The College Visit

I hope I am not the first person to inform you how important a visit to a college campus really is during your application process. If it is at all possible to visit, please do so. I cannot imagine why anyone would commit to live four years in a campus he or she had only seen through college infobooks and tiny internet photographs. You have to physically go to a campus and talk to current students to feel what it’s like to live there. The only people I know who are unhappy with their college decisions had not visited the campus beforehand. Convinced? Ok, good. At least try to visit the colleges you are really serious about, and definitely do not apply early decision without having visited the school you are binding yourself to.

When should you visit? When you can, is my first answer. Whenever, during your high school career, you have the opportunity to visit a college you are even remotely thinking about applying to, do so. Many people wait until their senior years to visit schools they have already filled out applications for, or are in the process of applying to. This is not always a good idea – visiting colleges can help you by narrowing down your list of schools, or by pointing you in different directions. I recommend most of your visiting be done in your junior year, although sophomore year is definitely not too early to begin your search. When to go? If you can only go during summer, that’s fine – most campuses still have tours and information sessions then – just remember that it’s summer, and although the campuses will be at their prettiest, you will be inhabiting them in the fall and winter months. If the school you are visiting is in California, you probably won’t have to take this into account – but if you are visiting colleges in New England, definitely try to picture them looking dreary on a rainy day – if you still like where you are, that’s a good sign.

When I visited campuses during my junior and senior years, I usually flew out to the campus on a Thursday night with my father, stayed at a hotel that night, and went to the admissions department first thing in the morning on Friday. I always tried to visit on a weekday so I could sit in on classes – this I found was an easy and interesting way to find out a lot about the school. Usually, the admissions department has a list or course catalog showing you the classes you can visit on a particular day. If you show up early (the earliest classes usually start at 8:30, so I was at the admissions department by 8:00), you can pick one or two classes to go see. Pick classes you think look interesting to you, as this will help you evaluate it more easily – Am I interested in this teacher? Am I understanding what he or she is teaching? Note the location and time of the classes, and the professor’s name. Try to show up early at the room, introduce yourself to the professor and ask if you can sit in on his or her class – they always are happy to let you sit in. If you show up early, you will usually be the first person there, so you can watch the other students come in. Do they seem friendly? Are they interested in the class? Are they welcoming to you? Most importantly - could you see yourself as one of them? Do you want to be? During the class, evaluate the educational atmosphere – do students seem to be getting the material? Is the professor trying to help them get it? Do the students participate and ask questions? One word of caution – I have seen several visiting high school students who, in visiting a class, feel somewhat uncomfortable and raise their hands and ask questions, hoping either to seem like they are smart enough to fit in or to impress the professor. This is generally not a good idea – if you have a real question, feel free to ask it – but you shouldn’t feel uncomfortable. Remember, the other students in the class went through what you are going through right now, and the professor has had many students visiting his classes. After the class, go up to the professor and thank him or her – in my experience, professors here ask you if you have any questions about the school, and you have an interesting opportunity to find out about the school. By just visiting a class like this, you can find out what it’s like to attend a real class at the college. It’s a unique experience.

One other note here – if you are interested in a particular department or you know you want to take classes in a certain area, say molecular biology or American History, you should, a few weeks prior to your visit, write a letter or email to someone in the department (If you’re unsure, pick the department chair, or undergraduate director, or someone with a similar official title) introducing yourself, enclosing a copy of your resume, and asking if he or she perhaps has time to talk to you when you will be on campus. Also ask if he or she will be teaching a class you could visit that day. Do not feel embarrassed at all in doing this – this is part of their job and they are always interested in meeting potential majors, especially if the department is not a huge one. This can only help you. Two-to-one odds say they will agree to meet you for a half-hour or more, giving you a big advantage – such professors usually write a letter to the admissions department saying that they talked to you and would be glad to have you at the school. The one school where I did not meet a professor like this was the one school I didn’t get into. I would strongly recommend you do this, if there is a department that interests you. Professors are usually very nice.

