Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Visits make sense if there's a possibility it might be a #1 choice (and thus affect a decision to apply ED there, if offered, or at least to not apply ED anywhere else).

Also makes sense to visit if you are high income/private high school and the college tracks demonstrated interest. We’ve heard anecdotally that if you have the means to visit and you don’t, that says a lot to the college.

This was interesting to me and another friend noted same. Both our kids added on a few highly ranked schools that are known to not like being back-ups to T10/Ivies. They say they don’t track interest. Kids both gave 110% effort to all essays. All waitlists and both got into higher ranked schools and ivies. Could be pure coincidence but interesting.

Rice and Vandy and WashU notorious for this.

D24 visited 10 schools. It really helped to determine if she wanted to ED (she did, successfully). 2 of those schools (on one trip) were "tagalong" visits with S24 that she probably would not have visited otherwise.

S24 visited 7 schools. He was a recruited athlete, 3 were official visits, all others were "invited" visits but not official.

7 before submitting applications -- all drivable and mostly safeties/targets

3 after acceptances including 1 repeat

It worked for us and I'm glad we didn't waste money on flying to high targets/reaches.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Visits make sense if there's a possibility it might be a #1 choice (and thus affect a decision to apply ED there, if offered, or at least to not apply ED anywhere else).

Also makes sense to visit if you are high income/private high school and the college tracks demonstrated interest. We’ve heard anecdotally that if you have the means to visit and you don’t, that says a lot to the college.

This was interesting to me and another friend noted same. Both our kids added on a few highly ranked schools that are known to not like being back-ups to T10/Ivies. They say they don’t track interest. Kids both gave 110% effort to all essays. All waitlists and both got into higher ranked schools and ivies. Could be pure coincidence but interesting.

Anonymous wrote:Visits make sense if there's a possibility it might be a #1 choice (and thus affect a decision to apply ED there, if offered, or at least to not apply ED anywhere else).

Also makes sense to visit if you are high income/private high school and the college tracks demonstrated interest. We’ve heard anecdotally that if you have the means to visit and you don’t, that says a lot to the college.

Approx 10 with each kid. And, each kid only vetoed one from the tour - the rest they applied to

Visits make sense if there's a possibility it might be a #1 choice (and thus affect a decision to apply ED there, if offered, or at least to not apply ED anywhere else).

Visited 12 schools, applied to 11 of them and another 8 without visiting. We had fun and enjoy traveling. Funny to think back that we really liked all, only school dropped was U of Chicago and that was only because of their games. She was only interested in regular decision so figured no point.

We've been to 15 so far.

A cluster was in an area where we were on vacation and wouldn't likely be there again (only 2 were formal tours). We saw 3 in one trip to Boston. Many others were pared with trips we already had for events or long weekends. We have one more planned over labor day weekend and kid may go see another VA one this fall after friends have started. It's too many, sure, but the west coast cluster was a real interest at the time and we were going to be there anyway.

My kids have visited

5 US colleges (East & West coasts)
5 UK colleges (including Oxford)

2 - and not until after she got admitted.
Luckily top choice and second choice were in the same state. After she confirmed her top choice, no need to visit the rest.

We went to Boston (3 schools), Chicago (2), Phila (2), and Pittsburgh (2). Ended up with 3 of those schools on the final list, which I thought was a decent outcome for time spent. Saw some others unofficially when traveling for sports. There wasn’t enough time in anyone’s schedule to visit more, so we would have visited some others as necessary after acceptances came in, but didn’t need to thanks to good ED news.

We visited 2 with real intent in mind and 3 prior to that. Realistically my kids are likely bound for one of the first two (regional universities) so we don't think it's worth the travel expense visiting flagship and other options unless they get in. We will apply and visit ones they get into.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Visited 11. Too many tbh.

Kid applied to 22.

Going to Ivy - not visited until after being admitted.

Given that your kid went to a school that he had not visited does it even make sense to do a college tour ?

It does for some schools and to know what feel /size/location you generally want. Don’t waste time visiting ivies unless you are already there. It was a surprising long shot. And kid only applied to two ivies (not all)….

Kid visited twice before accepting on May 1.

I absolutely think it’s worth visiting! We are in the process of visiting schools and have visited 9 schools. We have a very good idea of what she wants based on these visits. There are schools we would have wasted our $ applying to, that are no longer on her list. We also added schools that seem similar to what she likes but we will not visit unless she is accepted. And if she chooses one of these, the college tours are what put them on our radar in the first place!