We are planning a few summer visits. We took a Monday Jr. year to visit a school 3 hours away, and went to a play on Sunday. The “during the school year” visits were more revealing. I think every school has a slightly different vibe created by the students. However, the reality of visiting during Jr school year - its difficult because out kids are always cast in plays, which for us means 23 hours of theater on top of schoolwork. I decided to focus our visits this summer on the financial and artistic safeties - those schools have been the hardest to determine. Its super easy to determine the reaches, but having a couple of good safeties that S would really like to attend Has been harder. Still discussing the value of a “growth” year- the ability to be able to focus on auditions without concurrent schoolwork is compelling, along with enjoying Sr. year, and actually be able to be in the spring productions that final year.