Did you visit all the colleges before applying?

[Nan in Mass]

We visited some and didn't visit others. It wasn't practical to visit over Christmas.

 

Nan

[Hoggirl]

We haven't applied yet, but we have been visiting! Schools we have officially visited (meaning attending information sessions, tours, etc.) are: Vanderbilt, Belmont, Stanford, and Rice. Schools where ds has been on campus for an extended period of time due to summer programs are: Trinity University in San Antonio, Duke University, and Indiana University. Stanford was also for a summer program but we did the info session before that started. Schools where ds has been on campus because we have attended SEC away football games are: University of Florida, University of Georgia, and the University of Alabama. Drive by school was SMU where we just walked around on campus. Pretty similar to football game school visits but no football game going on.

 

We are in the process of planning a trip for ds's February break which is three days. We will do the local university on a single day that ds is off in April. Ds is considering a summer program at another school, and we may take one last trip in October of his senior year depending on what he has decided to do application-wise. It sounds like a lot (it is), but the only "purposeful" trips (meaning we weren't on the way to somewhere else, it wasn't in conjunction with a summer program, or the trip wasn't associated with traveling to a football game or elsewhere) have been Belmont and Rice.

 

 

[regentrude]

No, we won't visit all. We are in the Midwest, so travel to the coasts is time consuming and expensive. We will visit a selection, most likely of the ones in the middle (the reach schools are no-brainers; we don't have to visit. )

[Luckymama]

Dd visited three of the six school she applied to. She attended in-school information sessions for the other three. She actually visited other schools last summer but crossed them off her longer list after visiting.

[Jane in NC]

No. Schools that have scholarships tied to "scholar weekends" were not visited in advance. We figured that we had to fund our son's travel to those events so why make two trips.

 

Visiting is critical though. One school was great on paper and generous with merit aid. But the Greek presence in the social life on campus completely turned The Boy off. That is one of those things a reader of websites cannot really determine.

[Brenda in MA]

We visited 7 of the 8 schools prior to my son's applications. The last one we visited after he was accepted and was trying to make a decision. Visiting schools up front was part of our "show the love" strategy, plus it really helped my son to rank the schools in his mind. Some of them were quite far away, so we were able to coordinate a summer vacation trip with those college visits.

 

I echo Jane's sentiments. All the schools looked appealing on paper, but two of the visits turned off my son. The cafeteria food was uninspiring at one place, and the hugeness of another was not desirable.

 

Brenda

[Kareni]

My daughter had visited about half of the ten schools to which she applied before she did apply. Several other schools were visited for scholarship events.

 

I agree with Jane that a visit is critical. Had my daughter been accepted only to schools she had not visited, we would have arranged additional visits.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[cathmom]

No and we should have. All of the colleges he applied to were within a couple of hours except one, and he did visit that one; however we had 2 yo twins and we just didn't prioritize it. I think that if he had done official visits his acceptance rates would have been better. As a college, I would think that if an applicant lives close enough to visit but doesn't, that shows that they don't really want to attend.

[cathmom]

Plus colleges are different and if you don't visit, you don't know if you would actually like it. Visiting before applying could eliminate it from your list, thus freeing up resources to apply somewhere else.

[Pawz4me]

We started visiting colleges that oldest DS is interested in this past summer, and will continue doing college visits through next summer. We plan on visiting each school that he's seriously interested in.

[Kathy in Richmond]

My son visited four of his five schools beforehand (two had required on campus interviews), and my daughter visited four of her seven, due to distance & cost. Both had seen and spent time in summer programs on the campuses of LACs, research U's, and state schools, and both had a pretty good idea of what appealed to them.

 

Ds chose to attend one of the schools he'd seen already. Dd attended three preview weekends in April after acceptances were in, and two of them paid her travel expenses, making us happy that we hadn't sprung for long-distance trips in the fall. She landed at one of those schools.

[Jane in NC]

We started visiting colleges that oldest DS is interested in this past summer, and will continue doing college visits through next summer. We plan on visiting each school that he's seriously interested in.

 

Summer visits can be quite different than when classes are in session. Visiting during the academic year though, if your student is doing AP online or dual enrollment, can be practically impossible.

 

We visited two schools in May of junior year after my son wrapped up exams locally. While students were gone, faculty were still on campus so my son could meet with the chairs of the archaeology department.

