I’m considering taking S20 on a six day road trip to visit colleges in August. I know, it’s early. I know, August is not a good time to do college visits. The reality is, we are a very busy family of seven, and we take the opportunities whenever they come. S is a swimmer and hates to miss practice–August (off-season) is the only logical time for extended road trips. We will do shorter, more focused second visits when the time is right. This is how we rolled with D18, and she is grateful for it, with a definitive college app plan and preference list in hand going into her senior year.
The college I feel is most important for S to see is the furthest distance away, an eight hour drive. There are some other schools along that route that would make sense to visit, so why not? My question is, do we go long and see the headliner school first, or do we work our way up to it, seeing the other schools first? We will not be rushing. Five (or four, if S wants to bail on the one closest to home) schools in six days. The trip is as much about quality mother-son time as anything.
Not last! He will be tired of colleges and they will blur together. My kids favorites have been ones where it was a one-off visit (not part of a road trip) or among the first one trip.
I say see a lesser one on the way out and then the better fit one 2nd (or even 3rd) but not last. 2 was our limit on any 7 day trip. 4 sounds like overload to me. Plan something more fun than just driving in between even if it just is “the best burgers in x college town”. Takes note or photos to compare later.
Definitely not first. I’d recommend last to first. But, if you are driving roundtrip, you can put it in the middle hitting some schools on the way out to your farthest point/expected best fit, then hitting other schools on the return.
Any chance you can do the trip in late August when some school might be in session?
Just check the August dates carefully. For colleges starting in mid August, you may find admissions isn’t really open the week before.
My kid’s school had NO tours, or admissions office times the two weeks between the end of summer term and the start of the new academic year. That’s when ALL of the admissions office was on vacation…everyone. And there were no student ambassadors to do tours…
So…just check.
In terms if favorite, etc. don’t see ANY colleges when your kid is tired. So…,if you want to see this preferred college first…plan to drive there leisurely and arrive the day before…so you can be nice and well rested. The worst college visits are when anyone in the family is tired.
Have fun! Enjoy the time together! We’ve done this with three kids and have seen lots of the country and have many fond memories. I definitely recommend keeping a low-key pace, like visits to single schools on consecutive days and then a day off to have fun. They definitely start to blur after 4 or 5. The days off really enhance the whole experience. And you might be surprised which one they like best. We did a long trip to six schools last summer, with three days off for tourist stuff. The one we thought would be the favorite was their least favorite, including previous trips. One we added late, just to be sure, after previously rejecting even a look, turned out to be their #2 choice.
Definitely on’t see the best fit school first. See others (maybe even all of the others) first so he can compare positives and negatives he’s seen elsewhere to the one you think is the most important for him to see.
We just got back from visiting 9 schools over our 10 day Spring break, in the Midwest and East coast. D was a trooper. She took copious notes at each school and I was in charge of photos. She found her dream school at the very last stop! I was definitely glazing over by the last school, but it turns out this one had all of the individual elements she loved at the other schools, combined.
Definitely research a little fun thing to do near each school. We went to the Mall of America in Minneapolis, a broadway show in NYC, Ben & Jerry’s in Vermont, etc.
We spent about 4-5 hours on each campus with a tour, info session, class visit, lunch in the cafeteria, and, at some schools, D also met up with a grad from her HS. Sometimes we even ate breakfast in the cafeteria before the tour, or dinner when we arrived at the new campus, the night before our scheduled tour. (We ate many meals in college cafeterias.). We always arrived at the campus the night before, having signed up for the first morning tour, and were done and on the road to the next school by 2:00-3:00.
Someone on this board suggested taking a photo of your tour guide, and it really does help remind you which school was which.
Really depends on your child and their temperament how much you can squeeze in. We did ambitious 5 day trips doing 1 or 2 schools each day. Worked for us just fine. Kids filled out a sheet for each school immediately after each visit to freshly record their thoughts and impressions. They came in handy when filling out applications and “Why X school?” type essays. We had nice dinners each night, listened to great tunes along the way, kept a cooler in the back seat with cold drinks and healthy and not so healthy snacks and stuff to grab if we didn’t have time for a meal. Fun bonding experience.
Thanks so much for the input. This is all very helpful.
@thumper1, I’m glad you prompted me to check the schools’ calendars; they are all offering tours throughout August, but none on Saturdays, which I hadn’t considered. Oops. We will definitely skip school #5. The consensus seems to be to put the headliner school in the middle. That probably won’t be ideal logistically, since it’s at the end of the linear route, but I’ll see what magic I can spin.
For the record, S has tagged along with big sis on three college tours recently. He loved two and hated one. So, he has some idea of his preferences already. This will be a quick pass, no pressure, just seeing what these different types of schools offer.
If you see the best first, all others may pale and now your kid has a “dream school” he may not get into. Better to let him accumulate ideas of what he likes and doesn’t, along the way. Then see the goodie. And you probably know, we (CC) usually caution against parents giving their raves or seeming to press, before the kid has processed. Not saying you can’t enjoy some more than others, just be cautious about getting in the way.
