The post Planning Your College Visit first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

Winter break is not the best time for college tours

We do not recommend scheduling campus tours over your winter holiday break. When students head back home for a month, many campus offices also close up. Dorms are locked up tightly while students are away.  The library may be on limited hours if it is open at all. Faculty leave town and go on their own vacations.

Most colleges may be completely closed from December 23rd to January 2nd. If you venture to a college right before Christmas, a few admission counselors may still be in their offices, but they will more than likely be knee-deep in reading college applications. So, unless all you want to do is see a bunch of locked and empty buildings, the winter holiday is not a great time for college tours.

What about summer for a college tour?

For many families, summer is the ideal time for a college tour. High school students are no longer wrapped up in the demands of the academic year and campus visits can often be coordinated as part of a family vacation. While summer is not a perfect time to visit a college campus, it is better than winter break of even Thanksgiving. Some colleges and universities do have summer sessions, and most will have some sort of activities going on–even if they are not set up for their regular student bodies. Offices are generally open, as are most facilities. During the summer, you may not see the campus operating as it does during the academic year, but at least the admissions office is set up to show you the best of what the campus has to offer. While you’ll find it harder to have conversations with current students, at least you’ll get a general sense of the campus vibe.

Thanksgiving is not the best time for college tours

During the week of Thanksgiving, colleges are often open, but the students have already ventured home to be with their families. College admissions officers, too, are very often out of the office entirely–finally getting a few days to spend with their families following a demanding fall travel season. Colleges rarely even offer tours and information sessions during Thanksgiving week. You may be able to meet with someone in the admissions office, but it will be difficult to get a feel for the college culture with no students around. On many campuses, all dining facilities and campus amenities will be completely shut down as staff are given a few days off for the holidays.

Schedule your college tours during February, Spring, or Fall Break

Unsurprisingly, the best time to visit a college campus is during the school year. This is when you will see the college or university in actual operation. As my wife likes to say, this is the time when you can spot ‘students in the wild!’ Streets, sidewalks and walking paths will be bustling with students going to and from class, dining halls will be packed, and the campus will be alive. This will allow you to gain a better sense of whether you can see yourself attending this college.

Try to pick a time, such as February, spring or fall break, but be careful not to overlap with the college’s own spring or fall break if possible (once again, the college just won’t look or feel the same when the students are not around). Make sure you do your research and look at the school’s campus tour calendar where you can sign up in advance.

Need help building that college list?

Let the experts at Great College Advice help you create a well balanced college list as part of your college visit plans. Book your complimentary session now and start your college admissions journey today! 

The post When is the Best Time for College Tours? first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

College campus visits are a ritual. A rite of passage. A requirement. And they also are mostly a waste of time and money. 

As the summer winds down, my team and I have been busy debriefing our students and their parents about whatever summertime college campus visits they have done in the past month or two. While my colleagues and I have done hundreds of campus visits as a way to research colleges, our families are embarking on these adventures for the first time.

In our conversations, here are some of the things that families tell us that we wish the admissions offices around the country should hear.

Information Sessions Are Virtually Identical From School to School

The father of one of my juniors said to me the other day, “After three of these sessions, I could have given the information session myself.” The canned presentations. The gee-whiz videos. And the obligatory references to “undergraduate research opportunities,” “our robust study abroad program,” and “the surprising accessibility of our professors.

It’s true: I hate sitting through these presentations. Every once in a while an admissions officer is able to channel something fresh. Or genuine that helps his audience understand the essence of the school. But mostly these are just superficial, once-over-lightly overviews of college life. It’s virtually impossible to differentiate these presentations. And it seems that admissions directors don’t really want to. They want and need to be relatively generic and run-of-the-mill.

Why? Because they don’t want to say or do anything that might deter a student from applying. They need to hit all the major highlights–which happen to be the major highlights at the school across town or across the state or across the country. They have to appeal to the widest audience.

Because the more applicants they get, the more selective the institution can be. This will help raise the college’s ranking, which will then drive more applicants and continued improvements in the ranking.

