So, how many college visits did your kids do?

Parents Forum
61

Dozens. Thankfully, it was split up between three of us…myself, her Dad, and her aunt, although I did the majority.

I’m not sure I can remember them all but I’ll give it a go: UScranton, Gettysburgh, VASSAR, Susquennah, Marist, Bucknell, DICKINSON, Union, Ithaca, Skidmore, BATES, Bowdoin, Colby, Providence, Brown, Conn College, Wesleyan, Trinity U, UMass Amherst, Amherst, Mt. Holyoke, Hampshire (the yurt visit), SMITH, Assumption, Clark U, Wheaton, Stonehill, WELLESLEY, Simmons, Middlebury, St. Michaels. Probably more lol.

Its clear that we were chasing merit by the difference in the caliber of schools on the list. Some were visited simply because we had travelled so far to that particular area and it made sense to look at nearby schools while there (Hampshire, Marist, Assumption, Stonehill are examples of that).

62

K1: Gettysburg, Franklin & Marshall, Dickinson, Connecticut College, Trinity, Furman, Elon, Miami of Ohio, Wooster, Denison, University of Maryland, Villanova, Fordham, NYU, Hamilton, Ohio Wesleyan, Rollins, University of Richmond, Rhodes, Sewanee

K2: College of Charleston, U of South Carolina, Elon, Furman, Lehigh, Franklin & Marshall, Dickinson, Ursinus, Virginia Tech, Drew, Providence, Clemson, Fairfield, Hobart & William Smith, Lafayette

K3: UNC- CH, Duke, Vanderbilt, UVA, Washington & Lee, Lehigh, Penn, Princeton, Notre Dame, Boston College, Dartmouth, Bowdoin, Bates, Williams, Cornell, Georgetown, Colgate, Bucknell, Wake Forest, Michigan, Northwestern

63

D and I visited: Wellesley, Emerson, Boston College, U. Richmond, Elon, UNC, Davidson (2x), Furman, UGA,Villanova,Lafayette,Gettysburg, Bryn Mawr, (also walked through Haverford and Muhlenberg).

After all that she applied to 5 or 6 schools we didn’t visit and now she is a freshman at one of those colleges! Just showed up on move-in day. I wouldn’t recommend that. This is a crazy process.

64

D1: visited Penn State, Georgia, Michigan State, Ohio State, Central Michigan, Indiana University, Ball State and Kentucky. Applied to UK, IU, MSU and OSU, ended up going to IU.

D2: when on all visits with D1, but two weeks ago we looked at Purdue. She is only a Soph in HS so still time to do more as she decides on what she wants to major in.

65

St. Paul Dad

Electrician is a very good trade, and well paid. Not easy though. Many Electricians are paid more than the average college grad, and there is always the potential for opening your own business and running your own people, if you have the talent for it.

The first few years are the toughest.

66

S1 is an athlete, so we determined pretty early on that we would only visit schools that had shown an interest in him. As it turns out, there was no way we could visit all of them, so we ended up visiting only the schools that “made the cut”, or were convenient.

So, it was Chicago, Midd, Dartmouth, Macalester, Swarthmore, Carleton, McGill. All of them appeared to be terrific schools, and S1 would be lucky to go to any of them.

Did a quick drive by of Amherst, Toronto, St. Olaf, and Minnesota.

67

The college search with both kids has been quite enjoyable. I would love to that full time…really.

Son 1 - Wichita State, University of Arkansas, Missouri S&T, Colorado St, Colorado School of Mines, Ole Miss, Miss St, and University of Alabama ( where he is a soph studying mechanical engineering).

Son 2 - University of Missouri, University of Arkansas, Kansas St, Oklahoma St, University of Northern Colorado, Western St ( Co), Adams St(Co), University of Central Arkansas, Missouri St, SE Missouri St, and South Dakota St. Still deciding but leaning towards SDSU.

68

I think I love visiting colleges more than my kids. But…

Kid 1: Smith (attending), Mount Holyoke, Bryn Mawr, Reed, Willmate, University of Puget Sound, Lewis & Clark, and University of Portland.

Kid 2: Musician so many of her visits will come with auditions. However, she has visited CSU Long Beach and Chapman, as well as, tagged along with her sister to the Oregon schools listed above.

69

I’m loving the visiting colleges thing so much that, well, my kid has a friend who’s a sophomore and top of her class and doesn’t have much money in the family, and I’m making plans to kidnap her and take her to colleges along with us in the spring.

70

Kid 1 (senior) - Rice, Baylor, Texas A&M, Trinity (2X), Southwestern (2X), Hendrix, Rhodes, Centre. We’ll be visiting Rollins over Thanksgiving.

Kid 2 (sophomore) - has come along for the ride to all of them except Southwestern.

