My D1, who was a seasoned world traveler, went alone (flying with a transfer) to the one accepted visit she ended up dong. For D2, I went along for all of them. We were of the mindset that two people collecting info (and doing different things during the visit) were better. D wasn’t super confident in her ability to handle all the travel alone at that point, and valued my opinion on the schools. All 3 schools we went to for her had parent activities that were often separate from the student ones, so we did indeed collect different info. Obviously I stayed in a hotel while she did the overnights. I was able to connect with a HS classmate I hadn’t seen in a long time one evening, which was very fun. But I also extremely carefully did not push her toward one school or another. I gave her my positive and negative impressions of each visit, but there indeed were pros and cons to each. The final decision was entirely hers. (But I think she picked the “right one” 
).
@homerdog - My D went to one Diversity Weekend (Rice) prior to applying as well as several scholarship competitions (USC, Wash U, Davidson) that required a several-day stay; the latter served as accepted students programs of sorts, as competing for the scholarship came with acceptances. She also did post-acceptance overnights at Grinnell, Vanderbilt, Yale, UChicago, and Stanford.
With each visit, she learned more about each of the schools (none, besides USC, of which she had visited prior to being admitted) and about what sorts of things did – and did not – resonate with her.
I’m not sure it makes a difference whether you go for the official “programming” of Accepted Students Days or arrange for independent overnights. The important thing is to spend some time on campus.
I tagged along on some – but not all – of the trips, especially if travel from the west coast meant arriving late at night. It was wonderful for me to visit places I had never been and probably would never get to again (Nashville, Charlotte) as well as to discover hidden gems (St. Louis Art Museum). I was able to fit in some family (in NYC) and caught up with a HS friend (in St. Louis).
^Well, I think there is a BIG advantage to going to accepted student days rather than an independent overnight visit, and that’s getting to meet other prospective students - that’s what meant the most to my daughter.
@LoveTheBard I was thinking of you when I asked that question. I knew your daughter had visited a lot of schools. Did she have an idea of how they stood in her mind in relation to each other before she visited? Or did she have some surprises where she likes a school much better or liked it much less than expected? Sounds like this happens quite a bit. I haven’t found anyone yet who didn’t seem more sure of their choice after visiting in the spring. I guess kids are pretty good at using their gut once they are on campus and can feel if the fit is right.
D was accepted at 6 schools (all in CA - we are from NorCal) and we decided to visit those she actually was considering attending. She also applied to 2 OOS schools - I cannot imagine what we’d have done if she’d gotten into either of those. As she had already visited UC Berkeley earlier in the year (on alumni/parents weekend, though not really by design, so it was very rah rah and full of energy), we went to UCSB’s and UCLA’s admit days. After the UCSB visit, we crossed them off of the list. Admittedly, it was raining that day, which tends to cast a bit of a pall on things and was certainly not the school’s fault! The tour wasn’t super inspired (our guide got accepted to Johns Hopkins but wound up here?), they have 1 library (Cal has 30+), and it just didn’t feel academic enough for D, despite being accepted as an honor student. One week later was Bruin Day, one of the most beautiful April days in L.A. EVER (no smog, mild temp, just gorgeous). We were all over that amazing campus, did a housing tour, ate at one of the dining halls (pretty impressive), and mooched around Westwood. D met up with a fellow admittee that day and then with a friend who was currently a student that evening, so more data points. We were pretty convinced that we’d be hauling her down to SoCal after that. What we didn’t know was that these visits were just solidifying her decision to go to UCB - she knew on the drive back home but didn’t tell us for several days because SUSPENSE. Yeah, she missed Cal Day altogether because it was the same day as Bruin Day, but it was important for all of us to see other options and for her to be sure. She is definitely at the right place for her.
@homerdog - As I mentioned before, with each visit, she not only learned more about the schools but also about what what she was looking for programmatically, geographically, and socially.
She realized, for example, that Grinnell might have been a better fit for her socially than USC, but that it didn’t have enough faculty in her areas of interest and was truly in the middle of nowhere. USC, on the other hand was a vibrant campus with some very strong programs, but was way too big and too rah-rah for her. She also realized that she would prefer a medium-sized research university to an LAC.
As for where the schools started out and ended up on her list, her top (SCEA) choice, Yale, slid down a few rungs when she realized how much she actively disliked New Haven. Some schools ended up having a special place in her heart (Wash U), others less so. The biggest surprise was Stanford (which she expected not to like, but ended up loving). She really liked U Chicago, but not enough to deal with their winters or their 6-quarters of natural and mathematical sciences.
