The Ultimate Guide to College Visits
/Everything you need to plan your college visit, including good questions to ask colleges and what to wear
College visits can provide your child with valuable insights
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Part 1: Introduction
As your child prepares to apply to college, you may have figured out that phase one is gathering information. Creating the perfect college list is no easy task. Many factors go into the decision about where to get an undergraduate degree.
When researching schools, the internet makes it easy for us to answer simple questions like “Which schools accept the ACT?” or “Which liberal arts schools have high medical school acceptance rates?”
However, you can’t glean everything from an admissions website. Fortunately, college visits can provide you with the valuable insights you need to make the most informed decision.
Are college visits important?
College visits are important because they give your child an opportunity to experience a campus firsthand and get a real sense of what student life is like outside of the posed pictures on glossy admissions brochures. As an added benefit, college visits are an effective way to show demonstrated interest in a school.
We’ve created this guide to help you get the most out of your family’s college visits. In it, we’ll address common questions including:
How to schedule college visits
Good questions to ask colleges while visiting
What to wear on a college visit
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Part 2: How to schedule college visits
When should you start going on college visits?
College visits as early as sophomore or junior year can give your child a sense of the vast array of college experiences available to them and help them narrow down their choices. Doing the legwork early on to develop a focused school list will allow them to spend more perfecting their Common App essay and supplemental essays come application season.
Strategy #1: Scheduling college visits throughout the academic year
It can be difficult to find time to visit colleges, especially if the schools your child is interested in are far-flung.
Some families prefer to visit a number of colleges at one time, over a school break—say, spring break of your child’s junior year. This can be convenient if your child is applying to colleges in a single region. But if your child is applying to some schools in California and others in New York, doing all visits at once might not be practical or possible.
Rather than setting aside a full school break, you can roll a couple of college visits into family vacations. For example, if you live in Arizona but will be flying to New York for Christmas, your child could use the opportunity to visit schools like Columbia and Yale in the New York/Connecticut area. Or, if you’re a New Yorker who’s regularly in Boston for business, you could plan college visits with your child to Harvard or MIT.
Even if you travel infrequently, plan visits ahead of time: most college websites list their tour days, and often allow for non-binding advance registration. In short, the earlier you start talking with your child about what colleges they’re interested in, the more you can plan to combine visits with already-scheduled travel.
Spacing out visits can also combat college tour burnout and help your child form specific memories about each school, rather than letting them all fade into a blur.
Strategy #2: Visiting colleges in the summer
A second strategy is to use the summer months to visit colleges.
One downside of visiting a campus during summer is that fewer students will be around—campus may feel lower-energy than usual.
On the other hand, without the constraints of missing days of high school, your child can make a more extended visit. According to U.S. News & World Report, fewer students visit colleges in the summer—so you’re more likely to have a smaller, more personalized tour group.
Your child might even treat a summer program as a chance to visit colleges, perhaps enrolling at Duke’s Talent Identification Program (TIP), Johns Hopkins’ Center for Talented Youth (CTY), or another kind of summer school class. This is a great way to spend a more extended period of time on a campus. A tour then becomes a bonus on top of a two or three week experience of living in dorms, using the library, and truly feeling like a member of the campus community.
Strategy #3: Visiting colleges during spring, fall, or other breaks
If your child’s spring break doesn’t overlap with their top schools’ breaks, consider using that week as a chance to make your college trips. The same goes for other days off. Perhaps your child’s school offers Columbus Day off but their top choice university doesn’t. That offers the best of all worlds: you can make the trip without pulling them out of school, and your child will have a chance to see campus operating the way it really does, day to day.
When not to schedule a college visit
Whether you go during the academic year or during the summer, you may want to avoid “special” days on campus like Spring Fling, major football games, graduation, or move-in. These can be hectic times, and often don’t represent what day-to-day campus life is like.
Which colleges should you visit first?
It’s a good idea to save your child’s favorite college for last. Why? There’s a routine to college visits, one to which your student will become accustomed as they gain experience. If there’s a local college that’s 10th on your student’s list, have them tour and interview there first (if on-campus interviews are an option, which is not the case everywhere), as practice. That way, when they visit their dream school, they’ll be accustomed to the rhythm of the visit, have a sense of what to ask on tour, and be more prepared for their interview.
Planning your campus visit
Especially if you’re only in town for a day or two, you’ll want to arrive on campus with a sense of where to go and what to see. Start by checking the admissions websites of the colleges you plan to visit. They’ll often list a number of official events you can attend.
Yale, for example, lists a variety of admissions tours (by discipline, focus, etc), information sessions, and campus forums that connect prospective students to enrolled students. They also provide resources for visiting classes and scheduling an interview with the admissions office. At the University of Wisconsin, the housing tour is separate from the admissions tour.
Start by scheduling an official tour (or tours), an information session, and a class visit. But be sure to leave plenty of time to spend ambling around campus on your own schedule, observing campus life.
When scheduling college visits, take note of campus maps and parking options. It can be difficult to find parking on campus, and it’s best to avoid the stress of trying to park last-minute as your tour is leaving!
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Part 3: What to do during college visits
You’ve planned your visit by scheduling a tour online, arranging an admissions interview, printing out a campus map, and figuring out where to park. How else can you and your child prepare for your campus visit?
Your child should spend some time reading about the college online, perusing brochures or viewbooks, and preparing a list of specific questions. They should think about what they want to ask admissions officers, current students, and professors they’ll meet during the visit. Ideally, these questions should be ones that can’t be answered by the brochures and the websites.
As a parent, you can bring some prepared questions, too: but remember that your child is the prospective student, not you. That said, parents may have questions about financial aid or other logistical factors that may not occur to students—and it’s worth bringing these along.