So what else should you try to do when you visit a campus? Many admissions departments point to their “information sessions” and “campus tours.” These are usually available several times daily, and you can ask at the admissions department when they will occur when you go in to find out about course listings. Also, the times and locations are usually posted on the admissions department web pages or available in those big guide books to college visiting. If you only have time to spend a few hours on the campus, the information session and campus tour are what you should spend your time on. If the college provides only on-campus interviews, it might be a good idea to schedule one in advance – interviews only help you, and this is a good way to go about it.

First, the information session – this provides you with an opportunity to ask human beings for information you can just as easily gather from the college’s website or from any of several guidebooks. I have sat in silence as parents asked about male-female ratios, average class sizes, faculty-student ratios, and other statistics printed in many other places. Usually there are one or two admissions officers and ten to twenty students with one or two parents each, in a large room filled with lovely pictures of the school. You can ask any questions you want about the application process, and the admissions officers will happily tell you how hard it is to get into their school. You can also identify the girl who aced her SAT’s when she asks, “How important are SAT scores?” And don’t follow the example of the students who try to sell themselves at these information sessions, asking questions like “Will I be able to continue providing countless hours of community service here?” I always wonder if these students genuinely believe that the admissions officers will think to themselves, “Wow, what’s the name of that redhead who’s asking these great questions – I have to go put her in the accepted pile.” Honestly, I haven’t thought of a really good question to ask at these things. I can, however, provide answers to the questions I hear asked most often. These include:

“Grades and scores are important, but we’re looking more at how you are challenging yourself and at the variety of your courses. We also want to see you are involved in extracurricular activities like athletics and community service, but dedicated involvement and/or leadership in one activity is more important than limited involvement in several. The essays allow us to find out who you really are.”

“The deadline is January 1”

“Early decision is binding – if you apply early, and are accepted, you must come. Early action just lets you know earlier than regular decision, there is nothing binding.”

“The tour leaves from here right after we’re done.”

“The bathroom is down the hall on your right”

“We only ask for two letters of recommendation, and we ask that at least one be a teacher – a coach could be a third letter.”

“We do require the SAT and three SATII’s, including Writing.”

As you see, most of this you could either intuit for yourself or find elsewhere. So why go to the information session? First, if there is a legitimate question that you have, this is the best place to ask it. Secondly, and actually more importantly, there is always a signup sheet upon which you need to put your name and address down. This not only ensures that you will be mailed an application, if you haven’t requested or received one yet, but also is the record that you in fact did visit the school. This goes into your application as a sign that you are interested enough to visit – it’s not the most important part of your application, but it can only help, and it’s the one thing you need to be sure to do before you leave – make sure the Admissions department knew you had come. A lot of people do not do this – make sure you are one of the ones that do. Even if you haven’t applied yet or sent your SAT scores, you should still put your name on this list, so if you do apply, they will have your name on file as having visited the campus.

The “Campus Tour” should also be a part of your visit. I use quotes because the tour is extremely selective as to what it shows potential students. My friends who are college tour guides tell me that they have a specific path to follow which steers clear of any ugly parts of campus. These ugly parts happen to include several of the dormitories inhabited by freshmen. The tour does point out important parts of campus – the admissions office, the student center, the athletic facilities, and, if you are lucky, a dormitory – if you are very lucky, a real dorm room. My dad and I used the campus tour to orient ourselves for our real tour – I made sure to go back and look at the student center, and I also, using a campus map, walked through the areas we had conveniently passed by, viewing the buildings where I would probably spend my time. You can ask students coming out of dormitories if they will let you in to the buildings, and they usually will. Check for cleanliness, sanitary bathrooms – see if it’s a pleasant place to live. Also, talk to students you see – be sociable. See if they like the college and see what they don’t like about it. Four years is an awfully long time to live someplace you’re not happy with. By the time you leave campus you should have some idea about how you would like to live there.

Above all, you should enjoy your campus visits – I had a great time at each place I visited. I crossed several names off my list of places to apply, and I circled places I really liked. I ended up making my final decision based upon my college visits. They were, for me, perhaps the most important part of my application process. My visits were the only times I could actually see what it was like to go to college, and I was able to decide whether or not I liked what I saw. I wholeheartedly recommend making the college visit an important part of your decision-making.