At our house, “getting a kid to visit” was never an option. We FORCED our kid to visit her most likely in-state options.
Once there she either did or did not like them but at least her opinion wasn’t based on other’s opinions or from an odd picture on a website or what she might’ve thought about some former high school friend who tweeted about it. Preconceived notions were NOT allowed. She was required to go and visit and form her OWN opinions. Shockingly, she learned that a lot of campuses look alike and are “not as bad as I thought.”
At our house,you are allowed to have big dreams and want to go off to school. What you aren’t allowed to do is not put any effort into doing so and you have to actively drop the attitude and start doing the dirty work which involves a bit of compromise, a huge reality check about money and digging in to put in extra effort.
For D, it was the realization that her ACT score, while solid, was not going to be enough to balance the merit quest and so she worked her tail off daily to raise it up a few notches to make her competitive. Her hard work has paid off.