Each family has to do what works best for them. Some parents have the ability to travel to many places, while others must only go by the information on college websites.
In our case, the process has been different for each of our three daughters.
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#1 was not academic at all, and it appeared that college might not be in her immediate future. She did convince grandparents to take her on a graduation trip to New York City, claiming she was interested in colleges in the area. She did go on a few tours, but everyone knew the odds of acceptance were incredibly low. A few weeks before the fall semester was to begin, she scrambled around to get registered at our nearest state school. She attended college for one year.
-#2 had big dreams of heading far away for college, and experiencing life in a different region of the U.S. We took several road trips, cashing in points for free hotel rooms, and flew once when Frontier was having a ridiculous sale. She wound up at a state school 1000 miles away, that wasn’t even on her initial list. But we insisted that we visit that campus, since we were in the area July 4th week.