Five college visit tips

On the surface, planning college visits might not seem that complicated.  But parents who have already been through the college admissions process with an older child will sometimes recount tales of marathon college tours in which they visited twelve colleges in three days, narrowly missing the world record for college visitations after suffering a flat tire eighteen miles outside of Toledo.  And if you’re going to be visiting schools a great distance from your home, the time and expense can mount quickly.

But visits are still an important part of the college search process.  So here are a few guidelines to make the experience both productive and enjoyable.

1.  Don’t visit your dream school that you already love.

Ironically, the first school a lot of families choose to visit is their student's dream college.  And a lot of students’ dream colleges are, unfortunately, schools where their chances of admission are not strong. Sure, you might visit your dream college and decide that it’s not the match you thought it was.  But what usually happens is that you come away even more in love than you were before.  Instead of widening your college choices by visiting schools where your chances of admission are solid, you’re narrowing the pool by renewing your vows to your dream school.  Now you’ve really set yourself up for heartbreak.  Save the visits to your dream colleges until you find out whether or not you've been admitted.

2.  Remember that you don’t have to visit all the schools before you apply.

Very few applicants are actually able to visit all of their schools before they apply, especially if some of the schools on the list are a good distance away.  One of the important things to remember is that you apply to colleges in October and November, and unless you’re applying to an early decision program, you won’t hear back from most until March.  And after that, if you are accepted, you still have until May 1st to make up your mind.  So that means there will be five to seven months after you apply when you can still visit colleges.   

3. If you don’t like the school, that doesn’t mean that the visit was a waste.

Some students get a little depressed when they are disappointed during a visit to a school that previously interested them.  Don’t worry about it.  This is a good thing.  Every time you change your mind based on a visit, you are becoming a savvier college shopper. 

4. Don’t do the marathon tour.

It is possible to commit college visit overkill and try to see too many colleges in one trip.  I can’t give you a golden rule of thumb as far as how many schools to visit on one trip.  But you need to be realistic about what you can accomplish.  I'm a college junkie who will see schools anywhere I happen to be visiting.  But even I can't see more than 2, maybe 3 schools in day before I'm ready to do something else.

5. Plan, but don't over plan.

I've read books that advise students to take the tour when they visit a college, eat in the cafeteria, sit in on a class, interview faculty, stay overnight in a dorm, tour the library...the list goes on.  Truthfully, I can't imagine most high school students a) wanting to do all of those things, or b) finding the time to do those things for every college on their list.  It's not realistic and it's certainly not fun. 

Yes, it's probably a good idea to contact the campus tour office and make some formal arrangements for your visit.  And once you're admitted, there will likely be some schools that deserve more time to give a thorough evaluation, maybe even one that includes a visit to a class and an overnight stay.

But until that time, most college visits don't need to be so rigorously planned.  Take the tour, look around, maybe have lunch, try to imagine what it would be like to attend, and enjoy yourself.   

As Jay Mathews advises in Harvard Schmarvard:

"Why are we visiting campuses, anyway?  To sniff the wind, get a mental picture, sample the ambiance, collect written material, listen to the admissions presentation, ask some questions and have a little fun. That's right.  I said it.  The f-word.  Applying to college is stressful enough without making every step in the process a clipboard-toting ordeal...Learn what you can without crossing the line from joyful discovery to a footnoted audit report for the board of directors."