Like going on any successful trip, you have to plan before you can enjoy. And visiting colleges is no different. There are many factors to consider when evaluating a college to see whether or not it will be a good fit for your student, and when you’re on campus, you want to ask important, high-impact questions. So there’s some research that should be done prior to traveling to a college in order to avoid asking some of the more mundane questions.
And then when you’re on the campus tour, there are areas to pay attention to and areas to ignore when visiting. Some of the items “to ignore” are ignored because they’re very ordinary, and others are ignored because they are flashy but substanceless. But there’s so much more to see on a campus than a tour can show! So there are definitely some other activities for your student and you to do independently before you reconvene. And after the tour, some reflection is in order before you and your student compare notes.
So let’s talk about how to schedule a tour, how to prepare, and what to pay attention to—and ignore—on your tour.
Scheduling Your Tour
First things first, you should schedule your tour. Tours are led and facilitated by students, and often admissions runs the information session that happens prior to the tour. For that reason, you’ll find tours typically happen Monday through Friday; weekend tours are few-and-far-between. This also happens for strategic reasons: the weekdays are when classes are in session, so the campus is more likely to be bustling with students. No college wants prospective families to arrive on campus to find it deserted.
1. Look at the academic calendar
You don’t want to experience a deserted-feeling campus. It will absolutely leave the wrong impression, and you’ll likely still walk away still not really “knowing” if you like the college.
You will also find that tours do not happen on national holidays when classes are not in session, and sometimes they will not happen during, or just before, finals because the tour guides are preparing for exams.
Before you go to the “Visit Us!” button on a college’s website to schedule a tour, it can be helpful to check the college’s academic calendar to make sure that the time you are looking to visit is a time when classes are in session. For example, if your student’s school has a week off in February, that can be a good time to visit colleges. Spring break can be hit-or-miss; no two districts take the same week off for spring break—colleges are no different. Check to make sure that your break does not coincide with the college’s break before scheduling a tour, especially if this is your first college visit.
2. Schedule a Tour
Once you’ve checked the dates and made sure that classes are in session, find the “Visit!” or “Visit Us!” page on the college webpage. Usually it’s on the homepage, highlighted in a secondary color. Sometimes it’s hidden under the “Admissions” subheading.
Tours normally start in the morning, 9 or 11am, and they begin at either the college’s admissions office or the official welcome center (if the college has one). Make sure that you are able to get to campus 30-40 minutes early so that you can find the admissions office and get settled in prior to the tour.
Tours normally start with an informational presentation by admissions, and they are sometimes followed by a student panel. This is a group of 2–4 students who will come out and talk about their experiences on campus and answer any questions students and parents have about what it’s like to be a student. But we’ll talk more about questions in a future blog. Then you, your student, and other families will be broken up into groups to walk around campus, see the facilities, and to hear more about life as a student. But before any of this happens, you—or more aptly, your student—has some research to do.
BEFORE YOU GO
1. “Shop” the College
A very astute student of mine likened college research to shopping, and shopping sounds a lot more fun than “research.” I can see the parallels: if you’ve ever sat and compared two laptops or two phones, or two of anything looking at cost, features, and reviews, then you’re already well on your way to having the skills necessary to visit colleges!
Students should create a google doc for each college they will visit and look up some of the basic statistics and facts:
Admit rate(s)
Undergrad Population
EA/ED/RD policies
SAT/ACT policy
Avg GPA/SAT/ACT
Religious affiliation
Popular majors
Financial Aid policies
Athletic programs
Knowing the school’s admit rate(s); the size of the undergraduate population; and the average GPA and SAT or ACT scores of enrolled freshmen can help you and your student calibrate your expectations for the college before you ever set foot on a plane or get in your car. If the school is a bit of a reach by the numbers, then that’s something to keep in mind as you visit.
