Daughter played soccer so she did 15 tours/visits. Those were different tours than the standard and several were overnights. But, we always did the standard tour too. I recommend as many as you can. It was very interesting to see the differences and to realize that after 8 or 9 she could make a decision in an hour or so. (Still finished out the day).

With that experience behind us (she graduated last May and played all 4 years) we made our son graduating high school this past May, go again to all 4 schools he was potentially considering. All were good schools and he liked them all. In the end he picked one that was not the clear favorite going into the process. Easier for him because transferring is not a big deal. Go. Tour. Discuss. A year at school is the economic equivalent of buying a new car - and a nice one at that. Investigate it.

i toured two colleges with a parent, applied to three others, including the one I attended, without visiting. Graduated hs in 1983 in Georgia...most of my peers went to UGA or other state schools, but I couldn't wait to get out of there. Parents broke it to me that I was on my own to pay for college, so I chose the school that offered me a full-tuition scholarship.

Specifically during high school before applying? NONE

All our lives on vacations traveling from one place to another? Definitely over ONE HUNDRED.

By the time we were in middle school I think each of us had a pretty good idea where we wanted to go to school because we had seen so many already. We never did the tours but if we were on our way from the DMV to Upstate New York, for example, then we detoured into Manhattan, Dad drove to Fordham or Columbia, parked, we walked the campus, went to the book store, got back into the car and continued our road trip. Driving through Boston, hey, let's look at BC or Harvard or MIT. In Milwaukee, we saw Marquette. In Houston we saw Rice University and UT. In Omaha we saw Creighton and UNO. You get the picture. Literally every trip we were in the car we did this. My Dad was the first in his family to go to college and he went to a commuter college because he was working his way through. He wanted to be sure that we had more options than he did.

We have done the same with our kids. But we also did a few on-purpose visits junior year, too.

Should add -- that same EC took me to many other college campuses -- and I'd taken classes at two other schools and sat in on a class at yet another. So even though I laid eyes on my college for the first time when I moved in (on my own), I had seen a lot of other universities during my HS years. My parents first saw my college during Spring break of my sophomore year there.

1978 grad, HS in CA. Hadn't visited either school I applied to. Had guaranteed admission to a third school I knew well (visited campus multiple times for an EC; never did a tour)

I grew up in MA in the mid-80's and was a scholarship student at a prep school. My parents were not willing/able to pay anything for college because they didn't want me to go away to school so I had to do it all on my own pretty much. I researched many schools and visited friends (took the bus) who were at those colleges so that I could tour and do interviews. My focus was NESCAC and I ended up at one that I had visited and got a decent financial aid package, though I had work a lot to make up the $7-9K delta between aid and what they thought my parents could pay.

In the end it was well worth it and I would do it again but I'm helping my kids because I don't want them to deal with as much work stress as I did!

None. I went to a university I had never visited before.

Wait--I take that back---I went along with a friend on her visit to UVA.

I graduated in 1982. We went on a western Mass tour of about 6 campuses - did the tours. Went to a day recruitment program at Wheaton. We looked at Colleges in the Midwest- had tours at Iowa State, Carleton and McAlister-on campus interviews at the last two. We did a southern tour and saw UVA, Virginia Tech and W&M. We lived in Massachusetts, had family in Iowa and Virginia.

Didn't tour. Not taking kids on a tour. I don't see the point.

Graduated high school in '04 and grew up in the suburbs outside Boston. Visited 10 colleges (a couple more than once). My brother is a year older and if you add in the colleges I visited with him, it would be 16.

My parents made me visit some ones in the states nearby but for the most part, I was able to choose where I wanted to look. Did full tours at all of them. My parents had no restrictions.

3

My son only visited 2.

I graduated from high school in the late '70s, and toured no colleges. I had no money or time to tour colleges because I had to work when there was no school. I had enough application money to apply to W&M and UVA, because that would be what we could afford and I knew I could get in. My family paid some, and I worked and had a loan for the rest. It was much cheaper then. I wanted to go to one of the Seven Sisters, but didn't think I could afford it.

Anonymous wrote:Graduated high school in 99. My parents took me on 2 tours. I went on about 5 college tours with my friends for day trips (they gave us excused absences from high school to visit colleges, so we were thrilled to drive a couple hours away by ourselves and walk around colleges).

Grew up in Chicago.

Graduated high school in 99. My parents took me on 2 tours. I went on about 5 college tours with my friends for day trips (they gave us excused absences from high school to visit colleges, so we were thrilled to drive a couple hours away by ourselves and walk around colleges).

Visited 2 privates in the Boston area (not Ivy) and then decided that UVA was the best financial decision.