Did your dc apply to schools they couldn't visit first?

[Ann.without.an.e]

I hear ya'll when you say "cast the net wide" and look at schools not within a 4 hour driving distance of home.  What if you really can't afford to visit a ton of schools and long trips weren't really an option?  Would you apply to schools you couldn't visit?  Just curious :)

[Mnemosyne]

Well, I am a fairly recent college grad, and no, I didn't visit any schools at all before applying.

 

I actually only applied to one (I wasn't too motivated to go to school at the time) and visited after I was accepted.

 

However, I did a bunch of research - school website, talked to kids that went there, looked at videos/photos/average temps, etc. In short, I felt as though I knew the town and university very well. I'm just glad I actually liked it once I started attending. ;)

[SamanthaCarter]

I applied, was accepted and transferred to a school five hours away having never seen it. It worked out fine. :)

 

I also took a job (right out of college) in a city that where I didn't know anyone. That worked out fine, though the job itself was lousy. 

 

I had no idea that people scrutinized and analyzed their kids' "launch" so carefully. LOL!

 

 

[dirty ethel rackham]

Well, we did not cast the net wide geographically as had reasons for remaining geographically close (close enough to go there and back by car in a day.)  My oldest visited a whole bunch of schools before applying.  But this was because he was very hesitant about going away to college and needed to actually envision himself on a college campus.  We had planned to have our 2nd kid visit all the schools on their list but we had logistical troubles with that plan.  They actually only visited 5 out of the 7.  Had our kids been able to consider schools farther away, we would have done extensive research online and at least tried to visit after applying.  One school where K was accepted sent a travel voucher.  We would have loved this school, but due to health issues and $$, we had to cross this one off our list. 

 

I know that some friends try to plan summer travel with college visits in mind. 

[Jenny in Florida]

My son did apply to a few schools he could not visit. He visited a couple of those schools after he was admitted. Because he applied as a performing arts major, he needed to audition for admission to specific programs and/or scholarships at most of the schools to which he applied.

 

One of the schools in which he was very interested offered to cover some of the costs of having him come visit. They paid for lodging for two nights for him and a parent and also reimbursed us a portion of our travel expenses. Since he was also invited to participate in a scholarship event, we arranged the trip for that weekend. He did the scholarship interviews and all the normal tour stuff and also auditioned for the dance, theatre and music programs while we were there.

 

The other major trip we did on the cheap. He applied to several schools in various parts of New York City, because he was fairly sure that's where he wanted to be. We booked a place through AirBnB and ate most of our meals in the room, used public transportation, etc. He was able to visit and audition at four schools during that trip.

 

There were three more where he applied that we could not manage him visiting, only one of which he was super interested in attending. (The others were schools I talked him into trying for, because they have good reputations in his areas of interest.) Ultimately, he decided he preferred to stay closer to home.

 

The school he now attends (and loves) he visited twice. The first time, he was unimpressed. He kept it on his list because we wanted him to have at least a couple of in-state options. After he was admitted, he went back to audition for his chosen program (and scholarships). It was during the second visit that he, his dad and I all had the gut feeling that the school was the right place for him.

 

It's not practical, but our experience does make me wonder whether he might have felt differently about any of the other schools if he'd had a chance to make second visits there, too.

 

 

[Ann.without.an.e]

 

I had no idea that people scrutinized and analyzed their kids' "launch" so carefully. LOL!

 

 

I overanalyze everything.  It is torture.  lol  The main reason I even think about this though is all of the talk on the WTM about visiting to see where the student feels right?  I kind of got the feeling that no one applies to schools they can't "get the feel of" before they visit?  That is why I asked.  To see if my perception was true ;)

[regentrude]

DD applied to 12 schools. She visited 3.

A lot of information is available online. The primary criterion for her choice of college was the strength of her academic program. This information is readily available online.

 

ETA: The "feel" one gets from a school on a visit can be drastically different from the "feel" the school has when one is actually a student.

[Kathy in Richmond]

No, we weren't able to visit all the schools my kids applied to beforehand. My daughter ended up at one of the far-away schools that she only visited for the first time in April of her senior year. She did visit her top 3 choices at that point to determine where she fit in best.