YMMV alert. We never spent 4-5 hours on any campus. The exception was one overnight program. We quit going to info sessions, they weren’t important to her. There were times when D1 didn’t get the vibe early and we abbreviated a visit. Or cut out (toward the end)when they were headed to the sci buildings or other aspects that didn’t matter to her. All that, imo, is fine.
We had fun, too. But we talked. A lot.
Adults can have a tolerance for a fixed or a tight schedule- eg, getting two done per day or whatever it is. Kids may not, so consider his tolerances, as well.
Best wishes.
The suggestion to record your thoughts is a good one. Your son and/or you can write down your thoughts about the school as soon as possible afterwards, preferably before the next school. We just type notes on the experience in the hotel at night. We included basic info, our thoughts, comments on info session/tour guides, and the funny stuff to make it all memorable. This also leaves a fun record. There are things that we never would’ve remembered weeks or months later but are now amusing to read.
Well, it looks like my original plan is not going to work very well. It will be too rushed. Here’s the whole story:
As of now, S20 says he wants to swim competitively in college. He also has been set on a pre-med track since fourth grade. His dad is a surgeon, so S is fully aware of the demands and commitment. He’s very capable, focused, and mature and will likely have a strong college application.
He loved UBC Vancouver (where his Sis18 will likely go–they are dual citizens) and USC (Cal). He really didn’t like WashU. He goes to a small private high school now, and says he wants something different for college. I am aware that any and all of these preferences may change over the next three years, so I want him to see the wide variety of options that will be available to him. More specifically, I want him to see a suitable LAC before his big school bias becomes more entrenched. I am also aware that it is extremely difficult to swim DI (should he have the times for it) AND do pre-med.
We live in Oklahoma. This road trip will be to TX. Trinity in San Antonio is the LAC I think will appeal to him most, with their impressive new science facilities.
S has a big, exhausting swim meet the weekend before we are planning to travel. We can leave no earlier than Monday morning. He has another big EC commitment the following Monday. So, we have four weekdays to see colleges, and I want that Monday to be an easy transition day for him. Here are the two options I see:
Just focus on the LACs. Visit Austin College (Sherman), Southwestern University (Georgetown), and then Trinity (San Antonio), at a somewhat leisurely pace. We can pop down to DFW area to see TCU and SMU some other time.
Visit SMU, Southwestern, and Trinity, again at a slower pace. This gives him a counter to the LACs.
S is NOT into the preppy thing, so I suspect SMU and TCU will not be contenders. At some point in the future, H will take S on a road trip to see Alabama and Florida State. S will visit OU with his class next year. UNM may come into play as well, as we have family nearby. If S does like the LAC format, we can plan to look at appropriate schools further afield.
To make it all even more complicated, we are full pay and will be chasing merit. Eee-yikes. I thought the second one would be easier!
Since S20 is presumably a freshman in HS now, I would definitely take it more leisurely. Thoughts and opinions will likely change over the next several years. We saw 5 schools in one week last summer between S18’s soph. and junior years. It was almost too much, even then, though he did end up with a favorite which we saw 2nd in the sequence. We recently saw 3 in 4 days, and, again, it was almost too much. His favorite was the third, but he’d been to two of them previously with D15. This one didn’t displace his favorite from last summer, but it is in 2nd place. We’re very happy with those two choices.
I took my DD2 to the one I thought she would like the most (or I liked the most, and it fit her criteria). She ended up comparing everything else to that college, and she ended up applying ED because it was affordable and she didn’t like anything better. She is attending their now.
For DD1 she did not have a clear favorite and we went in an order that made sense geographically.
Have them take some notes on their phone after each college you see.
When we did school trips, we would try to arrive at the location the night before. We never saw more than one school per day. We did the info session, the tour, and if at all possible S went to a class. If possible, we ate on campus or at least nearby. Then we drove to the next town to be fresh the next morning.
In some cases, we stayed at a central location with family or friends–chicago and nyc–and took a day to visit each campus we were interested in.
S had limited tolerance for visiting schools, visiting a total of 8 in 3 different trips. I know that sounds like a lot, but since none of them were safeties I would have liked him to see a few more. He refused.
Agreed. I thought initially this was for a hs junior. Be very leisurely about it. If you are traveling somewhere, vacationing or whatnot, and there are colleges nearby or along the way, do a casual visit. Kids change a ton during the high school years, even between being a junior or senior. Now should be about just looking, not making any hard and fast proclamations about what he does and doesn’t like. Even his interest in medicine or swimming (or an injury!) could change.
S is a swimmer and hates to miss practice–August (off-season) is the only logical time for extended road trips. We will do shorter, more focused second visits when the time is right. This is how we rolled with D18, and she is grateful for it, with a definitive college app plan and preference list in hand going into her senior year.