 

It was an expensive senior year. In addition to college application fees, we flew him to three locations to visit campuses on his own. This was really the best decision we made. Instead of seeing campuses through our eyes, he was on his own. Further, few students apparently travel on their own to do this. That in itself can make an impression.

[momofkhm]

We visited some and didn't visit others. It wasn't practical to visit over Christmas.

 

Nan

 

We visited the ones that are in state, which is all but one. For the one out of state she knows they will need to throw a lot of money at her to even go.

 

We may try an overnight and day of classes before she makes a decision.

 

We'll start visiting with next child this spring. She's in 10th grade now.

[RENEEinVA]

No, but we visited most of them. We ended up visiting one right after DD started the application process.

[Brenda in MA]

Summer visits can be quite different than when classes are in session. Visiting during the academic year though, if your student is doing AP online or dual enrollment, can be practically impossible.

 

 

This is an issue that I'm struggling with for my current junior. His on-line & local outside classes all have different weeks off for spring break, so there isn't one logical week to make a trip and one reason we try to make a lot of visits in the summer. If he is seriously considering a college that we couldn't visit during the school year, then we'll probably spring for a visit there after he is accepted so he can get a feel for the campus vibe while other students are there. I'd also like for him to be able to talk to a prof or two from his area of interest, and at some schools, they've been away when we visited in the summer.

 

Brenda

[creekland]

We visited some before applying and some after acceptances. With oldest, he changed his mind about what he wanted to do and where he wanted to go his senior year, so we only visited his first choice (of the three he applied to). We had plans to visit his second choice, but the first came through with enough money that we just scratched the other two off - no sense wasting the travel $$.

 

With middle, he had already visited all we had been to before oldest applied (a different variety), so knew more of what he wanted and didn't want. We visited 4 of his 6 before application, the place where he is going now after acceptance, and totally skipped Baylor (though we had driven by Baylor on one of our trips back in 2006 - not quite the same as a visit, but we had recollections of the area). Baylor just ended up being too far away and not quite up to his other choices in neuro offerings for us.

 

With youngest, I want to visit, but he wants southern states or Hawaii and is in ps. He's already taking a week off for a mission/work trip to Jamaica, so any visits are probably going to have to be in the summer. I'm not exactly looking forward to southern states in the summer. I'm not sure we'll get to Hawaii (cost). He still has to come up with more than one school on his list...

[Nan in Mass]

No. Schools that have scholarships tied to "scholar weekends" were not visited in advance. We figured that we had to fund our son's travel to those events so why make two trips.

 

Visiting is critical though. One school was great on paper and generous with merit aid. But the Greek presence in the social life on campus completely turned The Boy off. That is one of those things a reader of websites cannot really determine.

 

 

Don't worry. We will visit before saying yes. If anybody wants him. There just wasn't time to visit all of them before applying.

 

Nan

[SkateLeft]

We mostly waited until after acceptances and scholarship offers were in. We visited a couple of the colleges prior to applying, and then we visited two more after she'd been accepted with large scholarship offers.

 

We're visiting our last potential college next Friday, but again, it's somewhere she's already been accepted. There are two where she's been accepted but has no desire to go, so we won't bother even looking at those.

[dirty ethel rackham]

We did. Ds visited 8 schools and applied to 4. Since he didn't want to go more than 3 hours away from home, it was possible for us to do so. We started looking at schools in December of his junior year so that we could fit the visits in while the schools were in session so that he could meet with professors, sit in on classes, etc.

[AK_Mom4]

Definitely not.

 

Oldest ds attended the summer program at USAFA prior to applying but did not visit either of the other two schools where he applied.

 

DD applied to three schools without actually seeing any of them. Because she is a music major, she had to actually visit one school to audition, but did her audition for her 2nd choice school via a recording. The first time she saw the campus was when she went down for freshman orientation.

 

The distance and the cost of airplane tickets were the deciding factor - sometimes its just not practical to visit in person.

[ThisIsTheDay]

Dd applied to four colleges. Three we visited; the one we did not is 1500 miles away. She's been accepted there, and we may take a trip out, but that school also may fall off the table due to distance. It's a good school with a lot of financial aid, but we are reluctant to have her so far from home, able to come back only at Christmas and spring break, and then having to worry about snow/planes during those times.

