Help me understand the importance (or unimportance) of college visits before applying

There are a three main reasons to visit a college: 1) Learn about the college; 2) Get a general sense of what types of colleges one would like; and 3) Show the flag to schools that need love (back in the old days, a number of NESCAC schools like Bowdoin wanted candidates to show love so that they could get their yield up). I don’t know if the third reason still applies post-Pandemic.

With one kid, we did Strategy 4 after visiting two schools. He said, “I don’t want to fall in love with a school that has a 10% probability that admitted me.” With the other, we visited two US schools and seven Canadian schools and was told that she would get into each of the seven, she applied to two Canadian schools, got into both and chose one.