One kid did camps at Susquehanna and Sweet Briar and the other at Washington College, so those count as visits in a way. Others visited: walked around Penn State for an event years ago, sorta walked around Harvard, and drove through Cornell, Tufts, Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Dickinson at one time or another; real visits by one or both kids (more-or-less north to south) to Middlebury, Brandeis, Boston U., Wellesley, Rochester, Vassar, Trinity, Wesleyan, Yale, Columbia, Barnard, Case Western, Pitt, Lafayette, Ursinus, Princeton, Penn, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Swarthmore, Georgetown. Might have missed one. A couple of Minnesota schools are on app list but won’t spend for visit unless accepted and trying to decide.
Summer programs in Duke, Columbia, Brown and Harvard. She did not like any of them 100% to go for college, but she applied and was accepted into two of them.
Northwestern (she did not like it, even though she thinks it is a nice place), Princeton (she liked it, but it is too isolated for her taste).
She visited UPenn after being accepted…not for her.
UChicago, love at first sight, attending, working harder than ever, and absolutely happy.
She applied to 12, and was accepted into 8. I definitely recommend the visits before applying.
D19 is only a junior but we have done a few visits. So far we have done 5 official tours and 1 drive through. Visited Bates & Bowdoin while we were already on vacation in Maine. Then did a family vacation to NY and VT - did a drive by of Syracuse and did official visits to Hobart, St. Lawrence and UVM.
D21 skipped the visits in Maine but did Hobart & SLU with us. She decided to sleep in for UVM, by then D19 had made no decisions but D21 said she did not want to go to school in a cold place so no need to check out UVM!
D-UW, UPS, Lewis and Clark, Reed, Denison, Wooster, Case, Oberlin, Claremont, Oxy, Macalester, St Olaf-on upcoming agenda Smith, Brandeis, Holyoke, Harvard, Grinnell. The first group were close drives, the second a scheduled trip to Ohio, CA schools were on a vacation and the rest are all scheduled visits. A lot I know. We are really tired. Not sure if I would do it all over again.
Kid #1: UT-Austin, Rice, Wash U, Emory, Rhodes, Dartmouth, Susquehanna, Muhlenberg, University of Rochester, Grove City, Union, Bucknell.
Kid #2 & #3 (combined since Kid #2 took 2 1/2 gap years): Susquehana, Elizabethtown, Wheaton, Lafayette, Gordon, University of Southern Maine.
Kid #1: Not that many–only 4 official tours/info sessions. UC Berkeley, UCSB, UC Santa Cruz (just walked around on a Sunday), Caltech, Harvey Mudd, Stanford. He visited CMU, NYU, CU Boulder, and UNLV for various activities. Never even visited Calpoly SLO, USC, or UCLA all of which are within ~90 minute drive. We were on the MIT campus when he was in 7th grade, but it wasn’t a tour. (DH was doing the Marathon for the first time.) He revisited Caltech and CMU after admissions were out.
Kid #1: Only a 9th grader now. He’s on the USC campus today for an all-day event, so that’s one Kid #1 got admitted to but never visited. He liked UCSC best of the ones we visited with K1.
D # 1: UW-Madison, Lawrence, UMN Twin Cities, Macalester, Beloit College, UVA, William & Mary, St. Mary’s of MD, GW, Georgetown. She applied to UMN, Macalester, Beloit, W & M, Emory, Wash U, AZ State, Tulane, and Lawrence. She was accepted at all but W & M (waitlisted) and Wash U (denied)
D # 2: UMN Twin Cities, St Olaf, Vanderbilt, UGA, Agnes Scott College, Emory, UW-Madison, UW-Eau Claire, Michigan, CU-Boulder. Lawrence. She applied to UGA, UMN, Michigan, and CU-Boulder. So far accepted at UMN
None until accepted. Then 3. Their choice…I never would have done it that way!! But then it was not about me. In the end…ours is very happy!
The majority of posters on this thread have an incredibly high tolerance for boredom or just love their kids more than I do. We’ve done 6 for the oldest son and that’s it unless he gets accepted to some of the places we didn’t visit. But we’re more on the low maintenance/practical side of the scale, so much of DS’ research has been focused on course offerings and interaction (via email) with various professors and department heads rather than much ado about perfect atmosphere/vibe/fit.
We or D with friends/part of a summer program toured Notre Dame, Morgan State, Bama, Oklahoma State, UT, UNT, Oklahoma, Hendrix, Tulsa, and Ole Miss before applying anywhere. After apps were in, we or D by herself, visited Pitt, UGA, Michigan State, Villanova, UMD, UDel, Cincinnati, Indiana-Bloomington. So that’s 18 total.
D1 - Visited 17, but probably half of those were during sports camps at nearby colleges. Two or three were drive by’s (like VMI during the summer - just to see what it looked like because we were curious). Three or four were visited during other events - not specifically because she was interested - so I don’t know if those count.
Because of lessons learned during D1’s visits (mainly that they all run together after the first 3 or 4, and are expensive), D2 will do her research before any visits and will probably be restricted to three or four that she truly is interested in and would attend. She’ll probably have the option to visit a couple more if she gets accepted to any that she didn’t visit. She did tag along on many of D1’s visits so she’s already been on a few campuses - but I don’t think she’s interested in any of the colleges D1 visited.
D visited 12. 4 of them were unguided campus walks. The rest were tours with info sessions. Then there were 4 athletic visits out of those with one or two nights and a chance to attend class, live in the dorms, east the food, see the social life. Those were more eye opening than any of the other visits and made the decision easy.