@MaineLonghorn – yes, in a perfect world, attending Admitted Days might be preferable, but the timing doesn’t always work. Connecting with other students can happen in FB groups, group chats, and orientation. As it turned out, D met one of her close friends at the Admissions Office when gathering info and waiting for their respective hosts on an “Outside Admit Days” visit.
Last year, my D and I attended several admitted students days/weekends; it was an expensive exercise that made a difficult decision, more difficult. The hotels near the schools we visited, really jacked up the prices (UMD campus hotel was over $300/nt that weekend). In hindsight, it would have been better for us to visit the campuses during the application process rather than wait to see where she was admitted.
The thing is that I think S19 could honestly like all of his schools and they all have what he needs academically so these visits will be more about fit and location for the most part… and maybe how friendly the current students and the admitted students are. We’ve visited Carleton, Grinnell, Kenyon, Davidson, Bowdoin and William and Mary. He thought they all seemed more the same than different. He’s got a two outliers on the list - two reach universities - so those will feel different and he will feel that I’m sure if he gets in and we visit.
I love hearing all of the stories about these admitted student visits. Super helpful!
@momo2x2018 interesting. We did visit a few schools that fell off of the list so it was good to do a lot of visits before applying. They were LACs where he didn’t care for the vibe. He has five other LACs on the list that we think are similar to the ones we visited but we just could not get to all of them before applications were due!
@lovethebard thanks for the details!
An important and challenging aspect of any school visit is trying to separate out the “individual” or “loud” from what is truly representative.
I have seen from College Confidential that a bad host can color the experience. So, if you do not hit it off with your host, try to interact with a variety of other students as well. Is it just one individual, or is that person pretty representative of the personality types that predominate at the school?
A visible protest can have an impact, too. A student we know walked back to his parents’ hotel to unpack his reactions after hearing a protest during admitted students’ days, before returning to campus. Luckily, he then also was able to speak about the protest with other current students and other future classmates of his, and learned that the views of the few and loud exist but are not everyone’s views. The experience on campus once he was a student? There definitely is an element of which that night was representative. But the type of conversation he had afterwards is also typical.
Prospective freshman visits can also be nearly free. I attended the prospective freshman weekend at Stanford. Stanford mailed me plane tickets, student hosts picked me up an the airport, I stayed in a dorm room with students, was given student meal plan, etc. I don’t recall having to spend anything during the entire weekend.
There were a few controlled prospective freshman events, but most of my experiences were not controlled. For example, I sat in some of my host’s/roommate’s classes – whatever classes sounded interesting to me. I also spent a good amount of time hanging out with my host/roommates and his friends, doing things like looking at movies or talking. He offered to take me to parties as well, which did not interest me. However, I was on my own for the bulk of my awake time. I spent a good amount of time wandering around campus, checking out random buildings, working out in the gyms, asked some questions at relevant departments, hiking around the foothills, etc.
A lot of my impression was shaped by my host and roommate’s, as much little day to day things as their personality or helpfulness. For example, it never occurred to me that one could have a problem with a squirrel stuck in the dorm room and how to handle it, but I found the episode interesting. Or amusing jokes about “Joe, the Pro Fro Ho…”
Well none of ours will be free. We are a full pay family and s19 has no hooks!
Don’t be so sure. We were full pay or close to it, and D2 got flight vouchers from at least two schools (can’t completely remember, maybe 3?). The parent going adds a flight and hotel room, though.
@homerdog, DS missed 4 or 5 days of school. The school, which was very strict about how many days could be missed per term for school visits, was very supportive - they felt equally invested in him making the best decision and recognized that it is a big one. It was a bit of a drag with sports and impending IB and AP exams, but honestly, choosing a 4 year, expensive experience seemed like a bigger priority.
The two schools that were the furthest also paid for plane tix for him to go alone (and we were FP, so don’t count that out.) We didn’t tag along on those. They arranged flights, met the kids at the airport, etc., so it was also a chance to see what getting there would be like. When it involved driving, one parent went with him. There was separate programming for the parents at those. We actually felt it was important for him to “feel” the schools as independently as if he were there as a student so while it was nice for one of us to attend sessions and pick up more info, we felt we really should not be influencing the decision at that point and giving him as much space as possible. (Although there was one where DH wanted to enroll himself - a different story!) Curiously, even with "parallel " experiences, the sense of the school at each tended to be similar for both parent and student (although only DS could feel what seemed like a good fit for him).