Thus if the admissions office said something really distinctive about the university, that distinction might not appeal to certain people. So you have Jesuit universities that downplay their religious nature to broaden their appeal (“everyone is welcome!”). You have super-geeky institutions that play up the amount of fun kids have (“We have 106 different clubs!”). You have campuses where the overwhelming majority of students belong to fraternities or sororities. Emphasizing that Greek life is just a small slice of the social scene (“There are all kinds of non-Greek events on campus all the time!”). Or academically non-selective schools that emphasize their academic research programs (“Seriously, lots of kids participate in this program”).

Information sessions have to promise all things to all people. So they end up not being very informative. And there is very little variability in the presentations from one school to the next.

So why spend the time and money on a college campus visit if all you’re going to get is a bland, repetitive, uninformative presentation?

The Student-Led Tours Are Scripted

I was once a tour guide at Dartmouth. I picked up a few bucks every week by working for the admissions office and conducting tours of prospective students. It was pretty easy money. And I got to spend an hour or so three or four times a week with a group of eager people who wanted to know about this place I called home.

But before I could give a tour, I had to take a test. I was given information about the College. Then the tour route was mapped out carefully (though you could start the tour clock-wise or counter clock-wise). There were certain must-see items (the Tower Room in Baker Library), and there were certain spots that were emphatically not included on the tour (Fraternity Row and the ugly dorms of the Choates and the River Cluster).

Of course, I gave the tour from my perspective as a religion major. As a kid from Colorado. As someone involved with the arts at Dartmouth. I wasn’t super well-informed when it came to the recruitment of varsity athletes. I had no idea what engineering students really studied (except that they studied a lot). And I always shared that I thought the dorm where I lived was the very best one on campus.

But the admissions director made sure that I rattled off statistical and historical information about the college. I knew how many books were in the library (lots) and that students hailed from 49 of the 50 states (North Dakota was sadly unrepresented). And when the Orozco murals were painted, when Dartmouth Hall was reconstructed after a fire, and where the offices for pretty much every academic department could be found–in case someone asked. I knew exactly how to introduce folks to the Hopkins Center, what to emphasize as we entered the Collis Center, and exactly how to brag about the computer science department and the mainframe computer housed in Kiewit (a building that no longer exists…).

And so it goes with every campus tour in the land. The senior staff of the admissions department puts together an itinerary and outline of the campus tours, and the students hired to deliver them are told to memorize the itinerary and outline, and given a test to make sure they know what is expected by the employer. It’s really no different than any other job: know the “standard operating procedures” and implement them dutifully. Do the job as expected, and collect your paycheck.

Easy schmeasy.

But Ultimately pretty darned boring for the students and their families who have traveled sometimes hundreds or even thousands of miles to hear my spiel. And pretty darned identical to the tour given at Williams, Bowdoin, Yale, or the University of North Dakota (where all those North Dakotan students apparently stayed). Just change the dates, the names, and the name of the college student giving the tour, and you have an identical experience at any college.

Oh, and don’t get me started on jokes the tour guides make as they begin to walk backward. It’s the same joke everywhere you go.

Prospective Applicants Mistake Fellow Campus Visit Participants for Current Students

This one is going to sound crazy. But it’s a real problem.

The other day, one of my students told me that he had taken a tour at a small, very selective, liberal arts college. He said he was surprised at how many kids and their families were also on the tour. I asked him how he liked the tour.

“I hated it,” he sputtered.

“Why’s that?”

“All the other kids on the tour really weren’t my type. I found them really annoying.”

And I had to stifle a chuckle.

I had to remind this young man that the other kids on the tour actually were not representative of the students who attend this particular school. They are looky-loos, just like him. These tour participants, however annoying they may be, haven’t even decided to apply, and the admissions office certainly has not invited them to join the student body. They are just schlepping from campus to campus, attending the repetitive information sessions and shuffling along behind the well-trained tour guides–just like he is.

Again, this may seem downright silly for a high school student (a smart one at that) to mistake fellow campus visit participants for the sorts of students who attend a particular school.

But think about it: the information sessions and the tours do not really provide opportunities for prospective students to interact with current students. Tour participants may view “real” students from afar as they walk to and fro across the campus. Or they may passively observe “real” students in the dining halls or libraries. But interact? Not usually. At least not as a part of the official college campus visit.

