Anonymous wrote:In 1979 when I applied college I applied myself. Paid for my own SAT and college application and school I picked I never saw in person.

My mom dropped me off train station with a duffel bag, my clock radio, pillow and sheets and some clothes and off I went. My mom
Said I will see the school at graduation.

How did parents become so involved?

You know, I did the same things when I was in HS applying to college as you back in the 90's. I did everything myself, didn't visit colleges I was applying to, etc. Some of these apps were extremely rushed last minute efforts but I still got in. But open your eyes. The times have really changed, and if you did the same thing today, you would probably not fare nearly as well unless you are talking about applying only to low ranked safety schools. Many colleges track interest and will be far less likely to admit a kid who hasn't visited. Costs are also sky high and a serious investment for a family, even taking into account inflation. Please acknowledge reality.

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.

Every half day we visited nearby schools (Pitt, Penn State), took a long weekend plus an extra day to visit 5 in the Boston area, one day to visit Philly schools, Presidents Day and MLK day to visit schools we had to fly to, plus took off a few random days

Toured 5 between Sophomore and Junior year, (and we were living in Europe at the time).
Applied to 10.

Anonymous wrote:In 1979 when I applied college I applied myself. Paid for my own SAT and college application and school I picked I never saw in person.

My mom dropped me off train station with a duffel bag, my clock radio, pillow and sheets and some clothes and off I went. My mom
Said I will see the school at graduation.

How did parents become so involved?

Ah yes, my FIL also likes to tell the story about how he got dropped off at the train station and then how tuition was increased to $800 his senior year in the 50s.
Even 90s anecdotes are worthless, as the cost has risen and common app makes it easy to apply for 20 schools.
And when parents are footing the bill in the multiple 100s of thousands, it makes sense for them to be involved.

Anonymous wrote:In 1979 when I applied college I applied myself. Paid for my own SAT and college application and school I picked I never saw in person.

My mom dropped me off train station with a duffel bag, my clock radio, pillow and sheets and some clothes and off I went. My mom
Said I will see the school at graduation.

How did parents become so involved?

I think you may have been a unique case. My father entered college in 1987—in India, no less—and I distinctively remember him describing having visited his top two choices, as he ultimately chose to turn one of them down due to the crummy housing.

Toured 6
Applied to 6 (one we toured he didn't apply to and he applied to one we didn't get tour)

But he didn't want to go far or want a small school, so they were all within 2 hrs or so. We looked at some rural/urban schools and some medium to large schools. All were target/safeties (with one reach.) Got into 5/6 of them.

Visited 8, applied to 11. Picked one that they had visited.

One of DC’s good friends visited 20 and ended up EDing to the school in our hometown. those visits helped him be sure!

With our oldest we visited a ton of schools. Early visits were more about looking at size and getting a sense for location (rural, suburban, urban). Later visits were more focused on where he might want to apply. He ended up choosing a school a plan ride away that we didn't visit until after he was accepted.

In our experience, tours are helpful but the in-person info sessions are a waste of time; they are all exactly the same. Save yourself the time and skip them (or do the virtual ones). The tours are helpful but really only during the school year when students are around…I’d say it’s better to do a self-guided tour during the school year than an official tour during summer.

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.

Started 10th grade spring break. Hitting a few more over the summer.

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.

When all is said and done DC will have visited 15 OOS schools plus some select UC’s (we’re in CA).

Of the 15 OOS, they liked about half and intends to apply to those + other likely and target schools they didn’t see.

More focused on visits after admissions after we wrap the last school visits this summer.

I think we visited 8 or 9 out of the 10 he applied to. The other ones we visited during accepted students' day.

Anonymous wrote:In 1979 when I applied college I applied myself. Paid for my own SAT and college application and school I picked I never saw in person.

My mom dropped me off train station with a duffel bag, my clock radio, pillow and sheets and some clothes and off I went. My mom
Said I will see the school at graduation.

How did parents become so involved?

Ummm.
You’ve posted here before and I mean this in the nicest way….you are really really OLD.

Anonymous wrote:In 1979 when I applied college I applied myself. Paid for my own SAT and college application and school I picked I never saw in person.

My mom dropped me off train station with a duffel bag, my clock radio, pillow and sheets and some clothes and off I went. My mom
Said I will see the school at graduation.

How did parents become so involved?

A lot has changed in 45 years.

In 1979 when I applied college I applied myself. Paid for my own SAT and college application and school I picked I never saw in person.

My mom dropped me off train station with a duffel bag, my clock radio, pillow and sheets and some clothes and off I went. My mom
Said I will see the school at graduation.

How did parents become so involved?