College visits - what to take? - Page 2

mspearl · 07-13-2012, 09:24 PM

Dress for the weather! When we visited Ohio state last year it was pouring and I was very lucky to have an extra pair of flip flops in the car. Wasn't that comfortable but better than soaking tennis shoes - (which you definitely want to wear unless it is pouring)

Go online and sign up for tours and call admissions to schedule interviews of needed. All the advice given above is good.

And have fun! A warning: after about 3 visits it all starts to feel the same...

jeffgordon · 07-13-2012, 10:03 PM

I appreciate the input. Our schedule was waaaay ambitious and I scaled back. The only double day is Santa Clara and Stanford. Besides those two we have scheduled tours at Cal and Cal Poly, an interview at Mudd, and a request for an interview at Pomona. If son is still into big schools we'll drop in at a subset of {USC, UCLA, UCSB}. Schedule got kinda messed up so we'll see about Caltech. Obviously these are mostly "reach" but all are within his reach.

Jane, a template: great idea, will do it.

Summer is not fall or spring: very true. Camera and notebook: got it, thanks. Resume: thinkin' about it, muchas gracias.

intparent · 07-13-2012, 10:14 PM

Not sure where I found it, but somewhere online (maybe at the Caltech website?) I found a self guided CalTech tour. We rolled into Pasadena on a Sunday night, and strolled the campus following those few printed internet pages in the evening. Then did Pomona and Mudd the next day. I liked the Mudd tour. One of their first assignments there is to make a hammer.

You don't mention your son's scores/GPA info, but something to think about is that it is really a lot more important to spend time finding matches and a safety or two that he is excited about than visiting a lot of schools that may be beyond his admissions reach. It takes more digging and looking to find those, but you don't want to end up at the end of the admissions cycle with admissions only to a few schools that he is not thrilled about. Don't get me wrong, I think it is a lot of fun to visit reaches. But we learned with D1 that we should have spent more time on the matches. She ended up with a great result, but it was more a result of chance than I like to admit. Our search for D2 has had a stronger focus on the match/safety schools (especially those likely to give her merit aid).

ohiobassmom · 07-13-2012, 10:51 PM

I took campus pics with my phone, easy and light and does the job fine.

I liked eating a meal on visits too. Some schools comped that, some didn't.

mathmom · 07-13-2012, 10:56 PM

I thought Caltech tour was well worth doing - it really gave you the sense of the place. I knew it quite well as dh was a grad student there, but it was new to my two kids. Both loved it, though only one had a chance there as the other is sooo not a science geek. BTW Caltech's cafe Chandler :: Caltech Dining Services had really good food. The boys raved about the pizza and I had a really nice salmon grilled to order. There are lots of good safety options for a techie kid, but I do agree that it's a good idea to check them out sooner rather than later.

Scutrules · 07-13-2012, 11:00 PM

Jane makes an excellent point, it is definitely helpful to have a checklist of things the school accomplished and things they didn't.

Are you in-state CA? Just wondering because I'm from northern California... I've only seen Cal and Stanford though (not on official tours) and they are both absolutely gorgeous.

LBowie · 07-14-2012, 08:46 AM

Don't be surprised to find that the tours and info sessions are quite anonymous. Your son will sign in when he arrives, and at some schools that counts for "demonstrated interest". Stanford interviews all applicants (after you apply) and it might be good to arrange a USC interview if he is interested. There's a time window in fall, i think, for that so research that on-line.

rushedmom · 07-14-2012, 09:02 AM

One thing on the notebook. I did make a binder at home and used dividers(with pockets for handouts and any correspondence) for each school we visited. I put any notes we made in to the binder after visits. When it was time to decide she was able to sit down and look at her notes, accpetance letters/scholarship info etc and decide the best fit.

college_query · 07-14-2012, 09:14 AM

When we were visiting last summer, I found a "college visit evaluation guide" online that's useful as a starting point of what to consider when visiting schools:

http://www.entrywayinc.com/images/ab...bservation.pdf

We didn't fill one out for each school we visited, but I still thought it was helpful.

