<p>Visits are nice.</p>
<p>They are not absolutely necessary.</p>
<p>My son (the older kid) did not visit any colleges he was applying to until spring of senior year, long after the apps were in. He then decided to visit his top choice college; it happened to be in the same town as one of his safeties, so he decided to visit both. He had an airline voucher from when he had been bumped from a flight the previous summer, so he applied that to the cost of a round trip ticket and flew on his own to visit; arranging successive overnights at each. His reasoning was that he felt reasonably sure of admission to his top choice, and so that was the only one he really needed to see. </p>
<p>He was indeed admitted to the top choice college, but unfortunately they did not offer any financial aid. He then received a suprisingly generous financial aid offer from his 2nd choice college, on the east coast -- so he flew out east in April -- it was short notice, booked less than 2 weeks out, but I don't remember having to pay too much. In any case, he came home, said he had found the college acceptable, and that is where he went.</p>
<p>My daughter did visit more colleges, but she also visited on her own. She took two separate week-long trips to the east coast; the second one was with a free roundtrip airline ticket she had won in a contest the previous spring - I paid for the other trip. (If she hadn't had the free ticket, then there simply would have been one trip rather than 2 -- the 2nd trip was not really necessary, it was more to visit her bf than schools -- in fact it rained most of the time and she cancelled several planned visits anyway). </p>
<p>I do think my daughter learned some things about herself and what she wanted on college visits -- but it happened that way only because she was traveling alone. So if anything, I think parental presence at a visit can be counterproductive in terms of the overall decision making process. (I know I certainly will get flamed for this -- but especially for a kid contemplating a distant college, there's a lot of value to the dry run experience of doing it solo).</p>