You can buy books and do web search to find out more information on the college. For some of you, that may be enough. If you have your heart set on Oxford University but never even set foot outside of this country, no use trying to sway you. For the rest of us, campus visits provide a great way to give you a personal insight into the school. Just as you shouldn’t buy a house or a car without taking a look and speaking with the owner, you shouldn’t choose a college without taking that visit.
The main purpose of the college visit is not to find out about the stuff that you already know but about the stuff that you cannot get from all those brochures and pamphlets that the school sends you. After your junior year of taking the PSATs and the SATs and receiving your class rank, you should have a good idea of what schools would fit your profile. From these, you may have already identified about fifteen schools that you want to consider. By the time that summer hits, you should take the opportunity to go to these schools. Is it important to go to all these schools? No. Can going to these schools give you a better chance at admissions? Probably not. But by visiting the school, you will gain an understanding of life beyond the classrooms. After all, when you are in college, you will skip so many classes after the night at a local party or pub that you need to factor the social life as well (Editor’s Note: We want to let our parents know that we went to all our classes and studied all the time *wink* *wink*). For example, if you visit a campus and realize that everyone is running around naked during the winter, this is probably not a school for you. Either that or you are taking a tour at Princeton after the first winter snowfall.
Some other guides tell you that you should have a checklist of things so that you can make a sounder assessment. That is pretty bogus if you ask me. Just take the tour, speak with some students, meet with the admissions officers and listen in on some classes. You don’t need a checklist. When you go out on a date, do you have a checklist of things that you like and don’t like about your date? No. If there is chemistry, there is chemistry. Same thing applies here. When you are at a school, you should at least take the campus tour. The tour is generally conducted by an undergraduate student who has an odd desire to walk backwards. These people make the best types of tour guides. Before you visit a school, you may want to call the admissions office to let them know that you are coming. The main purpose of this is not to tell them that they should roll out the red carpet but to inform them that you want to know more about school. More likely than not, they will allow you to sit and hear a lecture, eat with the students and, if you were like me, taken to a freshman party.
Now, how you choose to visit a school is entirely up to you. When I was getting ready to look at colleges, I chose not to sign up for one of those campus tour programs. In fact, I don’t know anyone who has signed up for one so I cannot tell you how good they are. The best approach would be to spend an afternoon with your friends and parents to visit a school. I will give some disclaimers. When you visit a campus with your friends, make sure that you don’t let the social aspects of the trip overwhelm the purpose of the trip—to know more about the school. When I was a junior, I went to about five or six campus visits. Because I couldn’t drive, my father drove me and my younger brother around. I felt like a dork but saw that everyone else was in a similar situation. At the height of your teenage years (17 or 18), you think that your whole family is just a bunch of losers. Hey, I felt the same way. But the trip is as exciting to your whole family as it is to you. So be a good kid and bear with them. Now, if your father insists on taking photos every ten steps of the tour, asks embarrassing questions or touches every little thing on the tour, take a few steps away from your family. All in all, I think that a family trip is the better arrangement. You get to see the school of your choice, and your parents get to see where their kid and their savings will go over the next four years.
