When we went on a family vacation, if we saw a college, we would drive through. We didn’t make plans to do tours or anything else. These were just visits so our kids could see different kinds of colleges in different parts of the country. A drive thru was sufficient.
We did go back to some of these places when our kids starting when they had completed their sophomore years of high school. The planned visits were only for schools the kids had researched and wanted to see more in depth.