So what else does the poor prospective student have to go on to make judgments about the campus “vibe”? Only on what he is experiencing–and that is the “vibe” of the tour group, itself.

Is the tour guide nice? If yes, then all students on that campus must be nice. If not, then all students on that campus must be dorks.

Are the other kids dressed like me? Do they behave similarly? Or do they seem to value the same things I do? Do they seem like people I’d want to be friends with? If so, then this campus is perfect. If not, get me away from these goofy people.

Parent-Child Conflict on College Campus Visits

And then there is the parent-child dynamic that also messes things up. Kids trudge through the tour in silent mode (which is mostly a reflection of their utter terror in choosing a college), while eager-beaver parents ask myriad annoying questions about things like “Where can my daughter do her laundry,” or “Are the beds all extra-long,” or “where can my son park his car on campus.” 

The bottom line is that these tours generally do nothing to give prospective students a sense of what the community is really like. Admittedly, this is a very difficult aspect of a school to put a finger on in a short, one-day (or more usually, two-hour) college campus visit.

Different schools definitely have different personalities. But you’re probably not going to get a good sense of that on your college campus visit.

Prospective Families Have No Clue What They Are Looking During College Campus Visits

Quite often, as soon as a family hires us as their private college planners, mom or dad calls us up and asks, “So which colleges should we visit?”

Everyone knows they should visit campuses. And everyone knows how to make travel arrangements: book the flights, pick the hotels, reserve the rental car. It’s also easy to figure out how to sign up for those tours and information sessions.

So let’s GO, already!

But wait.

What, exactly, are you hoping to find while on that tour? How will you know you’ve found the right campus when you see it?

What are the criteria by which you plan to choose the right college for your student and your family? And how will the college campus tour help you to ascertain whether the college fits those criteria?

One of the primary reasons to hire a college admissions consultant is to help nail down the college selection criteria. The process of choosing a college can be very emotional. And while it’s true that a lot of subjective factors and plain, old gut instincts do play a strong role in how most of us choose a college, it’s also true that the enormous expense of college requires that we try to keep the decision as rational as possible.

This is why we spend so much time sussing out the factors–the criteria–that will drive the college selection process. What are those factors? Well, there can be a whole lot of them. We have an exercise that includes nearly 120 different criteria to consider. But really they boil down to these six categories.

• Finances: does this school likely fit your budget?
• Academics: what are the curricular structures, degrees, majors, and other academic programs you seek?
• Activities: what activities are you now doing–or hope to do–that will be part of the selection process?
• Campus Culture or “Vibe”: social structures, political activism, religiosity, political persuasion, diversity, etc.
• “Atmospherics”: geography, campus setting, architecture, landscaping,
• Admissibility: how likely are you to be accepted?

As you review this list above, how many of these can be ascertained in ways other than the college campus visit?

Virtually all of them, in fact.

How can you evaluate a school without a college campus visit?

You can figure out whether a particular school fits your budget by doing research both on the college’s website and on third-party websites that publish basic financial aid data.

Also, you can have a very strong understanding of the academic opportunities offered by a university simply by spending enough time on specific pages of the college’s website.

You can research what activities are offered at the school, and you can easily connect with others (students, coaches, administrators) who can help you gather more information about how you might get involved.

Campus culture or “vibe” is perhaps the most difficult for prospective families to get a handle on. But as I mention above, the admissions office and its canned tours aren’t likely to help much. The best is to try to connect with as many current students on campus as possible–which frankly can be done through the power of the InterWeb.

Atmospherics can be first ascertained by using a good map, Google Earth, or the virtual tours most universities provide on their websites. Plus there are all those pretty pictures of beautiful buildings in beautiful weather surrounded by beautiful students that you can find on every college’s website.

And admissibility? Do you really have to traipse all the way across the country to learn the admissions statistics or look up the statistical profile of the kind of students the college generally admits?

As the advertisement for those ancient “Yellow Pages” phone directories put it, “Let Your Fingers Do the Walking.”

Point.

Click.

