Anonymous wrote:Junior year. Start with safeties. The first schools you visit will always seem more interesting so you never want to start with the best schools out there.

^this. I have a senior and 2 out of her 3 faves are super safeties. Made the process so stress free!

It is very hard to carve out time for visits so do the best you can. But if possible, especially for final visits, you ideally want to go on a "normal" day when students are there. So not in the summer when it is empty. And not on some big celebratory weekend where they are rolling out the red carpet. The only visit to a big football school should not be for a game. As much as it is great and definitely an important part of the culture, the vast majority of the days are not football Saturdays.

Anonymous wrote:We have a sophomore. Did you start doing college visits sophomore year or wait til junior and senior year? We have such busy schedules, I can't imagine finding the time to visit all these colleges without starting now.

We started spring of sophomore year. Didn't visit all he applied to but visited most, and a lot he didn't end up applying to, bc that is how he figure out what he liked.

Anonymous wrote:I am gonna say again - our visit to the ODU open house was the most fun visit we had. While most of our visits were quite personalized (smaller schools generally), which was good in its own way, we found the presentations and just good vibes contagious.

I highly recommend a larger open house or accepted students day if you can. They are just fun.

Ok

No. Visited different types of schools to give them a feel(large, medium , SLAC, closed campus, open campus). From there they used virtual tours, website data, in school college visits, college fairs, to make their list. You can visit once they get accepted to make final decision.

It's important to visit possible ED choice.

As sophomore visit ones near you in buckets of interest, i.e. small, big, suburban, urban, public, private for kid to get a sense of what feels right for them. Use that to figure out which ones to visit in junior year. I can't imagine Ed'ing without visiting. Some of the colleges mine thought they would love they didn't.

Anonymous wrote:We have a sophomore. Did you start doing college visits sophomore year or wait til junior and senior year? We have such busy schedules, I can't imagine finding the time to visit all these colleges without starting now.

Informal walk throughs sophomore year. Did not visit all, but most prior to applying.

We visited 8/22 schools my son applied to. We visited the final 2 choices a second time while deciding.

Yeah, my DS was sure he was going to accept admittance to one school until he went to the accepted student event of another. I have no idea what they put in the water.

I am gonna say again - our visit to the ODU open house was the most fun visit we had. While most of our visits were quite personalized (smaller schools generally), which was good in its own way, we found the presentations and just good vibes contagious.

I highly recommend a larger open house or accepted students day if you can. They are just fun.

DC applied to half the schools we visited (8/16) and then about 6 we didn't. The ones we didn't visit were either high reaches or safeties that were kind of a wasted application anyway. DC only applied to one school we visited before junior year. A lof can change between sophomore year and application time. DC ended up removing all urban schools b/c once they saw the style they liked, the less defined campus lost all appeal.

Anonymous wrote:We have a sophomore. Did you start doing college visits sophomore year or wait til junior and senior year? We have such busy schedules, I can't imagine finding the time to visit all these colleges without starting now.

Shocking but some people wait until they are accepted by a college to visit the college. You can do virtual tours and so much is online nowadays. Yes yes it s not the same. Wonder if international students visit campuses before they apply.

Nope
DD applied to 11, and of those had visited 4 of them. I will say, it's very empowering to visit once they are admitted (and merit aid, true cost of attendance is known)

DS applied to 4, and of those had visited 1

Both cases the they chose a school they had not seen until after they were accepted - it just happened that way. Every family is different. Do what works for your family, what you can make work.

Started sophomore year but we’re crimes if opportunity. We drove and walked around on our own, usually on weekends. Helped her get a feel for the type of school that appealed to her…big/small, urban/shburban/rural, private/public, elite/normal, etc. Of the 11 she’s applied to, she’s set foot on 4. Visited about 10 she didn’t want to apply to.