Twins
DDs15 Fordham, Seton Hall, Providence, Brown, Fairfield, Roger Williams, NorthEastern, Emerson, Brandeis, Williams, Lehigh, Lafayette, Marist, Muhlenberg, George Mason, Vassar, Boston U, Boston College and Clark. There were also some unofficial visits for swim meets and Speech and Debate tournaments.
DD1 visited Muhlenberg 3 times. She fell in love and ended up there.
DD2 is at Marist and love it there too.
DD3 (18) Fordham, Hamilton, Colgate, Syracuse, Ithaca, Sussquehanna, Bucknell, University of Scranton, McDaniel, U of Delaware, Catholic, Lafayette, Muhlenberg, U of Richmond, Elon, Wake Forest, and Skidmore. She also has some colleges she’s been to with Speech and Debate.
ETA: DD3 would not do college visits when her sisters were looking (8th grade) so the schools on both lists were revisits for me.
D18 visited 14 plus (forgetting a few): Udel (applied, safety), Pitt (LOVED, accepted, may attend if merit comes through), Boston Univ (liked, will apply), Northeastern (Loved, will not apply due to major change), Bryn Mawr (Loved, recruited for a sport, will apply), St. Johns Annapolis (Loved, will not apply, unconventional system too worrisome), William & Mary (visited twice, will not apply, bad 2nd visit); Coast Guard Academy (loved but major/plans changed), WPI (did not like, wll not apply), Stevens (liked, will not apply), Rutgers (liked, applied), Richmond (did not like, will not apply), Lehigh (liked, will not apply), The College of NJ (Liked but too rural, not a good fit for major, will not apply), Hobart & William Smith (liked, will not apply).
Colleges visited because it’s in the next city over and everyone in the vicinity has been there: 1.
Colleges visited because Dad and mom’s parents went there: 1.
Colleges visited by Dad and both daughters during D1’s junior year: 7 or 8.
Colleges visited by Dad, Mom (me), and both daughters before D1’s senior year: 4 or 5.
Colleges visited by D1 senior year, after acceptances: 3. The one she ended up attending was one she saw for the first time after acceptance.
Colleges visited by D2 and Dad or Mom senior year, before acceptances: 3.
Colleges visited by D2 and Dad or alone senior year, after acceptances: 6.
We have visited 12 so far and 1 drive by. They include:
Washington and Lee-applied
Richmond-off list
Davidson-off list
Wofford-off list
University of TN-too big
Samford-applied
Centre-applied
Elon-applied
Furman-applied
Wake Forest-off list
Drove by Belmont-applied and accepted
Lipscomb-applied and accepted but have not visited yet
Our D visited several colleges with her high school senior class on field trips. I told her we could visit an additional three colleges anywhere in the continental United States that we could fly to within a week during her high school’s Fall Break. Our goal was to spend two nights if possible in each city to not only visit the colleges but to allow our D to get acquainted with the surrounding communities and so some sightseeing.
We arrived the afternoon before our scheduled formal college guided tours and prospective student programs for two of the three colleges and walked the campuses on our own to get our own impressions. For the third one, we arrived early in the morning and walked the campus before our scheduled tour.
The colleges she chose and that we visited (in order) were:
University of Miami (Florida)
University of Richmond (Virginia)
Trinity University (Texas)
The visits were definitely worthwhile and she applied and was accepted to all three, but enrolled at the University of Richmond.
She also applied and was accepted to two other colleges that we didn’t have the opportunity to visit.
We live too far away from all three colleges for our D to drive to and from any of the campuses and home, so it was important for us to get an idea of how far the nearest airport served by major airlines was from each campus and airport transportation options, how convenient each airport is for a college student traveling by herself, and the availability of flights with reasonable connection options to and from where we live.
TCU, SMU, Tulane (2x), Rice (2x), U of TX (Austin), U of OK, UNC Chapel Hill, UVA, Vanderbilt, Yale, Columbia, U of Toronto, McGill, and Emory. For most we took organized tours. Some self tour. Some done during vacations or business trips where my son joined me. We had a ball!
1 - Temple, UArts, NYU/Tisch, Pace, Fordham, Eugene Lang/New School, Rutgers, Montclair State, American, DePaul, Columbia College Chicago, Chicago College of Performing Arts/Roosevelt; BU, Emerson; he applied to UArts, Fordham, Lang, Rutgers Arts & Sciences and Mason Gross, DePaul, CCC, BU, and Emerson. He auditioned for Theater programs, and enrolled at UArts. He transferred to Temple later on.
2 - GWU, New College of FL, Tulane, Vanderbilt, Rhodes (just drove through), Davidson, Guilford, Wake Forest, UNC-CH, UCSD, Whittier, Occidental, Claremont-McKenna, Pitzer, UCSB, CalPoly-SLO, UCSC, UCD, UCB. He applied to UCB, UNC-CH, and CMC as reaches (rejected from all three); to Reed and UWashington (Seattle) - where he was waitlisted - along with Whitman, Willamette, and Eckerd - who accepted him -without visiting, He later attended accepted-student events at Eckerd and Willamette. He applied, and was accepted, at NCF, Tulane, Guilford, UCSD, Occidental, Pitzer, and UCD. He is at New College.
My son visited 4, applied to all 4 because he couldn’t decide. There are a lot of great colleges in Texas! Finally decided on Texas A&M!