We are doing our first college visit that isn’t the local state school! We are seeing Macalester because it’s a (relatively) close drive and checks all my daughter’s boxes: Small class size, lots of interactions with professors, good potential for research/internships, in an urban area but still a college campus, no Greek life, good bio/neuro departments, study abroad AND meets NPC calculator. Hard target/rationale reach.
So we know the ‘on paper basics’ – but what do you look for on the visit?
We are going on a campus tour: Basic intro talk, walk around, and students panel
We have an afternoon/evening free before that where we plan to walk around the area near campus, and take a stroll around campus.
Make a list of “quality of life” factors and then see what you can arrange ahead of time.
So if she likes to swim-- see the hours to take a tour of the pool/gym area. Would join a religious/cultural group on campus? Arrange a meeting with the chaplain. Active community volunteer? Ask to meet with the professional who coordinates the student led organizations so she gets a feel for what’s going on, where the gaps are, etc.
Probably the best advice I heard which we were not actually able to follow until post-admissions visits was to try to eat at least one meal on-campus.
I also eventually learned that if you tell a security guard that you are with a student taking a tour and want to take a look around whatever building, odds are they will waive you in.
I think the goal is to get an idea of what the kid’s actual normal dining experience would be. At some colleges this would point to a main dining hall, but at some this might be a well-chosen cafe, food court, or so on. I think it can make for a good question, in fact. “I see the science buildings are all over in this part of campus, where do science majors normally eat lunch?” That sort of thing.
When we visited LACs with my D we found that many had a certain “vibe.” Some schools my D gravitated towards and others she immediately dismissed from consideration. I’m not sure you will get the best feel for Mac when most students are home and classes are not in session.
I know it’s not ideal But logistically - we aren’t going to be able to go to all of them next year (just the financial burden alone). Mac does have a robust summer research program --and I’m hoping we run into some of those students. There is also a panel of students at the event. At least St Paul is a city so things should still be going on during the summer. I think she’s going to have to apply to most of them sight unseen anyway…and we’ll need to sort visits out with whatever places she gets accepted to.
We had to do most of our visits in the summer, too, and the ones that we did during the school year seemed to coincide with every school’s spring break. There was really nothing we could do about that, but we still felt like we got a good feel for the schools. Most schools (large and small) will have activity going on over the summer, so you’ll still get a sense of the vibe. When it comes down to final decisions, admitted students’ days usually happen while school is in session, so that can give an opportunity for one last good look for schools still in the running for your kid.
One thing you’ll learn while visiting: there are certain boilerplate things that all tour guides will say (opportunities for student research! professors are accessible!). So look for the more specific information, and have questions in mind about specific majors, programs, or facets of student life that matter (are clubs competitive to join, religious life if that matters, internships, where do students go when they want to have fun, and so on).
Don’t hold me to this since we only did a quick self-guided tour of Macalester, but my impression is most of the dining options are in the Campus Center. It is one of the most compact campuses we saw, so it is pretty easy to get there from almost anywhere. I think there are different dining options on different levels, though. It might be fun to check them all out even if you only actually eat at one.
By the way, Macalester is a Bon Appetit customer, and they have an online presence where you can check out both today’s but also upcoming weekly menus and such:
For what it is worth, my S24 had a really busy schedule and as a result we also did most visits during summers and breaks when school was not in session. Not ideal but I still thought it was worth doing when practical. And you can always do something different with your top options once you actually have offers.
And for that matter, for cost reasons alone some people just do sample visits near them during the application phase, again maybe doing targeted visits at the offer phase (or not sometimes).
It’s been really hard deciding which of the list to visit near the Great Lakes but I picked the one that is MOST likely to end up on her final list. She’s only a rising junior so we have a year to try to fit in other trips, and get more serious about her list. I’m hoping this trip will help define some likes/don’t likes
I think that is a perfect approach. Some kids quickly learn from sample visits that things they thought they might like they don’t really like, things they thought they would not care about actually are very attractive, and so on.
In fact, even if a college is not currently a strong possibility for the final list, if it is convenient/cheap enough for a visit I might suggest doing a couple more like that, if they cover a range of different types of colleges (big, medium small, public and private, and so on). As noted kids sometimes surprise themselves, and even if it just confirms their original preferences that is good information too.
We also did most of our tours, including Macalester, in the summer, and still got a good idea about these colleges and got to meet students. The presentation and student panel at Mac were very impressive. Enjoy your visit!
No matter when and where you visit - in addition to other comments - two things:
Stop kids (or adults) and just start chatting - hey, i’m visiting - and after you confirm they go there or work there - what’s your favorite thing about Mac…or I’m really interested in this…how can I do it here. Or how’s the dorm…really, whatever crosses your mind - after a question or two the conversation will just flow. It works for adults too - we had a great chat with a Prof at W&L who was walking around on a weekend afternoon with his family). You’ll learn a lot.
Walk the surrounds - make sure you are comfortable/you like the surrounds - as you’ll often want to be off campus, especially such a small one.
Enjoy your visit.
PS - the minute you get back to your car - phone out - get your students comments, emotions, everything - because after a few visits or a few months later they’ve forgotten what they thought. Everything needs to be documented - writing, video - whatever. Video is great because it captures the emotion. Make sure they are detailed in their likes/dislikes and not just - i like it, i can see myself here. Get depth.
Incoming freshman parent here. We are told Macalester dining hall is under minor construction so it might be closed for summer (they must be open somewhere else to feed kids during summer.)
We had a wonderful campus tour last summer. Got to meet some faculty and students.
That’s a bit unfortunate but oh well! I think as an alternative you could try picking a place close to campus that is popular with Macalester students.
Kinda random, but I quickly googled up this Instagram that has some possible off campus options. I am sure there is more social media out there with kids talking about stuff like this:
The video is a brilliant idea! Yeah - I had no idea how SMALL the campus is until I looked at the map. We will be staying in the surrounding area so we will explore it the night before.
I was raised in New England, so talking to strangers is my cup of tea -but my daughter will be so embarrassed Haha!
But logistically - we aren’t going to be able to go to all of them next year (just the financial burden alone). Mac does have a robust summer research program --and I’m hoping we run into some of those students. There is also a panel of students at the event. At least St Paul is a city so things should still be going on during the summer. I think she’s going to have to apply to most of them sight unseen anyway…and we’ll need to sort visits out with whatever places she gets accepted to.
Haha!