about campus visits

NightOwl1082
Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:41:13 +0000

Visits could help you write a better ‘Why Columbia?’ essay, but you won’t get any brownie points from admissions officers for having come to campus nine times.



Well, I’d say yes and no. No, it won’t help too much if the admissions officers simply see that you visited campus nine times (and in fact, you’re really only supposed to fill out the card once…as wmmk said, it’s just for the mailing list and not for any kind of visit count).

But yes, multiple visits will absolutely be looked upon favorably if you can show that you really got something out of those visits. I visited three times before completing my application. I started out with the standard tour and info session visit, during which I fell in love with the school. I returned again for an overnight visit, before which I had contacted a professor in a department I was interested in; I made an appointment and had a great talk with him the morning after my overnight stay. I made my third visit after making yet another appointment with a professor in another department I liked; again, we had a really good talk (and, in both cases, I learned a tremendous amount about each department).

When it came time to submit my application, I included a cover letter that briefly mentioned my various visits and how helpful each one had been to me and my decision to apply to Columbia. This is how multiple visits can work in your favor when your application is being reviewed…just expect fewer rewards if you simply return to take the tour a bunch of times. ;)