[Luckymama]

Dd didn't visit one of the schools before acceptance. We had planned on driving the 8 hours to check it out, but by that point (Feb? March?) she had decided that the focus of the English department's core was not to her liking).

[Bootsie]

DD applied to one school he had not visited and another that she visited when she was about 5 years old (so I don't think that really counts).  She had met with representatives from these schools at college fairs, had talked to alumni, and perused their websites, so she had a fairly good feel for the schools.  She had a strong idea of what she was looking for (partly by visiting other campuses) and knew that these schools met those basic criteria.

[Guest2]

We didn't cast our net wide . My strategy (if my DS wanted to look further) was to look at schools that met the criteria we had for colleges: active student religious center on campus, major and ranking of major, retention, graduation rates, and cost. Even in state, we encouraged him not to get too attached until we had all of the information, including cost of attendance. If we had applied out of state, we would make a college trips after acceptances to fully decide. If time and finances would allow a junior trip would be nice, but not all that necessary.

[Jenny in Florida]

She had a strong idea of what she was looking for (partly by visiting other campuses) and knew that these schools met those basic criteria.

 

I think that's important, too. I encouraged my son to start his college search by visiting several local schools of various kinds: large public, small private, etc. Although he ended up crossing most of those schools off his list, those early visits gave him a sense of what kind of school he wanted. It's not as good as visiting every campus, but it's a place to start.

[Dmmetler]

I didn't visit colleges until after I was accepted and had narrowed my list a bit. Like Jenny's son, I was a performing arts major, so I needed to audition.

 

 

DD is ending up visiting a lot of campuses just because of participating in activities that are hosted there, and she's definitely developing preferences that may help her narrow down schools before applying (preferring self-contained campuses vs ones that are scattered through an urban center, for example).

 

 

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I graduated from a school I'd never visited. But I'd heard a lot about it from reading the catalog and hearing admissions reps and students.

 

We live a long plane ride away from schools my dss may attend. So they will almost certainly apply to schools they've not seen. They may even attend without a visit.

[J-rap]

Of our four kids who attended/attend college, none of them visited them first.  Some schools were across the country, some out of the country, and some within our own state.

 

When our son applied at the school across the country, he was living abroad so there's no way he could have visited it.  My husband and I toured it during a business trip there, but by then our son had already accepted.  It was a very specialized school and he just knew that's where he wanted to be.  Regarding the college out of the country which our daughter attends, it is a perfect fit and we can't imagine anything else better suited for her.  For my girls who attend in-state colleges, they knew the areas beforehand but never actually toured the campuses.

 

It all worked out very well for all of them.

[Granny_Weatherwax]

DS has not visited some of the schools to which he applied. I think it's about 50-50 for him. We did what we could for visits.  In August, I took him on a college tour to visit his top 5 choices.  We drove, camped in our tent and cooked on a camp stove.  We had great fun cooking in parking lots and rest areas. As a result of that trip, he dropped two schools from his list.

 

I hope to be able to take him to visit a couple more once we know what all of his options will be.

[JanetC]

Not visiting a school within a half-day's drive is considered bad form.  It makes your application look less serious.

 

For schools that are further away, visiting after acceptance is OK, but you should visit the school representative if one visits your area. Register on the school website for "more information" -- they will send you a post card if there is a local representative at a college fair or other event nearby.  For the huge college fairs with bar codes, make sure your bar code is scanned if the school wants students to "demonstrate interest."

 

Do the best you can with the time and money you have available. 

[Catherine]

Two of my three have been through this already and neither of them showed much interest at all in the process.  As a result, we visited few schools.  IMO, they were probably both hurt by this and by their lack of interest in the process in general.  So not only did they not visit, they spent little or no time on the websites, did not seek out other sources of info, etc.  Sigh.

[Trilliums]

Son applied to 8 schools, 5 of them we did not visit.  They are just too far away.

 

He did visit his current #1 choice, but it is an easy drive (honestly part of the reason it is his top choice!).   We will try to visit his 2nd, 3rd, etc, pick schools (if he is accepted) on accepted student days.  But, he is taking two classes at the university and I am not sure the scheduling will work out.  He has two schools he feels comfortable attending even if he cannot visit though.  