If you’re touring several colleges at one time, feel free to record notes in a notebook or on your phone so you don’t forget the details. You can also bring copies of the CollegeBoard’s nifty Campus Visit Scorecard and Campus Visit Checklist—both are helpful tools to organize your thoughts and reactions.
Finally, if your child has any friends or acquaintances who are currently enrolled in a college you’re visiting, encourage your child to reach out to ask for a bit of that person’s time. Most students will be more than happy to talk about their school experience with a prospective student. You can step away for a coffee while your child grabs a meal in the dining hall with a peer.
What to wear on a college visit
Information sessions and tours tend to be fairly casual. Tours also typically involve a lot of walking. Pick comfortable clothes and shoes. You should still try to make a good first impression, since information sessions are usually run by admissions officers, so don’t look like you’ve just rolled out of bed. Remember, though, that these tours are largely for you to get a sense of the school, not for the school to assess your family. You’re not on display, so there’s no need to show off.
If your child has scheduled an on-campus interview, the admissions officer may have already suggested a dress code, which they should follow. Otherwise, your child should plan to dress formally—“business casual” is a good guideline—erring on the conservative side. This can mean pants like corduroys, khakis, slacks, and a button-down. Or, it can mean a nice skirt and a blouse.
Your child doesn’t need to look like they’re en route to Wall Street or the country club. Skip full suits or pant suits, very high heels, dramatic jewelry, plunging necklines, and clothes with holes, even if they’re intentionally frayed for style. Mostly, your child should feel confident and like themselves, without seeming sloppy or disrespectful.
Questions to ask colleges during your visit
Keep this in mind throughout your visit: who on my visit is best suited to answer this particular question with honesty?
Questions about social life, extracurricular activities, dorm living, and the adjustment to college are probably best directed towards the student ambassador who’s leading your official tour. On the other hand, questions about financial aid, academic requirements, and the application process are probably best directed towards the admissions officers who will be facilitating your information session or interview.
If you’re at a loss about what to ask, it’s best to start with the basics. Here are some examples:
Ask student tour guides: What’s something great about going to college here? What do you wish was different on campus? What’s surprised you about going to school here? What helped you decide to go to school here? What was your transition to college like, and how did the school support it? What have your classes been like? What are you doing this summer?
A great question to ask, as suggested by Yale’s Dean of Admissions Jeff Brenzel: “What is your experience of this place as distinct from how the college is presenting itself?”
What not to ask student tour guides: Where else did you get into college? What is your specific financial aid package/How much are your parents paying? What’s your loan situation? What was your SAT/ACT score? Do you drink? Can I have your personal email/phone number to ask you more questions? (If the tour guide offers that up themselves, it’s fine to accept.)
Remember, student tour guides have volunteered to speak about the school, using some of their personal experiences as a lens. But their personal life is not your business any more than it would be in another professional context.
Ask admissions officers: What advising systems are in place for first year students? Where can we find resources about financial aid? What access do students have to tenured professors? Do you prefer students who are “well rounded” or who can demonstrate passion in a single area? How can my student best prepare for life at this college? Are there tips you have about the application process that I won’t find online?
After your college tour is over
We recommend taking some time outside of the official tour to walk around and check out the campus at your own pace. Below is a list of ideas for what to look for and where to go during your self-tour:
Look for flyers advertising events. You’ll find dance, a capella, theatre, improv, gatherings at religious or cultural centers, sports games, or concerts. It’s a good way to take a pulse on what’s going on—and also potentially attend!
Tune in and read up. Listen to the college radio station, pick up any student papers and magazines you see.
Eat in a dining hall, or at least walk in. Some schools make it possible to eat lunch where students eat: a great opportunity to witness a sliver of day-to-day life. If you can’t do that, it’s still worth peeking your head in.
Wander the halls. Many campuses are open. Take a stroll through student centers, classroom buildings, libraries, career centers, and computer labs—and see if your child can envision herself in these spaces.
Get out of the ivory tower. Walk around the town or city where the college is located—and maybe even have a meal at some of the off-campus establishments.
Don’t be afraid to talk to students if you bump into them in dorms or near libraries. Many may be happy to talk about their school. But be respectful of their time and privacy, and don’t force it.
Maybe you took careful notes during your visit, photographed every stop on the tour, and meticulously rated each college. The first thing you should pay attention to post-visit, though, is off-the-record. On which campus did your child feel most “at home”? When students talked about their social, academic, or extracurricular lives, did they find listen raptly, glaze over, or recoil?
Keep in mind, though, that any college visit is a brief snapshot of campus life. If you didn’t enjoy the class you observed or didn’t share the same interests as your tour guide, it might not be a reason to cross a school off your list.
What if you can’t visit colleges?
COVID-19 Update: Many schools have cancelled in-person tours until further notice. If the school your child is interested in offers virtual tours, we strongly encourage them to take advantage of this opportunity so they can connect with admissions representatives in a safe environment.
College visits can be a great way to help you determine whether you want to attend if admitted. But they’re not required, and there are many other ways to gather information if you’re not able to get to campus.
In the event that you can’t make it out to a particular school’s campus, check out alumni interviews, local information sessions with admissions officers, and college fairs. Feel free to contact the admissions office with specific questions. They might be able to direct you to a student who can correspond with you, too. Many schools offer a virtual campus tour for students who are unable to visit.
And finally, follow colleges on social media. Via Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and more, your child can see many of the same sights that they would be able to on a campus tour.
The most important point of campus visits is for you and your child to get a sense of the spirit of a given university. What type of students attend this school? Could you see yourself as one of them?
About the Author
Dr. Shirag Shemmassian is the Founder of Shemmassian Academic Consulting and one of the world's foremost experts on college admissions. For nearly 20 years, he and his team have helped thousands of students get into top programs like Harvard, Stanford, and MIT using his exclusive approach.