 

She also received an acceptance to one local school's Honor College. While we visited the school, we did not take the briefer Honors College tour. We're going up next week, and this will be big in helping dd make a final decision.

[Lolly]

We did. All schools have been within a few hours of home though. It really made a difference in choice. I think both girls are going to choose a school that was only on the list because it was nearby. They had no real interest before we visited the campus. Schools we thought they would love; they crossed off fairly quickly after the visit. It was funny how some schools just clicked for them.

[speedmom4]

We didn't visit one school that dd applied to and that was a mistake. If we had made the trip before applying we would have quickly realized that the school wasn't the right fit.

 

Elise in NC

[creekland]

We didn't visit one school that dd applied to and that was a mistake. If we had made the trip before applying we would have quickly realized that the school wasn't the right fit.

 

Elise in NC

 

 

:grouphug:

 

Visits are definitely important to me. Many places can build themselves up on websites or in print - then, when you get there, you wonder where they took the pics or marvel at all that was left out (both physical property/surroundings and vibe there).

 

If one is studying for 4 years (or more) feeling comfortable in the setting is very important.

 

What is a perfect fit for one may be severely wrong for another.

[FaithManor]

DD applied to 12, was accepted at all of them, and there was no way we were going to make that many trips. Several were eliminated fairly easily for a variety of reasons. Her top three or four (can't remember for certain), we visited.

 

She was also the type of kid for whom fit wasn't that big of deal. She was single minded in purpose and very self-driven so she would have chosen to thrive wherever she landed. She is a truly pragmatic kid. College life is NOTHING to her and it's all about the academics.

 

With ds, he'll apply to five or six and we are quite likely to visit them all. Since fit is important for him and there is only so much travel money available, we have ruled out all west coast and most east coast schools, and have looked primarily at Mid-west, Mid-Atlantic, and maybe near south though nothing in say Kentucky or that region (near my sister) has popped up on his radar or ours for his major. We've got family in Maryland, as well as contacts through the midwest so if money is tight, we have some overnight accomodations on the road if needed. Another reason we've kept the search to no further than 700 miles of home.

 

Middle ds will need to see the zoological facilities and herp research labs up close and personal before making a decision. He wants to sit in on more than one class. His short list is six, one school being a serious long shot for him because it's Cornell, and well, admissions there is a bit like Russian Roulette...you can be the perfect candidate, all of your scores in range, phenomenal extra-curriculars, and it's still luck! So, it is not even on our horizon for a visit. Should he by some miracle get an acceptance letter and that letter is followed by a boatload of merit aid, then maybe we'll get in the car and go. Otherwise, all of his schools are big, state flagship Ag schools because that is where the zoological research is concentrated. Of those, he'll have had plenty of opportunity to spend time on campus at U of M and MSU, so trips we'll need to make will include Minnesota, College Park, Maryland, and Kansas State.

 

Youngest has his heart set on MIT and if he manages to be on a winning TARC team, he'd definitely have a shot. MIT sends a scout to the competition every year or so we've been told and two years ago I met the guy. Their acceptance rate, like Cornell's, is so low that it's Russian Roulette, except for a few select situations and winning the TARC competition is one of them. They actively recruit for their engineering department from the top kids in tha program and especially those that go on to complete a Student Launch Initiative team project with NASA. However, I think the school will be a terrible fit for ds even if he does get in, and am a bit loathe to take the money to visit. Dh, on the other hand, thinks if we visit we can more readily point out to him why his shy, sweet, non-competitive (he is a real perfectionist inwardly, but not prone to competing with others) nature would get trampled there. The other schools on his short list (six) will definitely get a visit. His follow a neat little map and since the other two will already be in college at that point, dh thinks it will be easy to make a vacation centered around running to all of these places in a space of two and half weeks. He may be right. With only one child's education and extra-curriculars to schedule around, it could be very doable.

 

I think the ones your student is the most likely to land at are the ones you need to worry about. Reaches, if admission is gained, can always be visited if you suddenly find yourself in the position that they are a serious consideration. Safeties, well....if you know your safeties fairly well as is often the case, then you can save that too or have a quick trip later. It's the mids....the ones that are seriously in contention, maybe not the dream school, but the ones with the great programs anyway that you are really happy to see an acceptance letter from and that might offer enough aid to make them real contenders. I think those are the toughest schools to choose between and "fit" may be the best indicator you have for why to choose one over the other. So, I definitely vote for visiting the mids if you can swing it.

