get a feel for the student body. Many schools have definitive personalities. We have been to a few that my kids knew almost immediately were their place (or not). It's striking.

The tours themselves are almost always the same or can be picked up by reading online... (blah, blah, blah about study abroad opportunities, class size, amenities, etc).

It's the first two things that we have found to be INVALUABLE.

We have a very busy kid as well. She's seen some schools with our eldest, so she has a general idea of what she likes. We will want her to apply ED/REA somewhere, so I think we will try to get her to pinpoint a smaller list of those possibilities and try to get to them sometime next year. As far as the rest, we'll wait to see how it all shakes out.

Make the effort to visit a variety of schools nearby. Our DC applied all over the country, but we didn’t get on a plane until acceptances were in hand. Particularly if this is your first kid. They have an abstract understanding of college but if they haven’t been on campus in a meaningful way for a tour and info session, that is worth the effort.

A downside to waiting for admitted student days is that it is even harder to find time to fit those in at the end of senior year.

Do you have a child who can distinguish between visiting a school knowing it's representative of a certain type, or will they fall in love with a specific school? You could easily do a loop in Virginia over spring break and visit a wide range of schools. Take 95S and stop at U. of Richmond and W&M. Cut across the state to visit VT and Radford. Continue north to U of Lynchburg. Cut over to Charlottesville to UVA and then back up 81 with a stop at JMU. That's 7 schools in 9 days or so of a range of sizes and settings? Or cut it down to 5 schools if it feels like too much.

Take one or two of those teacher work days next fall to tour a few of the DC-area schools. UMd, Georgetown, Catholic, GW. Where are those summer family visits? Find the nearest college and go wander the campus, take a tour.

YMMV but I think it's important not just to start with a list of what you think your child will like, but to have them start to think about the process early.

Not sure why you can’t visit a few schools during one or two long weekends or spring break? My DC found it useful.

Anonymous wrote:We have a rising junior, and we've casually seen some campuses during trips but not anything intentional. Now that we're entering junior year, I don't see when we're going to find time to do actual college visits before application. I don't see it happening during junior year, winter break, or spring break. Summers are filled with jobs, family visits, and summer programs. I'm also thinking better not to visit some schools and gets hopes up... isn't it better to apply to colleges and visit the ones you get into?

Between my spouse and I, we have experience at a suburban school, mid-size Ivy, a LAC, and an Ivy in a big city. And knowing our kid, I think we can describe some of the types of colleges as they make their list.

What are we missing that we can't learn online or talking about our experiences?

Research colleges that would be a match, or even a safety, and visit those. Also keep financials in mind. Don't take your kid to Harvard if he/she doesn't have a chance. Also don't visit $70K a year schools if it's not in the financial picture.

I'm not sure why you think you can't do these visits.

I agree, pick a representative handful, then follow up with the others after your child has gotten accepted. But in our case, visits were REALLY helpful. (Also, one of my kids loved the whole process, and probably would have visited more.)

If your DC was only going to consider big state schools, out of state and in state, I'd say you could put off the visiting. Apply widely. See where DC gets in. But if you include any consideration of privates, fit matters and showing interest matters.

My DS thought he wanted a larger school. When doing some family trips we visited Temple, Pitt, BU, NEU.
I thought my kid might do better at a smaller school and he visited a Midwest LAC and fell in love with it. We pivoted and visited more smaller schools and they felt right for him.

I encourage you to try and visit schools with students on campus to get the vibe of different size / styles (even if they are not the choices of your students) and start narrowing it down to what feels right.

Best of luck - it is really fun to see how our children process things and what energizes them through selecting colleges.

We just visited local schools to get an idea of what type of schools DC might like - since it was all local, just a few hours here and there.
DC also did a lot of online admission sessions when it worked with their schedule.
Then they did admitted students days. Three of them were over spring break, so it worked out fine. They did not visit every college they applied to, because 1)they didn't get in, 2) finances did not work out, or 3) some safeties dropped off the list when better offers came up.

Everyone has busy lives, you aren't unique. Make some time to visit some colleges.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a rising junior, and we've casually seen some campuses during trips but not anything intentional. Now that we're entering junior year, I don't see when we're going to find time to do actual college visits before application. I don't see it happening during junior year, winter break, or spring break. Summers are filled with jobs, family visits, and summer programs. I'm also thinking better not to visit some schools and gets hopes up... isn't it better to apply to colleges and visit the ones you get into?

Between my spouse and I, we have experience at a suburban school,
mid-size Ivy, a LAC, and an Ivy in a big cit. And knowing our kid, I think we can describe some of the types of colleges as they make their list.

What are we missing that we can't learn online or talking about our experiences?

If these are the places you think your DC is applying to then no, I would not visit. Those are the places everyone applies to and seem to want to go to even if they know nothing about them. Just because they are prestigious.

Our tours have been only targets and matches so far, to see which of those DC gets excited about. We will visit one or two reaches in the fall (currently a junior) after his junior year grades are done and after the Aug SAT is that we will know what is a realistic reach vs pipe dream. But my advice is build from bottom up. Get them excited about targets and matches. Then find some reaches later after they’ve found some in the first categories they can see themselves being happy at. The worst way to do it is to start with “dream schools” and go down the rankings from there.

Totally agree. The Application process has become such a crap shoot. I wanted our DC to fall in deep like with several schools and once he applies, we will see who likes him back!

Anonymous wrote:We have a rising junior, and we've casually seen some campuses during trips but not anything intentional. Now that we're entering junior year, I don't see when we're going to find time to do actual college visits before application. I don't see it happening during junior year, winter break, or spring break. Summers are filled with jobs, family visits, and summer programs. I'm also thinking better not to visit some schools and gets hopes up... isn't it better to apply to colleges and visit the ones you get into?

Between my spouse and I, we have experience at a suburban school, mid-size Ivy, a LAC, and an Ivy in a big city. And knowing our kid, I think we can describe some of the types of colleges as they make their list.

What are we missing that we can't learn online or talking about our experiences?

The time between acceptance (typically sometime in March unless you are accepted in ED) and the time you have to commit (typically May 1) is so short. You think you will have time to do all the visits during that short period, but not at all during the whole 1.5 years from now until fall of your kid's senior year?