Knowing the school’s testing policy (whether test optional or not), its EA/ED policy, popular majors, financial aid policies, and religious affiliation are also helpful. Not only will knowing these prevent you from asking about them when the answers are readily available on the college’s website, but it might prompt additional questions. Perhaps instead of asking, “is this college religiously affiliated?”, you might ask “how many students on campus are of a different faith, or of no faith?” or “How does the school’s religious affiliation affect your day-to-day life as a student?” Similarly, instead of asking “is [this major] popular?” you would instead be prepared to ask, “given that this major is popular, how hard is it for students to change into this major from something else?”
Getting those basic facts out of the way before your visit can prepare you to ask better questions when you are on the tour.
2. Prepare Questions
Put together a list of questions you and your student want to ask about the college. Whether these are questions to clarify some of the policies you both learned about in your shopping, or something else about life on campus that is important to you. Parents frequently want to know about campus safety and accessibility. Students might want to ask about how active campus life is—especially if a college has a reputation for being a commuter school. Regardless of what matters to you both, you should have those questions prepared ahead of time.
Some common questions include:
How much time do students spend studying each week?
Are faculty members accessible and supportive for students?
Are students satisfied with their experience at [this college]?
How many students participate in research projects with faculty?
How many students in [this major] participate in internships or experiential learning off campus?
Go On The Tour
You’ve scheduled your tour around the college’s holidays, you have researched the college and prepared your questions. Now it’s time to actually visit!
During the information session…
They will cover some of those basics that you already explored that you can safely ignore: ED/EA/RD deadlines, FAFSA policies. But keep an eye out for any updates or changes that the college announces at the information session. Especially these days, FAFSA changes have happened often, and they will continue to adjust until the government settles down. Also, pay attention to special programs that the college highlights. Not only are these going to be some of the newer or better offerings on campus, but what a college chooses to highlight says something about the impression the college wants to give.
During the tour…
Pay attention to:
– Dorms (not just the rooms, but common spaces)
– Dining (what foods are available in the dining hall? Other food options on/around campus)
– Classrooms: size, equipment available, how are students learning (lecture, discussion?)
– Study spaces and common areas
– Student body (demographics, attitude; do they seem happy?)
– Academic/Career Supports (career center, tutoring center, etc)
Try to ignore:
– The weather (everywhere will have dreary days, even San Diego)
– The architecture (unless this is your major, the buildings don’t teach you, the faculty does)
– The health/rec center—these are often new/impressive as a selling point. But be real: will you use the facilities they offer? Could you get this same equipment at a 24-hour Fitness for less than $80,000/year?
– Dorm furniture (most colleges have the same basic dorm furniture; I swear there’s a College Ikea outlet somewhere…)
Ask your questions about the social life on campus, about the academic life on campus, opportunities students have taken advantage of, and anything else that matters to you! You will have your tour guide for 30–60 minutes, and this is your best opportunity to get your questions answered in a small-group setting.
Summary
When you visit a college, there is so much more to do than just show up for your tour and walk around the campus. In order to make the most of a visit that frequently involves a hotel stay and a plane flight, it’s critical that your student do the legwork before the tour in order to make the most of the half-day you will spend on campus.
Make sure that you know the basic statistics, or have the research easily accessible on a phone or in a notebook, so that you don’t ask those questions during your time on campus. Keep your attention on the higher-value questions that you can’t get answers to on the website.
On the tour, try not to let one-off experiences weigh too heavily on your overall impression. One-off experiences are those things that occur once, or rarely: bad weather, a tour guide in a bad mood, a single negative student interaction. Similarly, I argue that students should not focus too much on architecture or landscaping. It’s important that we like the environment we’ll be in, and that we find it pleasurable and beautiful. But in general, colleges spend tens of millions of dollars constructing their desired impression with the landscaping and architecture. So it will likely be beautiful.
Instead, focus on the things that will impact your student’s quality of life and quality of learning. Pay attention to the classroom sizes and styles and how students are actually learning in those rooms as you walk around. Look at the dining facilities and other food options on campus. Look at the study spaces, and not just in the library. Pay attention to the student body: are they the kinds of students your child wants to be around? Do they seem happy to be there? And pay attention to the career and academic supports the college offers.
If you focus on the factors that will directly impact the quality of your student’s academic and social life on campus, you’ll be on your way to finding the best-fit colleges for your student.