And do your homework BEFORE you go on those college campus visits.

I have actually worked with quite a few students over the years who NEVER visit a college campus before they submit their applications. Of course, I don’t generally advise this approach, for there are other, very important reasons to visit a college campus as a way to give you a better chance of admission (this is called “demonstrated interest,” which you can read about here and here).

But it is undeniable that the Internet has mostly obliterated the usefulness of the campus visit as a way to gather helpful, objective, and otherwise unobtainable information about a college or university. You really can find it all online.

[Which is part of the problem, to be honest, and why so many families find it hard to make solid college lists and discern which college might suit them best. Sometimes too much information is actually much more confusing than too little of it. It is the surplus of information that helps to keep professional college advisors like me in business–because we help you sift through the information to find the stuff that is relevant to you and your family.]

Before you do your homework, however, you have to know what it is you are looking for. Thus we come back to developing that list of criteria. You will not find your criteria by zipping around the country and looking at schools. Rather, you will find your criteria by looking in the mirror. By having a family conversation about what aspects of higher education are most important to you. And by taking an inventory of your needs, wants, and aspirations. By being honest about things that are simply irrelevant to your own decision-making process. And first and foremost–by getting real about the costs and sticking to your budget.

Decide what it is you really want and need. Then develop a list of colleges that satisfies those criteria. Do your research in the comfort of your own home. Narrow the list. Then visit only those that really care whether you visit (see that stuff about “demonstrated interest” referenced above).

And remember that the college campus visit–by itself–is not going to be overly useful in helping you make a rational decision. The visit may give you a “feeling.” You may have a “gut reaction.” Your “instincts” may take over.

But don’t trust your gut until you have exhausted your ability to use your head.

Will College Campus Visits Help Me Get Admitted?

The answer here is more nuanced.  It depends. 

Some colleges are very interested in students who demonstrate interest in their college. They want students who are excited about attending. Students who know what they are getting into–and embrace the challenges of joining that community.

Similarly, colleges like to know that your family has the money (and time) to traipse to their campus. Admissions officers know that it’s a pretty big financial commitment to travel from New York City to visit a college in California. And that commitment indicates a willingness to spend big bucks to pay tuition, room and board, and every other expense associated with attending that college. 

So for those schools–and there are a lot of them–your visit is definitely going to be a helpful addition to the overall evaluation of your application.

However, other schools–including the most highly selective ones like the Ivies, Stanford, and many others, it really doesn’t matter if you visit. These schools have plenty of kids who are demonstrating interest (sometimes they demonstrate too much interest!) and who would flourish. These schools also do not lack for paying customers–some families would pay two or three times the cost of attendance for that admissions offer. 

The most highly selective colleges simply do not care whether you visit. They review applications from thousands of kids every year who have not had the opportunity to visit their campuses. And these applicants are accepted nonetheless.  

Of course, a visit to one of these campuses could help you decide whether or not you would really fit at an Ivy League school, which might be valuable. But the visit will not be a factor in whether or now you are admitted.

You Can Do College Campus Visits the Right Way

Campus visits are an important part of the college selection process. And most families will do them at some point. But make sure you don’t waste time or money. Here’s what you can do:

1. Establish college search criteria first. Don’t leave home on the Grand Tour until you know what you are looking for.
2. Do your homework before you go. The web is a treasure trove of info on colleges. Use it.
3. Remind yourself about the limitations of the information session and the campus tour

Then you can order your free E-Book on how to get the most from the campus tour. This comprehensive resource will help you avoid big mistakes that will cost you time and money, and tips on how to get beyond the tour to really investigate whether this is the right college for you and your student.

The post 4 Reasons College Campus Visits Are a Waste of Time and Money first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

The post How Important is Geographic Diversity When Choosing a College? first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

Watch the video below to learn more.

——-
Summary:

When you are looking at colleges I encourage you to take note of spaces on campus where students gather together both informally and for academic purposes. Look for areas on campus where students are hanging out, talking with each other. Meeting with professors to see how the student population interacts with one another. One of the things I loved about my visit to Swarthmore was that there seemed like a lot of places on campus to gather and enjoy the company of others.

