Here are several lessons I learned...
- When to go: Junior year... or maybe even earlier. Visiting colleges and talking to students there changed the concept of college from hypothetical to very real, and desirable. Not only did my daughter start getting some ideas about where she'd like to go to college and (maybe) what she'd like to do at college and beyond, but also she learned for herself why grades matter re college.
After the trip, I decided that I'd like to take my younger daughter to visit at least one college when she's a Sophomore -- to give her some idea of what college is about, early on. - When to go: when the college is in session. This is obvious, right? The students at the college, and the professors and courses being taught, are essential parts of the experience.
Unfortunately there's a large overlap between regular high-school calendars and college calendars. We were able to go during spring break (April).
It's easy to check colleges' calendars online, to see where there are times without overlap.
It's also worth checking whether colleges will be fully focussed on pre-applicants when you go. April was a slightly tough time -- some of the colleges were catering to high-school Seniors they had admitted who hadn't yet decided whether to accept admission. I would guess August is similarly an odd time for colleges since students are only just getting into the swing of things -- it may be difficult to line up tours and stay-overs and class visits. And many colleges have long breaks in December, and exams in January. - Who should go: as few people as possible. The real point is for the student to figure out makes sense for them. Parents are chauffeurs and tag-alongs and sounding boards. If more than one parent goes, they inevitably start sharing their impressions with each other -- and influencing the student. I found my daughter quite sensitive to my opinions, to the point where I made an effort to keep them to myself.
During this trip, the student has to be self-centered. That's the whole point -- he or she is working toward a very big step of self-identification. "Who do you want to be?"
Therefore, leave siblings home, if feasible. A sibling, particularly one that's more than a couple years younger, will interfere with the college-applyer's efforts at self-discovery. (However, two parents and two children might make it work, by having one parent in charge of each child and never the twain shall meet.) - Where to go: multiple colleges per day. At the risk of sounding like a glutton for punishment, it's worth going to at least two colleges per day to get the comparative opinions flowing.
It's probably worth going to at least one aspirational school and one safety school, as well as multiple schools the student expects to be able to get into. Urban/rural, large/small, homogenous/diverse, artsy/techie -- it's worth exploring all of these dimensions. The results can be surprising.
In our case, my daughter realized she didn't want to go to a small school or a rural one. - How to go: map out the trip. Google maps makes it very easy to create personalized maps. I created "Top Liberal Arts Colleges in the NE" to figure out the locations of about 30 top colleges, which then helped us figure out what was desirable and what was feasible.
I made the map open for collaboration, so I think anyone can view it. To find it, click here or go to Google Maps, click on My Maps in the upper left, and "Browse the directory." (Already it's had 170 views in the few months since I created it.) - How to go: Be flexible, and take a GPS! Maybe it would work for some people to have all of their maps and directions printed out in advance, but it was very useful for us to have some flexibility as we went. We dropped a couple colleges from our itinerary en route (when my daughter realized she didn't want to a small college), and added one or two in.
We often got online in the evenings to confirm the exact addresses of the admissions offices we wanted to visit the next day.
(It would have been helpful to have a smartphone to be able to check this en route. We were able to do check addresses from a regular cellphone, however, by texting to 46645, "googl".)
We also had an evening to visit some family friends, an evening driving around New York City and an evening driving around Washington D.C.
(By the way, our GPS got a little confused in among the skyscrapers of New York, sometimes thinking we were going the other direction! This was news to me -- presumably the GPS signal was getting bounced off the buildings?)
Being flexible also meant we needed to bring with us the "bible" of applying to colleges: US News and World Report's America's Best Colleges, ranked by several criteria (and with basic data about hundreds of colleges). Much of the data is online, but I think it's worth having the print edition too. - How to go: sign in at admissions office, and take notes. One of the key lessons I got from this trip is that admissions offices use, as one of many criteria, the length of the relationship between the applicant and the school. In other words, colleges are maybe a little more reluctant to admit someone they've never heard from before.
What I think this means is it's worth signing in at the admissions office of every college you visit, even if you just want to wander around the campus by yourself.
(It is definitely worth going on at least a few student-guided tours, however.)
Also -- take notes! The advantage of seeing several colleges in a short span of time is that it forces you to start making comparisons and realizing what really is important to you. The disadvantage obviously is that it can all become a jumble.
What worked for us was while I drove on to the next college, or we stopped for a bite to eat, my daughter wrote down everything she could remember about the college, then underlined the important stuff. We learned that it helped for her to do this first, before discussing the school. That way she was sure to have her own ideas on paper.
- Bruce
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