Three visits, applied ED to one, and done.

Visited 8 schools, a majority of which included formal tours and a few of which were just wandering around for half a day. Would have visited more but for geography and financial limitations.

Applied to 12 schools, including 6 never-visited schools.

Did flyouts for admitted student events at 2 schools and would have done a third but for an academic competition. DC committed to one of those 2 schools.

Got off the waitlist at one of the other never-visited schools and committed. It was a little concerning, but the school seems like a perfect fit and DD had a pretty good sense of what she was looking for by that point. As one would expect, the overnight admitted student events provided much more insight than other kinds of visits.

Anonymous wrote:We have a very tentative list for our DC, and we’re starting to make plans for visits. Some flying, but also a lot of driving (VA, PA, NY and New England.) My sense is DC will veto some schools quickly which will help us make decisions on similar schools. We are, however, likely to be a donut hole family so I would like to take a few extra rolls of the dice to see what we get. If your DCs have applied recently, did you feel you visited enough schools to get a general sense of their options. Thanks for any advice.

Over 20, also started sophomore year, it helps to have lots of options. Be sure they know the financial restrictions you have so they do not fall in love with a school that they do not realize is unaffordable .

Anonymous wrote:Five. DS is a good student but not amazing (mix of As and B+s) so we really tried to target likely admits and not waste time.

Sounds amazing to me. What schools did you visit? Mine is the same.

Visited only 2 . Broke it down after acceptances.

Kid 1 visited 8. An additional 3 for kid 2 who was a drag a long with kid 1.

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 ?

Not PP but for us it made sense to visit after admittance just to be sure there weren't any non-negotiable that presented itself for my child. They had other options so it was more like a confirmation visit that it was indeed their first choice still.

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.

same for mine. Got into 4 T10s but WL to WashU and Vanderbilt

Anonymous wrote:Visited 11. Too many tbh.

Kid applied to 22.

Going to Ivy - not visited until after being admitted.

We did 27.

2

Anonymous wrote:How do people find the time to visit 10+ schools during the school year, especially when the schools are not close? Are these summer visits? Done over spring break? Wondering how we will make this work when kid has weekend extracurricular commitments.

We started early, beginning Sophomore year. Including local schools, have been to 26. 15 of which were formal tours/info sessions. We happen to road trip vacations/visit family and have made stops along the way and/or visited schools while in town visiting family. So most of these visits, save for using a spring break have been summer/holiday visits. So downside is school is not in session. However, the visits have been helpful in identifying what is liked/disliked. And actually pretty fun. Went to visit Williams, for example. It was on a Sunday in the summer, so about as dead as could be, but have never been to through the Berkshires before. It was beautiful and peaceful. Did a self-guided tour. Learned a bit about the school and area, realized it is way too rural, but enjoyed an area of the country that we may never have cause to get to again.

In some places it's easy to hit a lot of campuses, particularly Boston area for example. Could just drive by Boston U. and say "nope" because we have been to similar campuses and know thats not the preferred vibe.

OP here. Thanks everyone. We are starting with some local visits to get a sense of DCs likes and then we’ll take some driving trips to start small. We also want to fly both to Chicago and California. There are a few other schools that others have mentioned here (Wash U, Vanderbilt, Rice, Tulane, Emory) that would require flying, but we’re not sure about yet.

Do you need to do an official tour to "express interest"? DC is a rising junior and we planned on some drive through, relaxed visits this summer, walk the campus, visit the bookstore, get a bite to eat, but not necessarily a scheduled tour. More getting an idea of the size, type (public, private, religious), setting (urban/suburban/rural) to focus on than the specific school. Thoughts on this approach?

Anonymous wrote:How do people find the time to visit 10+ schools during the school year, especially when the schools are not close? Are these summer visits? Done over spring break? Wondering how we will make this work when kid has weekend extracurricular commitments.

We did a lot but could only do over school breaks as also over committed. Fall break flying to a few in proximity and then hit several more on a road trip over spring break. The rest were local enough to be done on a random free day.

How do people find the time to visit 10+ schools during the school year, especially when the schools are not close? Are these summer visits? Done over spring break? Wondering how we will make this work when kid has weekend extracurricular commitments.