@Veryapparent Little Italy in Cleveland is actually quite large, with 25ish restaurants that I know of plus shops, galleries, etc.
I don’t think Little Italy in NYC has that many anymore (I’m from NYC also).
‘That School Up North’. Gorgeous campus, beautiful homes nearby, nice retail and restaurant areas, students seemed active and bright. I have a much better understanding why we don’t mention them by name and was surprised by my visceral reaction. I would never be able to get over the rivalry enough to let my kid apply. It probably didn’t help it was a perfect sunny summer day of Michigan weather either and we were on our way home from a great time at the lake. :-w
@OHMomof2
We may have been in wrong place. We could only find 2 or 3 restaurants. It seemed only like a block or 2 long.
I agree with @toowonderful on the visits.
We started very early so it was easy to fit in a tour during family vacations, soccer tourneys, or even accompanied business trips. The tours helped in two ways. First, it helped in arriving at a final list of colleges (reach/match/safety) proving to our son that he could be happy and successful at any of the schools on his list. Secondly, it gave him something to look forward to while he was completing high school.
@toowonderful I agree with you about the value of visits. Besides, aren’t they fun? I wonder if, when my last has matriculated and I am officially ‘done’, will I still sneak visits onto campuses I really wanted to see (Scripps, Oberlin, Colby)? Maybe the staff will assume I am a college counselor or something…
I think this point is worth repeating:
“First, it helped in arriving at a final list of colleges (reach/match/safety) proving to our son that he could be happy and successful at any of the schools on his list.”
@PetulaClark - I highly recommend visiting Oberlin if you ever get the chance. Charming town, good food, cool architecture etc. H and I sometimes go over on a Saturday just to walk around (it’s about 45 min from where we live). They have a GREAT chalk festival in the summer 
@Rivet2000 what turned you off so much from the Harvey Mudd dorm tour?
Visiting campuses was a must for us. I wouldn’t sent my son until I was sure that we were both comfortable with the campus. His choices changed around after his visits. The high school visits at the high school were not of much benefit to us.
@RightCoaster - We must have visited right after a major celebration as the dorm area was thrashed and featured a large trash bin filled with beer bottles. While that matched my style, it did not match his so,…
Visits without overnights and sitting in on classes serves little purpose unless you just want to get an overall feel as to what you are looking for in terms of size, location, and campus vibe. I personally found little value in info sessions and tours and oftentimes it’s a bit too random in terms of who the tour guide is.
It was only once D17 started visiting campuses for overnights for either for fly-ins, accepted students weekends or for scholarship competitions that she really got a sense of what constituted a good intellectual and social fit.
I have to be honest: RPI is the worst college campus (in terms of feeling it evoked in me) I have ever visited out of around 30 campuses I visited. My friend attended there so I visited it once. I just visited CalTech out of curiosity when I drove through Old Pasadena area. Very small campus like Georgetown.
Agree with LoveTheBard that judging a college based on tour guides is not accurate. Our worst tour guide was for Stanford but my kid still decided to go there; that Stanford tour guide did not convey his excitement or enthusiasm at all being at Stanford – and also lacked knowledge about his own school – while other tour guides at Berkeley and UCLA were so enthusiastic and did great jobs that I wanted to give them some awards. It’s really a hit and miss. We had wonderful tour guides at UC Berkeley and UCLA. These 3 were only official tour guides we had to colleges. We visited on our own: Columbia, NYU, Boston College, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine, U of Washington, Harvard, Pomona/Claremont, Georgetown. I swear I thought our kid was a good fit at a small liberal college but after Pomona tour he told me the campus was too small for him and he preferred a large campus.
@LoveTheBard Agree totally, but if you don’t really feel comfortable to spend that night there is no need to. The point being that there are so many schools that could fill any students reach/match/safety list, there is really no need to invest time in one where the student does not feel comfortable from the jump.
Of course it is silly to judge a college by the luck of the draw on you meshing with your tour guide. But, I’d still argue that visits, even those that aren’t overnights are helpful. Stroll around campus on your own, talk to students, eat in the dining hall, see what’s posted on bulletin boards or chalked on the walkways (or not - which is also telling). Watch how students interact with you when passing - or not - and with each other. How crowded is the library? If the weather is nice, are students outside? Lots of things you can glean from a few hours on campus, IMO.
doschicos
Yes, @Old_parent? ;
@momocarly @doschicos @PetulaClark. I seem to be vastly outnumbered. As my friend from Texas often says, “It takes all kinds to fill the freeway”. Loved your responses! My daughter ended up at the school that she vowed that she would not apply to after visiting. We cajoled her into applying anyway and she’s as happy as a freshman engineering student has a right to be. I’m just not sure that a 15 or 16 year old has the tools to discern between a good and bad fit. I think this thread, if it teaches anything (Athena forbid) is that first impressions are not particularly useful. Every single one of my favorite colleges has been bruttaly treated. Come to think of it I am totally off topic, a bore, and it is really time to trashing colleges. Any mention of Skidmore always makes me smile!
As far as the teenager making a discerning choice, we did wait until the second half of junior year into early senior year to undertake the process. I think this helped a bit. We also, as parents, guided our children through process, not making the decisions for them, but helping them pinpoint what criteria they might focus on.
Also, as full pay, you better bet we were kicking tires given the amount of $$ on the table.
Back to dumping on Skidmore: Have I mentioned all the cobwebs, dust, and the musty odor in the admissions building? Or the students who basically told my kid “don’t come here” when touring campus? However, don’t leave Saratoga Springs without picking up some delicious sandwiches and cheeses at Putnam Market. 
@Old_parent Sorry about the piling on! I agree can be risky to take a HS junior to a college and hope she won’t judge the school by the cuteness of the tour guide or some ugly random building, on or off the campus. But I believe (hope) it’s better than not going at all. Maybe it helps with motivation, or allow then to see themselves on a certain campus, big or small. My D19 has some friends who are seniors and literally have visited not one college. Likely they will apply to 2 or 3 publics and see what happens.