<p>We took each of our two children separately on several college visits, and only once did we bring a friend. </p>
<p>D and her BF coincidentally ended up touring the same nearby large, urban university the same day (tours were an hour apart on a school holiday) so we met BF and his dad for lunch afterward. Both kids were excited about this college and shared an enthusiastic conversation. The next day, I took D and BF on a day trip to visit a smaller, more rural school about 2 hours away. It was ok. The kids joked around with each other a lot. On the plus side, they were planning on different majors so they were looking at the college with different lenses and they shared their opinions. In the end, neither was particularly impressed with it. I think it was partly because it was so quiet compared to the high energy level of big urban Univ the day before, and partly because they both disliked the dorms. Frankly, I didn’t like the dorms either and the whole place gave me a kind of “off” feeling, so I was just as happy they weren’t too impressed. (I’d had high hopes - it was the right size college, a “match” for D academically, and a nice distance from home. But the actual college didn’t live up to what any of us had expected/hoped for.)</p>
<p>So bringing D and her BF to the college visit together didn’t seem to have a big impact. They each ended up with about 6 colleges on their list, 3 of which overlapped. In the end BF attended the big urban univ we saw the first day, and D went to a smaller college 800 miles away. They broke up part way through 1st semester.</p>
<p>On the down side, we attended some college tours where it was clear there were groups of friends together (usually girls) and it was also often clear the kids were more interested in hanging out together and having fun than in gathering information. That turned D off of those colleges, because if that was the kind of kids that would be going there, she wasn’t interested.</p>