If you’re applying to college this fall, you may still have some college visits planned for the coming months. Visiting colleges before you apply, and certainly before you’re admitted, is important for several reasons.
Why Should You Visit Colleges?
First, you won’t really know how you feel about a place until you’ve been there. College is an actual place where you will live and study for four years, so you should probably check it out to make sure you like it before submitting an application. A college might look great on the website and in guidebooks, and you may have heard great things from your friends, but you might feel differently when you get there.
Visiting colleges can also help you in the admissions process. Some colleges consider “demonstrated interest” as a factor in making admissions decisions. Visiting a college, so long as there is a record of that visit in the Admissions Office, is one form of demonstrated interest.
And while some admissions offices will be more impressed if you come to visit from far away than if you live down the street, the college down the street from where you live might question why you haven’t visited. In any event, your best bet is to pay schools a visit if you can.
Finally, college visits will help you refine your college search. If you started your college search convinced you wanted to go to a big school – go visit a big school! You may love the feel, or you might realize that by a big school you meant you just wanted to go somewhere bigger than your high school.
After a few visits, you’ll get a sense of what it means to be a rural or urban school, a liberal arts college or research institution, and feel more confident about your personal criteria for choosing colleges.
Other Things to Do on College Visits
Pretty much every college you visit is going to offer a tour and information session. And though they do offer a lot of helpful information, after a while, they can start to sound pretty similar. Sometimes, in order to get a more distinct understanding of each school, you need to step outside the curated tours and info sessions. Here are a few suggestions.
Attend a class. Some colleges offer visiting students the opportunity to sit in on a class. This is a great way to see students and professors in action and get a taste of academics at the college.
Eat lunch in the dining hall. Find out where students like to gather for lunch and then eat there! Students are often most in their element at mealtimes, making the dining hall an ideal place to soak in the atmosphere and people watch. The Admissions Office might even be able to give you a meal pass.
Go to an on-campus event. Colleges can have hundreds of student groups, and they’re always planning things. Find out if there’s an art show, play, musical performance, basketball game, or other event that interests you and check it out!
Get off campus. Explore the area off campus to get a sense of what the town or neighborhood is like.
Take an “unofficial” tour. If you have a friend, relative, or friend of a friend who goes to the school, ask them to show you around. Your friend will be able to tell you what it’s “really” like to be a student there.
Spend the night. Some colleges will only allow high school seniors or admitted students to spend the night. However, it’s worth asking because spending the night on campus can provide some great insight into everyday life at a school. Or, if you know a current student, arrange an overnight visit on your own.
Remember, tours and information sessions are helpful and informative, but they may not always give you a strong sense of the personality or distinctiveness of a school. Going beyond the tour and information session can help you more clearly distinguish between schools.
Leave a Reply