<p>jmho, trips to visit schools, are indeed costly in both time and money.</p>
<p>there were 2 separate paths as d was recruited by some schools for academics (national merit) and by some schools for athletics (revenue sport). she applied to 15 schools. of the 15, she visited 7. of those 7, she visited a nearby school several times. the multiple visits helped in making the decision to remove the school from her list.</p>
<p>d didn't truly start visiting schools until the summer prior to senior year because we just didn't know to start earlier (d is oldest child) and summers were generally filled with travel for sports competitions.</p>
<p>it was VERY difficult to schedule visits during senior year as d's plate was full with participation in multiple varsity sports and ap classes. during varsity sports seasons, there are usually twice weekly games and practices after school on non-games days. we will, hopefully, start the visit process earlier with the younger sibs.</p>
<p>only one trip was paid for by a school......they were recruiting her because of national merit standing. there were offers of visits to other nmf schools but there just wasn't time for her to do those.</p>
<p>no trip to visit any schools connected to athletic recruiting were paid for. they were all on our dime.</p>
<p>what worked best due to time constraints was the one day only trips involving no overnight stay.</p>
<p>if we had it to do over again, would probably want to spend less $$'s on competition travel and more $$'s on unofficial visits and camps. it's a catch 22. the athletes have to compete against good competition but it's also hard to fund both avenues.......school visits and competitions. sometimes tough choices have to be made about where the $$$'s go.</p>
<p>what did seem concerning to me was that there were sometimes invitations to apply for academic scholarships at some schools and if selected for a finalist interview, we would have had to foot the cost for the travel to the school for the interview and once again, time to make the trip would have been a factor. knowing that, d just didn't apply for those types of scholarships.</p>
<p>momfromme - i do agree. "campus visits before applications are a luxury for many people." with additional children in the family, time and money can be tight for many.</p>
<p>even making time to attend admissions presentations held in other cities can be tough to do.</p>