 

Now, if your "mids" are also safeties from the standpoint of stats and what not to get in, as is the case for my older two, then well...you'll probably have to end up visiting those state flagships and figure out what your criteria is going to be for choosing between them. For middle ds, the herp lab and research options for under grads will be the absolute dividing line...whoever has the best, wins and no other considerations are likely to sway him. For eldest, well, they are going to have to offer something that Michigan Tech doesn't and it's hard to imagine what that will be. That school is such a good fit for his personality and needs, that I think we could drop him off there today at 16 and he'd just melt right in, hunker down, work, and come home grinning on break!

 

Faith

[unsinkable]

Ummm...I thought Cornell doesn't give merit aid?

[FaithManor]

Ummm...I thought Cornell doesn't give merit aid?

 

I actually have NO idea what they do. He recently put it on his short list and I haven't had the time to even check it out except to know that they do have a very good zoology/research program.

 

So, if you are correct that merit aid is not an option, than I will most gladly remove it from the list. We make too much to get need based aid and not enough to even being writing checks for a tuition bill that size!

 

Faith

[unsinkable]

From their admissions page:

 

"Financial awards are all based on demonstrated financial need only. Cornell offers no athletic or merit scholarships. All Cornell scholarships that reward grades, leadership ability, or other special academic talents are need-based."

 

http://admissions.cornell.edu/node/429

 

I

[FaithManor]

From their admissions page:

 

"Financial awards are all based on demonstrated financial need only. Cornell offers no athletic or merit scholarships. All Cornell scholarships that reward grades, leadership ability, or other special academic talents are need-based."

 

http://admissions.cornell.edu/node/429

 

I

 

Thanks! That removes them from the options.

 

Faith

[unsinkable]

 

 

Thanks! That removes them from the options.

 

Faith

 

Not that I'm anybody, but I can't stand that part of NYS. There is something about the southern tier that I find creepy and depressing.

[creekland]

MIT is another that does not provide any true merit aid. From their website:

 

We refer to the grant money offered directly by the Institute as an MIT scholarship even though we award it based solely on financial need. MIT provided 78 percent of all aid to its undergraduates in 2011-2012. Of this MIT financial aid, 93 percent took the form of scholarships, less than1 percent was loans, and about 7 percent employment. The average amount of MIT scholarship per recipient in 2011-2012 was $32,917.

Getting a scholarship

 

If you’re interested in receiving an MIT scholarship for undergraduate study, you need to apply for MIT financial aid each year. MIT awards all undergraduate financial aid on the basis of your family’s financial need, so if you qualify for financial aid, you’ll automatically be considered for an MIT scholarship. Undergraduates are eligible to receive a scholarship in an amount up to the price minus the sum of the expected family contribution and the self-help level.

[creekland]

Not that I'm anybody, but I can't stand that part of NYS. There is something about the southern tier that I find creepy and depressing.

 

My whole family is from that area... I find it quite pretty, but it's certainly not for everyone. We haven't found a single place (or college) in the world that everyone likes and would want to live in (too hot, too cold, too rainy, too hilly, too flat, too crowded, too rural, etc, etc, etc). Hawaii comes the closest for us, but it's definitely too far away from everywhere else if one likes to travel. Different strokes for different folks. ;)

[unsinkable]

 

 

My whole family is from that area... I find it quite pretty, but it's certainly not for everyone. We haven't found a single place (or college) in the world that everyone likes and would want to live in (too hot, too cold, too rainy, too hilly, too flat, too crowded, too rural, etc, etc, etc). Hawaii comes the closest for us, but it's definitely too far away from everywhere else if one likes to travel. Different strokes for different folks. ;)

 

Oh, I know everyone has her own view of an area.

 

I've spent so much time there (various places in the southern tier) because of family and friends, including staying with friends at Cornell. It is pretty...it is more the atmosphere than the visuals.

[Beth in OH]

...We figured that we had to fund our son's travel to those events so why make two trips.

 

Visiting is critical though.

 

 

Dd is auditioning, so we didn't visit any before she auditioned unless she was going to take a trial lesson with a teacher. We'll do it all at once.

 

In the past we have done some as offshoots of family trips, some in advance, and others once we receive acceptances. It's a cost/benefit analysis. Like Jane says, though, visiting is critical.