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You'll find what you're looking for: The College Visit

Jun 25 '01 Write an essay on this topic.

The Bottom Line Campus visits are helpful in determining whether the school is a good match for you, but keep an open mind.

As a junior in high school, my guidance counselor advised me to visit many colleges. Dutiful girl I am, I took that advice to heart and sacrificed 2 Spring Breaks, some summer vacation time, and some nice Fridays during the school year. The end result was that I ended up not applying to some schools I was interested in and chose the school where I felt most comfortable. But a year later, I transferred out, only to find a school more academically attractive. So before I ramble on about my touring experiences, I'll assert that campus tours are important if you want to find the perfect fit - but it's all about what you're looking to find.

While still in high school, I travelled from Atlanta to Chicago, from Cincinnati to South Bend, from Nashville to St. Louis, and even some cities in between. In all, I visited 10 schools. Granted, I had little to no interest in some of the schools I visited and just rode along with a friend, but once at those schools, took the tours very seriously. Experiencing 10 college visits taught me a lot, but I really learned more from walking the campuses myself - not on the guided tours.

First, the weather

I'm one of those who is terribly affected by climate. I visited schools in Atlanta and Nashville and felt very comfortable right off the bat due to the warmer weather (I'm from Indiana). My trips to Chicago and South Bend weren't quite as productive: it was a cold Fall day when I visited Notre Dame and the weather was a bit of a turn off. And my visit to Northwestern in Chicago was positively brutal: it was mid-April and I was battered by a blustery wind every time I stepped out of a building. Although my decision may not be justifiable to some, I decided not to apply to schools in that region because I didn't want to dread going outside 3/4 of the year. Now, I'm not saying you should base your decision on climate, but it was certainly a deciding factor for me.

Look around - on your own

Perhaps the most important parts of my campus visits were the moments I wandered around by myself. There, I wasn't surrounded by overly ambitious high school seniors or robotically-energetic, pre-programmed college tour guides. When I walked around campuses, I looked at the other students walking around. Did I fit in? Did it seem relatively diverse? Were people socializing, studying, or both? Did most people seem friendly and pleasant? These were things I noticed while walking around, and schools were everyone seemed to be under high amounts of stress and moved at a lightning fast pace were automatically docked.

Guided tours are good for some things, though

I would still advise students to go on guided tours, but not to base their decision on them. Tour guides are the school's P.R. reps - their goal is to convince you that they attend a wonderful school and that you should apply. It's easy to get wooed by this, but I prefer to make my own decisions about which school would be best for me. But these tours are certainly helpful, in that they will take you to parts of campus you couldn't otherwise visit - namely, the residence halls and the cafeterias. As I stated earlier, comfort was a huge factor in making my decision, so I placed a lot of emphasis on the condition of the residence halls and their size. Some halls were positively filthy and tiny, and I knew I didn't want to live there EVER. Others were clean and of a decent size, which I figured to be a "plus" in my decision. The same goes with the cafeteria - I wanted to see how the meal plans worked, what food options were offered, whether the place was jam-packed, and whether it was clean. Once again, I was disgusted by some and pleasantly surprised by others.

Guided tours are also important in that they can clarify information in the admissions viewbook. If you want to know the enrollment, the graduation rate, tuition, SAT average or minority enrollment, these people can spout off the numbers like nobody's business. But chances are that if you've committed to at least visiting a school, you have a decent idea about all those statistics. Brush up on your facts on the drive or flight there, and use the tour to get you around campus.

Set up meetings on your own

The admissions office is usually very happy to set up meetings with other offices around the school. I would advise setting up an appointment with a financial aid officer (if needed), an academic dean and someone in the housing office. Take advantage of your time on campus and avoid doing all this by phone once you've made your decision. I met with all 3 at the schools I was most interested in, and these proved to be a bit more candid and taught me a lot more about the colleges than mere guided tours.

Hit the local hangouts

I tried to make a point of going to a local restaurant/bar for lunch or dinner while on campus. This also gave me an opportunity to see what the student body is like when they're not at class, and it proved to be a fairly accurate gauge of the social atmosphere.

Overnight stay?

At one school, I decided to stay with another student overnight. It was completely arranged by the university. Although this was interesting, I probably would have been more comfortable in a hotel. True, I got to see what the dorm was like and how the cafeteria food tasted, but I wasn't very compatible with my "host" and spent the evening hanging out with some people down the hall. I didn't really learn anything new about the university, because she's not someone I would have chosen to associate with under normal conditions. Just keep in mind that you have no control over the person with whom you stay.

Decisions, decisions

While academic reputation was at the top of my list in making a decision whether or not to apply, I also factored in comfort level. As such, I decided not to apply to some top-notch schools because the weather was terrible or the dorms were filthy. This also meant that I seriously considered some schools that weren't necessarily at the top of the charts, but which were comfortable for me.

Ultimately, I chose a school that seemed to be an ok academic match and which provided a high degree of comfort (huge dorms, brand-new cafeterias, close to home, friendly atmosphere, etc.) The academics were certainly ok, but by the end of the fall semester, I realized that for all that comfort, it wasn't the place for me from an academic standpoint. I decided to apply to transfer to a program that was directly in-line with my academic goals, got accepted by Georgetown, and accepted their offer without visiting campus at all.

The moral of the story

I already had a year of college under my belt when I decided to go to Georgetown, sight unseen. I knew what it was like living in dorms, understood what cafeteria food was really like, and figured out how to make my own niche in the social scene. As such, a campus tour really wasn't important to me when I compared such things with the excellent academic reputation. True, I was disappointed by a number of things I discovered once I moved to campus, but it was all outweighed by the academics. And by then, I knew that comfort just wasn't as important as the academic degree I really wanted.

So my moral of the story is that campus tours are effective if you know what you're looking for. In high school, I wanted a somewhat easy transition to college, so I based my decisions on campus tours to find the school that would be most comfortable for me. And I did just that - I attended the comfortable school for a year. I got what I wanted, and the college tour helped me immensely. I wouldn't do it any other way. But once I knew that I was transferring for academics only, I knew a tour wouldn't help me out - I was going to Georgetown to study international politics, and nothing would hold me back.

Know what you're looking for, and know why you're visiting. Take advantage of all you can set your eyes on while you're there. Walk through the buildings, socialize with students, chat with some administrators. Only you know what you're looking for in a college, and campus tours can certainly help you find the perfect fit.

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