 

I know I read many posts, especially on college confidential, about students visiting prospective schools.  That just is not us!  None of us like to travel honestly and admittance seems like such a long shot for many of the schools.  Son evaluated schools mostly by course offerings and descriptions of the department online.  

[creekland]

Oldest and middle had a mix of whether we visited before applying, after acceptance, or not at all.  (They also didn't attend the "not at all" schools.)

 

Youngest visited first to see if he wanted to apply.  By doing so he made his choice and saved the time and expense of other applications since we knew he would get in to his choice.

 

One can get a pretty good feel for a college by reading a bit about it.  If one has visited various campuses nearby, one begins to understand the terminology of large/medium/small, research/LAC, urban/urban with "campus"/suburban/rural, etc.  Looking at incoming student stats and courses in the desired major can be quite useful.  

 

We eliminated many purely from descriptions.  We eliminated many more based upon what we were looking for financially. 

[katilac]

We do plan to visit most of the schools she is interested in - we already started, and seeing the campus in person definitely pushes some schools much higher or lower on the list.  

 

She may apply to 2 schools without visiting them, because they are far away and big financial reaches. They are good matches on paper, but she cannot attend without a very good financial aid package, and they aren't schools with guaranteed levels of merit aid. If they come through, we would definitely visit before making a final decision. 

 

My dd needs lots of input, information, and time before making decisions. Different campuses do indeed have a very different feel from each other. Some of it is tangible - the architecture, how clean the bathrooms are, is the campus organized or difficult to get around. Other aspects are less well-defined - how friendly are students and staff, the general mood or attitude on campus, and so on. 

 

I don't think you need to visit a ton of schools that are far away. You can visit all the ones nearby; like JiF said, it can give you a starting point to figure out what you do and don't want.

 

Even schools you aren't interested in can help you realize what's important to you - for example, dd discovered that big or small is not crucially important to her. What matters more to her is a well-organized, cohesive campus.  Small campuses in general are more likely to fit that, but we have found big ones that do as well (and one huge one, lol). 

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

We live a long distance from the area our oldest two are looking to apply to schools in-odds are high that they will apply to and possibly attend schools they've never visited.

 

We are doing our best to use vacation time to visit schools on their lists but the oldest will probably never visit a campus during the academic year.

 

I attended a college that we never visited-we drove through the campus in 10 minutes while passing through the area over the summer-I stared out the window at the buildings while running a 100+ fever.  It ended up being a wonderful 4 years and I have never regretted my choice to attend.

 

If one has the opportunity to tour, visit classes, meet admissions reps, interview, and do an overnight stay--that is the ideal.  If you have the opportunity to do repeat visits on the accepted students days that is even better.  But we can't all do that so we do our best.  Check the internet, you tube, instagram, look for blogs written by students, do as much research as possible.

[Kareni]

My daughter applied to ten colleges. Her desired major was offered at only three colleges in our state (one public, one semi-selective private, and one highly selective private) so she was forced to look far afield. She applied widely because we are fairly low income so financial aid offers would play a big role. Of the ten colleges she applied to, one was an Ivy League school. She was denied admission there; however, this school has a generous aid policy such that had she been accepted, it might well have offered the best aid. She applied to two highly selective liberal arts colleges (one offered admission, one put her on the wait list). Five other applications went to liberal arts colleges or small universities of varying selectivity. The final application went to our state university's honor college.

The financial aid offers of the eight accepting schools varied tremendously (up to about $14,000 dollars difference in the combination of out of pocket and loan payments for the academic year). Several of the private liberal arts colleges would have cost significantly less than our state university.

She did not visit all of the colleges to which she applied (some she visited during spring break of senior year while waiting for news of acceptances; two others she visited when she was being considered for scholarships). She wrote a letter of inquiry and sent it to about thirty colleges during her junior year of high school; it was addressed to the chair of the department she was interested in. The replies she received and research online helped her determine the colleges she ultimately applied to.

 

Regards,

Kareni