As I was walking around campus I kept seeing these Adirondack style chairs. I noticed students outside studying in them, talking with a professor, reading a book, or catching up with friends. So i figured I needed to take a seat on one! The chairs give a great opportunity to take in the beautiful campus that has lots of green and open space. The academics at Swarthmore are top notch and the school prides itself on creating students and future leaders dedicated to the common good.

With a small faculty to student ratio students can develop close professor connections. So, if you visit Swarthmore, take the time to stop, sit and enjoy your surroundings and maybe even see if you can find the GIANT Adirondack chair on campus and climb into it. Also, in the video, enjoy a little 360 view of two of the quads I walked across on this nice fall day.

Mark Montgomery
Montgomery Educational Consulting

The post Swarthmore College – Take A Seat! first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

College visits have more in common with infomercials than they do with visiting a new city or town while on vacation. Most people just sign up for the canned college tour and attend the standard information session.

These set pieces are directed and scripted by the sales and marketing divisions of colleges and universities, and are designed to tell you all the positive benefits of their product, while conveniently passing over any information that might portray them in a negative light. Tours visit the nicest buildings on campus. Information sessions highlight strengths, not weaknesses.

Furthermore, you’ll find that most tours and most information sessions are pretty much the same. You’ll hear how many volumes are in the library. You’ll hear that professors hold office hours (they do at EVERY college). You’ll see the blue light security system, whereby if you push the panic button the campus police will arrive in 37 nanoseconds.

You’ll visit the dorms and see a well-decorated, neatly kept room in which no one lives. You’ll hear that there are tons of campus activities, and that anyone who wants to can start a new club. You’ll hear statistic rattled off as if they matter (faculty-to-student ratios, average class sizes). And every tour guide you meet will be wildly happy about their choice of college.
Infomercial.

These tours are not necessarily bad, but you have to view them in their proper perspective.

Which is why I tell 9th and 10th graders to get out there and visit colleges early in the process. Go view the commercials, see how similar they are, and build up some immunity to the sales and marketing spiels. Sign up for tours and sit in on information sessions. And then when all that is done, spend a couple of hours just wandering the campus.

Get acquainted with the product yourself. Look behind the pretty buildings to see the ugly ones. Go to the buildings that were not on the tour. Talk to people who were not trained by the admissions office.

Which campuses should be the ones you visit early in the game? The ones nearest you. It doesn’t much matter whether you are really interested in the colleges closest to your home. These will be the ones that will help you build your immunity to the campus visit infomercials. They will also help you learn to ask questions, to develop your own list of things you like and don’t like about different campuses.

In fact, if you listen hard enough, you’ll start to develop a greater sensitivity for what really is different from one campus to the next. But ironically, this sensitivity develops only after you’ve become desensitized to the marketing messages that the sales and marketing team (i.e., admissions) tosses your way.

So get out there and do those visits. Do it early, and do it often. And then when it really starts to count, you’ll be able to separate the sales pitch from the interesting and helpful information.

Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant

The post College Visits, Campus Tours, and Infomercials first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

The post SPRING BREAK COLLEGE TOURS first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

Here are few virtual campus tour sites to check out:

www.campustours.com:

On this site you can search for schools alphabetically or by state. The site offers some statistics on the school, a link to the website and a virtual tour.

www.unigo.com:

Offers unofficial student reviews of the college or university as well as photos and videos.

www.yourcampus360.com:

Is a high tech website that offers interactive virtual tours complete with a taking tour guide! However, there are only a few schools featured on this site.
Several schools also offer virtual tours directly on their own website. So whether you are trying to narrow down your list of schools to visit in person or just trying to see another prospective, virtual tours are a great way to research colleges and universities.

Katherine Price
Educational Consultant

The post How to Visit a College Campus From Home first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

In this short video, Andrew explains his strategies for visiting a college campus.

Mark Montgomery
College Consultant

Technorati Tags: campus visit, college visit, tour, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa Del.icio.us Tags: campus visit, college visit, tour, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa

The post Visiting College Campuses: A Tour Guide Shares Tips first appeared on College Admission Counseling.