Anonymous wrote:

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

+1. Biggest waste of time. Only done by parents living through their kids, so they can brag at work and on facebook about visiting Princeton.

There was no Facebook when I was applying to schools so no bragging. I didn't think it was a waste of time.

Graduated 1999, from CT.
Looked at too many to remember, did overnights at a bunch, second visits, etc. Some I chose, some my parents insisted on us seeing. We did a spring break of junior year tour of D.C. and PA colleges, plus my dad and I flew to St. Louis at some point to do Wash U. Always did a minimum of the official tour and info session.

They humored me with Wash U because of the combined BA/MD program, but really wanted me to stay on the east coast, so refused to go any further west than that.

I graduated 2008. I was told I was going to the flagship state university. I applied to 5 colleges, got into all and went to the flagship state university. Loved every minute of it and loved that big state college feel. I only toured 2 colleges I believe.

If there was an expectation in your family that you would go to college after high school, did your parents take you to visit many different campuses? We did visit a variety of campuses, however, some of that was tagging along with my sister's college visits because she was just one year ahead of me in school. Nearly all our tours were UC and CA State Universities. I applied to a few out-of-state private colleges with the expectation that I'd go out for a tour if accepted and given sufficient aid to match the cost of in-state public schools. Was accepted everywhere but they were all too expensive.

Did you go on full tours, or just kind of stop by and look around on your own? Full tours, except for UCLA. I'd been there a number of times over the years with school trips/events so I felt like I was pretty familiar with it.

Did you get to choose which colleges you visited? Yes, although my dad did push me on visiting Cal Poly. It was his favorite school for recruiting new grads and so he really thought I should go there. I'd glad he did because I ended up loving it and went there.

Did your parents have any limits on what you could not visit (for example, if a college was very far away)? Only as above, that far-away schools would have to wait until accepted/real chance of attending.

And finally, what year did you graduate high school and what area did you grow up in? Graduated 1987, southern California.

Graduated HS in 1998. Recruited for a D1 sport. Went on 4 official overnight visits and 2 daytime tours.

If there was an expectation in your family that you would go to college after high school, did your parents take you to visit many different campuses? Yep, maybe a dozen or so?

Did you go on full tours, or just kind of stop by and look around on your own? Toured most of them, I think.

Did you get to choose which colleges you visited? Yep.

Did your parents have any limits on what you could not visit (for example, if a college was very far away)? Not that I came up against. I didn't try for anything outlandish, but if they thought it was a serious interest they would have been okay with it, I imagine.

And finally, what year did you graduate high school and what area did you grow up in? 2002, DC, went to Catholic school in MD.

Graduated in the mid-90s. College was generally expected, but not required as long as you had some kind of plan to get out of the house and get a job.

We visited no colleges, as it was basically decided for me that I would be attending the local community college. They were broke, and this was before there was so much information available about how to work the system for scholarships.

I only seriously visited 4 colleges, where I had interviews. But I had seen other colleges with friends, when they were doing the rounds (within train commuting distance of where we lived, etc).

Unless you are applying to a huge city and come from a farm, or are applying to somewhere remote in upstate NY and you have grown up in a city or semi-urban environment and really don't know if you can handle the contrast, I don't honestly see the point of visits at all.

Graduated high school in the mid-90s, Pacific Northwest.

Before I applied, did a quick swing through one school while we happened to be vacationing in the area - maybe an hour or two.

After I got all of my acceptances (and one rejection), I went to my top 2 choices for a full tour, including an overnight at each (both schools had a program for extended pre-freshman visits). Made my selection based on that. Those visits were student-only, so my parents never got the full tours.

No real restrictions, we just did what made sense. They'd have found a way to support me going anywhere I really had my heart set on.

Took a train and a bus to New England myself and visited 5 College Consortium. That's it.

We only toured one as it was the college my desperately mother wanted me to attend and was the only school I was allowed to apply to. It was a reach school so it's pretty lucky I was able to get in.

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

+1. Biggest waste of time. Only done by parents living through their kids, so they can brag at work and on facebook about visiting Princeton.

0. I grew up in Michigan and knew I wanted to go to UMich from the time I was in middle school. Had been on the campus tons for events, football games, etc. all throughout my childhood so was very familiar. I also applied to MSU but we didn't tour.

Many of my friends from college are faculty so, we often visit their campuses when we see them. By the time DC was in high school, he knew what many of the competitive colleges look like and developed preferences for geography and school vibe. College visits were limited 5 colleges to develop his list of foundation schools, rather than the reach schools he already knows pretty well.

Lived near UMCP so I had been to the campus before but didn't officially do a tour. That was the only school I applied to. Graduated HS in 88. It was a good choicee. Majored in biology and I now have a reasonably successful career in biomedical research.