<p>Surfdude, it is worth traveling all that distance to see where you might be spending the next several years. If finances keep you from going on-campus, so be it, but going in person has a lot of value over and above the interview and interviewer. </p>
<p>I think if you are a full-pay student, meaning you could afford the cost of travel, and choose to not visit the campus, it may reflect poorly on you.</p>
<p>My two children who went to boarding school required substantial financial aid, but I bit the bullet and took them on campus for tours and interviews (we live in the West and we traveled to New England). I don’t have personal experience with off-campus interviews but I do know of a local boy, really a prodigy, who was accepted at Exeter and had never set foot there before the first day of school.</p>