We have so much fun on these visits. Their dad (my ex) expresses no interest in the process so it’s turned into a wonderful girls trip activity.

71

Wow! My son is a sophomore and swims and we better get a move on it! LOL, so it looks like 10-12 is a norm??

72

Honestly, @dandamom1 do as many as you are comfortable with. The people who go to this bulletin board are a self-selecting crowd who by definition are more anxious and involved in the college selection process.

I would suggest doing more than 1 visit. For me, the first visit was to a college that I wouldn’t mind him going to but wasn’t likely to be first choice, because I had a feeling he’d fall in love with the first place he saw. Then I took him to a couple of good similar colleges so he’d see the variety.

My best friend took their niece from England to 3 schools on a summer trip - large state school, small LAC, middle sized university. They emphasized that these were the types of school, talked about the positives and negatives of each one, then the niece is doing web searches and virtual tours from here on out. I think that’s a great way of doing things if you don’t have the budget or leave time to do massive college tours.

Personally I love doing college tours so I’m probably taking the kid on more than necessary.

73

None. We live abroad. Will visit after we get acceptances so we can make a final decision.

74

@dandamom1 Here is my suggestion. My oldest son was a slow decision maker. So sophomore year we did visits to schools (no info sessions…either tours on our own or their tours) to figure out atmosphere (big/small? city/suburb/middle of no where?). And we visited local…we live outside of Boston and can hit all of those types with an hour or so. Going into junior year he knew he wanted medium to big school in a city where he could run varsity XC and track and had really good academics. He and I then came up with a list and only visited those at the top and his top safety.

75

Kid 1–applied to five, visited all five starting summer before senior year—one on a family vacation, two local safeties, one to interview for a scholarship, and one special trip to an OOS acceptance before making a final decision

Kid 2–applied to ten, visited nine starting summer before senior year—three in one area as side trips on a family vacation, one as a side trip on another trip, three for scholarship interviews, two local safeties.

Kid—current junior—first visit last month to an in state university—met with department heads—super helpful in clarifying his options (music) and giving him things to think about over the next several months. He’s also done a summer program for potential music majors at another local university.

76

Kid 1: Cornell, GWU, American, Northeastern, Brown, SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Stony Brook, Penn State, Lafayette, Muhlenberg, Villanova, RPI, Mt Holyoke, Smith, Fordham, Cooper Union, U of Rochester–toured the campus and/or attended on-campus info sessions at all 17 of these
Drive-throughs: Scranton, U of MD-CP, U of Delaware, Boston U, McGill
Attended off-campus info sessions: Boston U, Chicago/Columbia/Cornell/Rice combo
She thought that she wanted a big state school. I thought that a small LAC would be a better fit and pushed for tours at several of them.

Currently attending Mt Holyoke which she really liked after the tour and loved after the accepted students overnight visit

Kid 2: Fairfield, Providence, U of MD-CP, U of Delaware, William and Mary, Loyola Maryland, Fordham = 7 total
He wanted to re-tour SUNYs, Penn State and Villanova but we convinced him that he knew enough about them to decide (translation: we were too tired)
Currently applying. He was thinking of applying ED at William and Mary but after visiting, Fordham is his current favorite

77

Fun, I have to join in.

Kid 1 included a lot of drive by’s and “get out of the car and have a quick look around because it happened to be on the route” visits. I think the grand total is 30, but I will stick to actual visits, which total 24. Bates, Kenyon, F&M, Carleton, SUNY Geneseo, Clark U, Northeastern, Tufts, BC, BU, Brown, Vassar, Dickinson, Lafayette, Goucher, U Rochester, Skidmore, Hamilton, JHU, Haverford, Swarthmore, Wesleyan, Conn College, and Trinity College. Too many, but it was a lot of fun and we had lots of bonding time.

Kid 2… UVM and UNH. Haha! He went to Yale once for a lacrosse tournamnet, but I don’t think that counts:-)
We will visit a few more (maybe three or four) before he applies next year, but he will not be visiting several of the colleges he will apply to because they are too far away. He’s very happy that he never got dragged around to visit colleges with his sister.

78

@Lindagaf, thanks for bringing me back down to earth as I thought the 12 schools we visited was a lot. That said, after we circled back for on-campus interviews and athletic recruiting overnights, I guess we got to 20. Kid 3 was dragged along, so hope she remembers 6 years later as we won’t want to go through that again!

79

@ninakatarina -

I think your kindness to your D’s friend is amazing and generous.

80

We did a lot too.

Kid 1 - 18 visits and 5 drive/walk arounds. Ended up at the 1st school we looked at. hah! could have stopped after the 1st one!
Kid 2 - 7 so far and lots more to come. Think she will surpass her sister. She also really likes the first one she saw!