With spring break right around the corner, and summer not far after, it is the season when high school juniors (and in some cases sophomores) begin thinking seriously about college visits. This makes sense; if you’re going to spend four years at a palace, you may want to visit it at least once ahead of time. We have a separate article which lays out guidance for what to do on a college visit, and how to ensure you get the most out of it as you can.
In this article, however, we’re going to take a step back, and look at how to plan college visits in sequence, and how to do so strategically. A college visit takes time, planning, and effort, and you can visit everywhere. With some careful prep work, however, you can ensure that you make the best use of your time, and see colleges that interest you. Thus, we’re going to explain how to assemble a tour of college visits; let’s explore how such a thing works.
What You Want From Your Visits
There are many possible reasons to visit colleges, but these generally fall into two tracks. Either you already have a top choice school (or schools) and want to see them in more detail, or you want to get a better sense of colleges as a whole, and see what traits in a college appeal to you.
If you have a particular college as your top choice already, then you should structure your entire tour around that school. You will of course visit other campuses, that’s the point of a tour, but scheduling campus visits, guided tours, and other admissions events should be based primarily on what’s available at your top-choice school.
If you don’t have a top choice school, then you should instead focus on getting the widest variety of experiences possible. If, for example, you visit three small liberal arts colleges, or three large public universities, then you will only have sampled a small portion of what college is and what college can offer. By sampling a broad array of potential college offerings, you can get a better sense of which appeal to you. You may enjoy them all equally, but that too is useful to know for certain.
The Logistics of College Tours
Over the course of a week, you can generally comfortably visit three or four colleges. Here is how we arrive at that number, and why we don’t recommend doing more than this on a college tour:
- Each college visit should be given a day for itself. You won’t spend the whole day on campus, but this gives time for an official tour, possibly some admissions events, and visiting parts of campus of particular interest to you (such as specific departments or athletic facilities).
- Unless all the colleges are in the same city, you will need to take time to travel between them, this may be a short drive, or a longer one. These travel days can also be used for non-college related sight-seeing.Ìý
- Most colleges only offer official tours Monday-Friday (though there are exceptions). We always recommend signing up for an official tour, which naturally limits when you can visit these colleges.
With this in mind, the logistics of a college visits tour unfolds naturally. You travel over the weekend, begin with the first school on Monday, travel and then visit another on Wednesday, and finish with a final school on Friday. In between, you may stop for some local sights, or attractions, or other interesting and fun things to do. Doing nothing but visiting colleges isn’t all that exciting, and risks both burnout, and each college blurring together into an indistinguishable mass.Ìý
The next step then is putting together a reasonable collection of colleges to visit. The primary factor to consider here is geography; Stanford, Northwestern, and MIT are all great schools, but trying to visit all three in a week will leave you jet-lagged and irritable.
Instead, you want to pick a geographic region to focus on. How large of a region that is depends on your own tolerances for travel; you can easily fill a week with the great colleges in Boston or New York alone, or go as expansive as driving through the midwest or across states like California or Texas.
If you already have a top choice school, then you naturally look to other schools which are situated near it; students interested in Harvard can also look at MIT and Tufts, for example. If you are more open to where to attend college, then you can perhaps focus on areas near you, or if you prefer to travel, regions where you already have family or which you enjoy.
Example College Tour Plans
This has all been somewhat theoretical thus far, and while theory is good, putting it into practice can be messier. To help with that, we’re going to give you examples of college tour plans, the sort we help students construct all the time. Your own plans won’t look exactly like this of course; our goal instead is to show you what factors we consider during planning, and how these trips actually play out.
Example: Top Choice Stanford
A student has Stanford as their top choice school, and has a strong desire to attend college on the west coast. They haven’t given much thought to colleges beyond that, but would prefer not to be in LA.
For this student, we would recommend starting in Stanford on a Monday; tours are seven days a week most weeks, but this allows them to fly into the bay area and rent a car on Sunday, then get started with a school visit bright and early. This also lets them see the campus full of students, which is a very different vibe, and one worth experiencing. They also offer information sessions on Mondays and Fridays this spring, in combination with the tour, letting the student ask any questions they have about the admissions process.
From there, they would drive north, heading to Reed College in Portland (and possibly stopping to do some sight-seeing along the way). They offer Monday to Friday, with some Saturday availability as well. Current seniors are also able to register to sit in on a class at Reed, to experience what the academic atmosphere is really like.
After this, they drive north again, and finally tour University of Washington in Seattle. Campus are available Monday through Friday, and are often accompanied by information sessions. This student is interested in business, and arriving on Friday also allows them to take part in a departmental business tour; these aren’t offered every Friday, but do occur several times each month on a Friday. Not all colleges offer separate departmental tours, but they are worth taking advantage of where possible.
The goal of this tour is twofold: first, it seeks to let the student experience Stanford, and confirm it really is their top choice. Second, it seeks to let them experience two widely different sorts of colleges, to see what aspects appeal to them, and what they might not like. They may not actually like either of these schools, but it can give them an idea of what aspects they do enjoy, and which they may not want in a college.
Example: Texas Sampler
Many students in Texas want to remain in Texas for their college education (though this is far from universal). Others simply want to confine their school visits to schools in Texas, because this is just a lot easier to manage. Texas is big, but you can drive everywhere. For these students we put together a sampler of colleges, one which will help them assess a range of potential options.
First is Rice, based in Houston, where they could start on a Monday. They frequently offer seven days a week, but starting on Monday is a good way to see the campus in action, with classes in full swing. Rice isn’t exactly like Harvard or Yale, but is the same kind of small elite liberal arts university, and will give you a good sense of what these schools offer.
From here, students proceed to Texas A&M on Tuesday. Based in College Station, a relatively short drive from Houston, this is an easy second stop. They offer five days a week, along with optional academic department sessions, which can be scheduled separately. These give you a sense of what a department is like at such a large school, and how it can differ from its smaller compatriots.
After this is UT Austin; while Austin isn’t exactly close to Houston or A&M, it’s not terribly far either, and you can tour this on either Wednesday or Thursday. are offered five days a week; note that they can fill up, and you should try to register ahead of time. UT Austin is another large public school like A&M, but is in a more urban environment, and the campus has a very different feel from A&M; often students will prefer one to the other.
The final leg of your trip sends you north to Southern Methodist University in Dallas. This is the longest drive, but still manageable, especially by Texas standards. In spite of this, we recommend having this visit be on Friday, take some extra time in either Austin or Dallas to enjoy what the city has to offer. are offered twice-daily, Monday through Friday. Academic offer you a chance to experience a class at SMU or meet with faculty in a particular department. These are, unfortunately, offered on an irregular basis, and are hard to plan around.
Final Thoughts
Your own campus tour is going to depend on when and where you’re going, and what you want to see. We work with students to make sure they get the most out of these visits, from faculty they might want to connect with to organizations and associations on campus they are interested in. What this looks like differs for each student, from contact information for coaches to seeing what acapella groups exist on campus.
College visits are a way to test drive a school, to see if what they offer is right for you, or to see what kinds of features in a college appeal to you. Being able to compare multiple kinds of universities lets you make the most informed choice, and pick the school that will best support your own needs and wants.
We hope that this article has given you the tools you need to plan out your own tours of college campuses, and to do so in a way that won’t leave you burnt out and exhausted. If you are looking for help setting up a more personalized tour, or want advice on the best way to connect with universities before you apply, then ³Ô¹Ï¹ÙÍø can help. Our mentors are well versed in all the many minutiae of college admissions, and we’re always happy to hear from curious students. Schedule a free consultation today to learn how we can make your life easier.
