College Selection / Touring Timeline?

mackinaw
Tue, 20 Feb 2018 20:06:08 +0000

Neither of our kids wanted to spend large parts of their lives reading about, visiting, or applying to colleges. As a college professor I was their main “informant” and advisor about the process. #1 never did a college tour, but he had been on several college campuses in connection with being a debater (including attending debate camp two summer) and he had visited my alma mater (Reed) in summer after his sophomore year. After his admissions arrived in his senior year, he agreed to make one trip to visit a couple of colleges on the “admitted” list. The college that he chose to attend (UChicago) he had never visited until “admitted students’ day” in his senior year. After an overnight, he declared “this will do.” He never visited a couple of the other colleges he’d been admitted to.

This was a low-key process, in part because #1 was too busy to take a tour during the school year, or even summers. He had enough to do with debate, and debate camps, and he took a ton of tests and did very well on them.

It was also low key for #2, who decided at the last minute (June after her junior year) that she wanted to look at some art colleges. In a 10 day driving trip we took her and a classmate on a long drive to visit 11 colleges. She applied to 5 colleges and was admitted to all. She chose RISD, and that was that. She never actually visited 3 of the 5 colleges she was admitted to. At the last minute – after admission – it wasn’t convenient for us to make any more trips.