We had done what was suggested above and noted the dates of revisits even before getting decisions. You can often make hotel reservations which are fully cancellable if that’s a concern. (We weren’t this bold.) I can say with certainty that had the decisions been different, we would have had a different (and more limited ) revisit schedule. And while he had visited all to interview and tour, the revisit was a much different experience – the first was to introduce the school and to get you to apply while the latter was to help you imagine yourself as a student there. I think most kids recognize their peeps better than their parents might.
@homerdog - Carleton and Scripps both offered my D $$ for plane ticket to attend admitted students day last year. We are almost full pay and no hooks. So it can happen even if you don’t expect it. The former was perhaps linked to her her small NMF scholarship offer, I can’t recall for sure, or maybe it was just something they offer to students based on their own criteria. The latter was def. linked to a merit scholarship offer. Carleton had buses arranged from the airport, etc.
Once a student is admitted the proverbial shoe is on the other foot. D got personal emails from admissions officers to check in, etc…
Of course, if a parent wants to attend, you’re still on the hook for that, but honestly, there’s not as much for parents to do on admitted students day – they’re really trying to immerse the students in the campus scene which does not, lol, involve a lot of parents. That being said, I can see if you haven’t been to the college at all wanting to attend so you can ‘set eyes’ on the place. But there may not be a lot of planned activities for you. If you have visited the college, I would consider not attending to save the $.
Also, we visited one college in the late winter of senior year b/c we thought it’d be too expensive to get a ticket at the last minute for an accepted students event. (The college seemed to be ‘match’; we wouldn’t have done this for a reach.) This was Scripps, and then they offered the plane ticket upon admission – oh well, we enjoyed our Feb. southern CA getaway very much!
None of our visits were free, or subsidized; I chose to go with D on the visits, as we made six stops across three states, however, none of the schools visited offered any form of subsidy (not that I was expecting anything.)
@almostthere2018 interesting. S19 is NMSF but I will be curious if he gets that plane ticket if he gets into Carleton. We marked that we aren’t applying for financial aid so that might have sealed the deal on not getting any tickets. Guess it is a sign of how much a school wants a student though. I had no idea that schools fly non-hooked kids in.
My guess is it’s somewhat based on geography. Colleges like Grinnell (which I know also flies some kids in after acceptance; not sure if they tend to have hooks or not) and Carleton are more geographically remote so they may feel need to do this. New England schools who are used to a lot of attention from students, not so much and they only fly in kids with hooks? Hard to know.
I would guess that Kenyon on your list flies in some admitted students every year since they’re in rural OH.
Also colleges may make the plane ticket offer to accepted students who live farther away b/c they are looking for geographic diversity in their first-year class. We live the in the South, for example, so not as many kids applying to Carleton compared to where you live.
3 i think. 2 were safeties that accepted her early and it was important to me that she like them enough to attend if the reaches didn’t work out. Then she attended a reach one and that was that.
She never saw 2 of her schools, one would have been great to see but fa came too late.
This thread has been fantastic. I’ve been thinking about these as well…I’m glad to read that the vast majority found them helpful. I also was surprised to learn that the possibility is out there for some costs to be covered, for non FA nonhooked students!
@homerdog I feel like we are in similar situations…looking at the possibility of a handful of accepted student visits. My DS has ended up with a really nice group of acceptances plus merit aid, with only three decisions left to come. During the application process, we added on a few schools that looked great, either to round out the list or because we learned of them later, none of these have been visited at all but I feel like they are really worth a look and could easily turn out to be the favorite. (Specifically: Fordham, Furman, St. Joseph’s U, and Loyola MD; yes we like Jesuit schools. And I think Elon, already visited, is a school he really likes but might be worried about that teeny town, so I think he would want to check that out again too).
DS does not want to rank, which is interesting, and he can’t really verbalize why. I think he would like to wait to have all of the offers in front of him before starting to try to make decisions. He secretly told my older daughter that he wished he would have gotten only one acceptance so he wouldn’t have to decide! (of course, that’s easy to say for someone who doesn’t have any rejections yet, and only one deferral from the super reach). So that’s another clue that he will have a hard time deciding. I hope he’s up for the visits, especially the never-seen schools. I don’t think I would worry too much about school attendance at that point, to be honest…late March of senior year and our school is pretty accepting of college related absences. I love to travel so our issue will be getting DS to go check them out without getting burned out and just picking one to be done with it!