PragmaticDad · 07-17-2012, 08:03 AM

Resumes are not needed at all...and you will be one of 30+ there. Best bet is to have a mental list of things student is seeking and try to locate that on campus (quads, trees, facilities etc.), eat a meal on campus, and check out the college hangouts in evening by having dinner at an off campus, local restaurant. The gut feeling will override any checkoff list you create. In fact, discussing the best parts of a campus in car while traveling to another school or home, is the best determinant. The more remembered, the more interest there is in a particular school.

I had a great time visiting campuses with S. Demonstrated interest is not always taken into account, particularly by top tier schools.

LBowie · 07-17-2012, 05:32 PM

There are certainly schools in the top 20 and definitely in the top 30 where demonstrated interest is taken into account. It can't hurt to demonstrate a little interest.

3togo · 07-17-2012, 05:48 PM

OP ... with both my kids on initial trips we planned on 2 formal tours a day for the most part and typically added some quick drive-throughs at the end of the day. There are a couple reasons the 2-a-days worked very well IMO.

First, and most importantly. While I understand the argument about spending a full day at a school gives the applicant a better understanding about a school and is less tiring for us these trips were definitely an exercise with limited resources ... of both time and money. For example, if we're going to drive to Philly from Boston only looking at Penn seemed like an inefficient use of our time ... for an initial visit 4 hours at Penn was plenty of time and we also planned a Swarthmore tour.

Second, the other big catch is that it is likely your student will seriously dislike some of the schools you visit within about 15 minutes of being on campus. Spending a full day at a school your student has nixed is a waste of time IMO. Following our Philly day example my oldest actually nixed Swarthmore very quickly so instead we did drive throughs of Villanova, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr.

One last thought on seeing as many schools as you can. Starting our week long trip Columbia was my daughter's first choice school ... and she liked Columbia when she toured. If we had spent all day at Columbia and then moved on to Philly then my daughter would not have done the afternoon tour at Barnard ... the school she fell in love with and to which she applied ED.

Personally I think planning two schools a day is fine ... if time is tight punt the info session. For my kids I want them to see as many options as possible ... so we planned and made reservations for 2-a-day ... and adjusted the schedule if needed.

PS - a GPS and a notebook/camera will be your best friends on the trip.

shoot4moon · 07-17-2012, 11:36 PM

I made a rule to not make any comments whatsoever after a tour until our child had told me every pro and con she could think of. I found sitting in the car immediately after the tour with me scribbling and her talking was the best way. We always read the visit reports on each school here before we went. The one time I didn't, we wasted time on a school that was a complete bust - would have been obvious that it wasn't a good fit if we had read ahead! By the way, even though your child is a good student, I think you are heavy on schools that are very difficult and somewhat capricious in their admittance. You need more safeties in my opinion. Based on your other choices, USF is likely a safety, and perhaps SCU (although they are getting more and more competitive). I would reconsider adding in some schools that he could be happy in that are easier to get into. Plenty of people on here were shocked by being turned down everywhere - don't make that mistake!

Longhaul · 07-18-2012, 12:21 AM

Plan USC well in advance. It is the longest tour we have been on + info session = 3 hours.

We could not fit in another school visit that same day. They covered a LOT of ground. It was a very different approach from other large schools we visited.

Claremonts - Since the consortium is so very different than other colleges, spend time after Mudd to walk around Pitzer/Claremont McKenna side of town. Peak in all the dining halls.

LBowie · 07-18-2012, 06:45 AM

For my son, there was no notebook needed. It really was a gut level instinct. He didn't hate any places and there was no where he wanted to leave immediately, but the places he was lukewarm about since before the visit stayed lukewarm. The things that were important to him (good school in city with D1 football) stayed important to the end when he was making his final choice of where to go.

I took a camera and took plenty of pictures, because i always take pictures, but my son didn't really care to ever look at them. He was more annoyed with my picture taking.

Another parent suggested to me to pick up the student newspaper everywhere we went. That was a good idea as it gave me some insight into campus culture. (Probably not published in summer?)