Make the Most of Your College Visit
When choosing a college, there is no substitute for experiencing the college first hand, but unfortunately campus visits can be expensive and time consuming. If you’re not prepared, you may end up wasting your time. So, before you hop on a plane to visit your college or university of choice, make sure you’re prepared to get the most of your campus visit.
Follow these three tips to maximize your time as a visitor on campus:
- Educate
- Take a campus tour, speak with a college admissions representative and do any other “scheduled” visitor activities to obtain the most information possible.
- Explore
- Spend some unsupervised time on campus. Wander inside the buildings that weren’t featured on the tour, people watch among the students, or eat in a campus café.
- Experience
- Seek out and talk to real students about their lives at school to find out what it’s really like. How are their classes? Are professors approachable? What do people do for fun? If possible, arrange with the admissions office to do any extra activities like staying overnight in a dorm or sitting in on a class that interests you.
Visit as many schools as you can. Even if you aren’t interested in a college close to home, it never hurts to stop by and get a feel for a different campus. You will gain experience and be more aware of what to search for when you do visit your dream school.
Here are some helpful resources for campus visits:
- Read people’s perceptions of their visit to different colleges at College Confidential.
- For the completely undecided, certain companies like College Visits organize trips for prospective students and hit a variety of colleges in a specific region. Click here to learn about potential visit schedules.
- Read this post about what to consider when choosing a college.
