Making the Most of Your Visit
To truly get a feel for what it will be like to attend a particular college, plan a visit to its campus. During your visit, you can assess a school's setting and community, as well as its classrooms, laboratories, residence halls, dining rooms, and other amenities. Although you may not be able to visit every school you might be interested in, you should visit as many as possible - especially your top picks - if you haven't done so already. A campus visit can eliminate some schools from consideration and move others to the top of the list.
Getting Ready to Go
Planning ahead is essential to a successful visit. Once you've read through the school's viewbooks and brochures, visit its web site. Most Web sites are full of information about academic programs as well as admissions, housing, financial aid, and special programs such as honors programs and study abroad opportunities. As you gather information about the school, jot down whatever questions - including areas of interest as well as of concern - you may have that the promotional material doesn't address. When you're ready to visit the college, you'll be glad to have this list of questions ready to go. Naturally, your parents may also have a few questions, so it might be helpful to have them make a list beforehand as well
When to Visit?
Once you have collected your information, it is time to plan your trip. Many students start visiting in the spring of their junior year, continue on into the summer, and add new schools to their itinerary or return to their top choices in the fall of their senior year. If you are visiting in the fall, try to schedule your visit for a day when classes are in session so you can speak with as many people as possible. That might not be possible if you are planning a number of visits over the summer, but you can still have a productive visit during June, July, and August, as long as you remember that the campus will almost certainly be very different when the students all return from summer vacation!
Plan Ahead
Even though many of the students will be away, most colleges are pretty busy places during the summer. You'll probably see construction and painting and other kinds of maintenance work going on (much easier to do when everyone is gone!). You'll also find lots of other prospective students and their parents sitting in on information sessions and taking campus tours. Don't wait until the last minute to schedule your visit; information sessions and tours fill up pretty quickly at many colleges during the summer. (At NYU, for instance, we are usually booked solid two to three weeks in advance all summer.) For many colleges, the internet is the quickest and easiest way to see a calendar of available dates and times and to make reservations for your visit. Or, you can usually call the admissions office and they will be able to tell you how to go about arranging your visit.
Use your Time on the Road
As you travel between schools, it might be a good time to think about exactly what you want from your college experience. If you have a good sense of what you are looking for, it will be easier to figure out if the campus you are visiting next fits the needs. Also, if you have interviews at the college you are visiting, you can practice your interview skills and prepare your questions and responses as the miles slip by. The more prepared you are, the more valuable your visit will be.
During Your Visit
The best way to get information about a school is to ask lots of questions. This is where your list of questions will come in handy. Talk to the tour guide, the admissions representative, the faculty, and the students. You may want more information about sports, residence halls, or clubs, while your parents may want to know about expenses, health care, or safety. Both of you will want to ask about classes, academic support, and professor accessibility. Inquire about career preparation services and extracurricular activities. To effectively evaluate a school, you will need to ask a lot of questions about life on campus and life in the community. You should bring a notebook and jot down as many observations as possible. Be specific: write down the names of people you meet and describe the campus. You would be amazed at how everything begins to blend together after seeing five or six schools. Record your overall impressions of each school, and then you and your parents can compare notes at the end of the trip.
When You Get Home
Make certain you have a clear impression of each school. You may want to place them in rank order of interest to you (always ready to be changed when you go on your next visit, of course!). Based on what you have learned, you may have found your top choices, or you may need to make plans to visit more schools. Keep at it! Maybe something you learned at the last school you visited makes you wonder if one the other schools has the same program or facility. Don't hesitate to re-visit web sites or get back in touch with the admissions office or your tour guide if something you saw at one campus sparks another question about the other campuses. Its important to get all your questions answered.