College Prep: The Importance of College Visits
There are many important things that need to be considered when determining what college you’ll decide to call home for four years. Many aspects of a college can be weighed out on paper, but it’s incredibly important to actually visit a college campus before you decide to go and be a student there.
Choosing what college to go to is no light-hearted decision. It is a decision that takes a lot of research and planning. Or at least it should.
There are many statistical factors that are generally the first thing that students consider when determining which colleges they should apply to. Some such factors include:
Geographical location
Academic level of difficulty
Certain course/major offerings
Size of student body
For the most part, these factors can be weighed and considered from a distance. Many students will have a good enough understanding of the environment in which they thrive to know if they want to go to a small school or a large school, for example. Similarly, many students know whether they would prefer to go to college close to home or if they want to move farther away.
Before you start to make a list of specific schools you’re interested in, take some time to reflect. Consider what is important for you. It might even help to make a list of these things to keep you focused during your search. Ask yourself these questions:
Do you know what you want to study in college? If not, do you have a broad idea of what subjects you like and might want to explore further?
Are you hoping to play a sport during college? If so, at what level? The intensity and commitment at a Division I level school and a Division III level school are extremely different.
Are you hoping to continue a specific activity or extracurricular during college? If so, what activity?
How far do you want to go from home? Are you hoping to stay nearby or get far away? If you’re interested in leaving your area, how far are you hoping to go?
Do you know if you will have to take out student loans to get a college education? Will Mom and Dad be helping you pay? Do you know of scholarships that you’re already planning to apply for? Money should be a big consideration when it comes to choosing which college to go to.
Take your answers to these questions and any other factors that you consider important in your college search, and do some research. Start with a broad search of colleges by region or by course offering, and then work on narrowing down your search. We definitely encourage students to start their college search process by researching online. There’s so much you can find online today, so this is a great place to start. You can learn a lot about colleges by digging into their websites. What courses are offered? What community is the college home to? What types of activities, sports, and extracurriculars are offered?
Take your answers to the questions above and start to apply them to the different schools on your radar. You might find that a school you were super interested in does not even offer the major that you think you might like to study. In this case, this college might get crossed off your list. Similarly, you might start to find colleges and universities that you never knew anything about but that fit all of your preferences you’ve just identified. That is the goal: to create a list of schools that fit all of your preferences. When making as big of a decision as where to go to college, you certainly don’t want to compromise factors that are important to you.
However, you simply can’t analyze everything about a college from a distance. This is where college visits come into play.
Once you’ve got your list of colleges that fit your wants, it’s time to go for a visit! This is an exciting part of the college search process. You get to go and see the schools and feel what it would be like to be there and belong there.
We recommend that students complete two types of college visits before deciding on a college:
Class initial visit with a campus tour
Overnight visit with a current student
The Classic Visit
Generally what this first visit looks like is students and their parents show up to a school looking for some more in-depth information about the college, the campus, and the students. Oftentimes, this visit will start with a tour of the campus, including tours of dormitories, the library, academic buildings where classes are held, the athletic facility, the cafeteria, and more. Depending on the size of the college you are touring, the depth of this tour may vary, but you’ll have a tour guide leading you and your parents, as well as a group of other students and parents, throughout the college campus and showering you with information.
It can be a good idea to show up to the classic college visit with some questions and topics in mind. Think back to those questions you asked yourself and make sure to investigate into those areas further. Your tour guide will have a wealth of knowledge. It’s your job to make sure to ask questions.
For example, if you know that studying abroad is something you really want to do during college, plan to inquire about the study abroad system and programs that the school is affiliated with. Or if you currently take Arabic and want to continue to take Arabic while in college, ask about the language programs and offerings. Your tour guides will be knowledgeable and able to answer your questions, but if you don’t ask about things that are important to you, they may not be items that are covered in a standard tour. Don’t hesitate to ask questions and get information!
This tour might include having lunch in the college cafeteria and meeting with an admissions counselor, who you can ask more questions and can get more information from. Each college has a unique plan for its visits, but the things to keep in mind are generally the same across the board. You should make sure to observe what life is like on the campus: how are students acting? What is the energy level? What is everyone doing? Also make sure to ask a lot of questions. The more information you have about a college, the better educated you will be when it comes time to make your final college decision.
It’s possible that you will knock some colleges off your list after your classic tour. Maybe you just didn’t feel like you fit in at the school or couldn’t see yourself going and living there. That’s completely fine! And this is why college visits are so important. Some of your front-runners may end up being places that you can’t see yourself going; in contrast, some of the schools lower on your list may surprise you, and you could love the environment and the energy of the school. For this reason, it’s important to keep an open mind.
Once you’ve completed your first visit to each school, then it’s time to consider doing a second visit to each of the schools that is still on your list. This time, you should do an overnight visit.
The Overnight Visit
Once you’ve narrowed down your college search and completed initial classic tours, we recommend that students complete an additional visit, this one being an overnight with a current student.
During this visit, prospective students are given an opportunity to be immersed into life at the college. They will go to classes with students, hang out with students after classes are over, observe how much time students spend on homework in the evening, go with to dinner in the cafeteria, attend a music showcase or a football game, etc. Basically, this is a prospective student’s chance to get a little taste of what life at the college is really, really like.
There are a couple of different ways that this visit can look. For students who are being recruited for a specific sport at a certain school, oftentimes the school will coordinate the visit so that you’re spending time with that team. You’ll spend time meeting with and getting to know the coaching staff. It’s likely that your host will actually be a current player on the team, and classes you attend may be ones that this student is enrolled in. You’ll get to go and meet the rest of the teammates at some point, perhaps even watching their practice or a game.
For students who are not being recruited for a specific sport, this visit will likely be with a random current student at the school. The setup will be similar: you’ll go through the everyday routine with this student and attend some classes, join some community events on campus, and so on.
Students will usually get a pretty good feel for whether or not they want to attend a certain college after doing an overnight visit. This is much more related to how the school and the people make you feel than how the school looks on paper — that’s why we recommend that you complete the statistical aspect of your college search FIRST. You don’t want to fall in love with life at a school that doesn’t fit all your requirements. We promise that you will find a school that both fits what you want on paper AND is a place where you feel at home.
The Key Takeaway:
It is not wise to accept the admissions offer of any college or university without first visiting and exploring the college and getting a feel for what life on campus is like. Make sure to check off the box for college visits before making your final decision!