Making the Most of Your College Visits

Webinar Transcription

2023-12-18 – Making the Most of Your College Visits

Lonnie: Hello, everyone. Welcome to CollegeAdvisor.com’s webinar making the most of your college visits. To orient everyone with the webinar timing, we will first begin with a presentation, and then we’ll have the opportunity to answer your questions in the live Q& A. Before we get started with our webinar, let’s introduce our panelists.

Maria: Hi, everyone. My name is Maria Acosta Robayo, and I graduated from Harvard, uh, class of 2020, where I studied sociology and global health policy, and where I was also a pre med student. I’m currently in D. C., where I do government consulting, focusing more on climate change projects and innovation. Um, so currently working with cities all around the country on those types of projects.

Excited to talk to you all about making the most of your college visits.

Lonnie: Nice, nice. Alrighty. So with that, we are going to jump right into our presentation. And so Maria, can you share with the audience, when is a good time for students to begin researching schools?

Maria: Sure thing. So you can technically start as early as middle school, but I wouldn’t ramp it up until high school when you really have a chance to get a better perspective on the types of schools that you would wanna go to, potentially where you would wanna live.

There’s a lot of things that end up kind of solidifying a little bit later on. And so, uh, I usually recommend that students don’t really start doing a di uh, a deeper dive until high school. However, starting early and so like earlier years of high school, like 9th or 10th grade allows you to do a couple of things that I think are pretty beneficial for you if you don’t want to feel like it’s a rushed process.

The first is it allows you to apply more to summer or winter break programs that colleges may be hosting. So sometimes colleges will host, uh, sessions or, uh, either info sessions or summer programs or break programs where you can go and study something specific or you can go and do, um, take maybe like a half a class or, um, be part of any of their high school immersion programs where you.

One, get a chance to live on campus, and two, get a chance to meet with staff and people who work at the university and give you Um, a good opportunity to learn more about the school and whether that’s a place you want to be. It also does look really good if you’re applying to that school later on to say that you have evidence for why you think this is a good fit for you.

And so I think that being able to start early allows you to have access to some of those things earlier on. A caveat that is that sometimes those programs are only available for folks who are um, students going from 10th to 11th grade or 11th to 12th grade. And so there might be some that you’re not familiar with.

Um, able to go to because it’s too early on, but it’s good to know that those are coming up. So you could start looking at what the application process looks like, what requirements you might need. And so, again, those are all helpful to know in advance. Um, and it’s also an opportunity to informally. Tour colleges through other trips that you might already have planned.

So a lot of students think about taking college trips through junior year, or sometimes into their senior year. And that can end up being a high financial cost, um, for those, like to go on a trip just for that specific reason. Whereas if you, already know, okay, I, college is on my mind. Um, there’s a couple of schools that I’m interested in.

You could kind of use existing trips with family or friends or with your school to potentially check that out. So I didn’t do this myself, but I did have a friend who, um, decided to take a trip with her friends. Um, to like New York or that like Northeast area and she was able to visit a couple schools in New York.

Um, she was able to visit Princeton, New Jersey. Um, I think a couple other schools in the area that she was able to check out because she knew ahead of time that she was probably going to do that in later in her high school years and decided that if she was already going to pay that money to go on the trip, she might as well take a look at the schools.

Um, And so that’s something else that you can be thinking about is like a tip for how to schedule your college visits and in a way making the most out of them. Um, so if we’re breaking this down into like what you might be thinking about doing your, uh, depending on what year of, or what grade you’re in, in high school, um, I’d maybe think about it this way.

So in ninth and 10th grade, you should probably start thinking about what type of school you want to attend. So whether that’s a liberal arts college, um, if it’s more of like a learning a specific trade or skill. thinking about what majors or extracurriculars interest you. That doesn’t mean that you have to decide on what major you want to, you want to, um, do in college, but it is an opportunity to get a sense for which ones are more interesting and opportunity to maybe just by process of elimination, figure out a couple that are not interesting to you.

Um, and that way help maybe narrow down a little bit more. Um, and then also something that I think students just don’t think enough about is you’re going to be living in the city that your college is in, whether that’s residentially at the college or it nearby. Um, and so if you’re going to live there for four years, it’s pretty.

It’s a really important decision to decide like where, or really important decision to know whether you’re going to like where you’re living, whether it’s like the weather that you want, whether it’s the type of urban versus rural versus suburban. Area. And so I think thinking about what type of area you want to live in, what type of city you want to live in, if it’s a city, um, and what region of the U S is also an important way to narrow down or start thinking about what college you want to go to.

Um, and then in 11th grade, that’s when I think, uh, is an important time to become a little bit more organized, um, and an opportunity to actually narrow down schools a little bit more and have more information is. Making a spreadsheet with your advisor, or if you’re not part of the CollegeAdvisor community, doing it with your college high school counselor or just on your own.

If you look up a couple of templates, um, and have an opportunity to write down facts about each college and compare them side by side. And so this is an opportunity for you to, um, not just. Like, have a, a very organized spreadsheet, but for you to actually go in and, uh, look more things up on their, on the school’s websites.

And, um, then when you actually are deciding about which schools to apply to, then you can look at them side by side and look at admissions rates, classes, all these other, um, factors that are important to keep in mind. As you are deciding what schools to apply to, um, so where should you start your college search process?

I think, as I said, tactically, what has helped me the most and what I’ve heard has helped a lot of the students I’ve worked with or other peers of mine is by using a spreadsheet to log all your research. A lot of times there is. Um, you know, in high school, you can procrastinate by looking at colleges.

There’s moments where you could just be looking at it as like a way to ease anxiety about what school you want to go to. But a lot of that information is lost in just memory. And so logging it and making sure that you’re able to compare it later and use it for decision making is really important. Um, and then starting with your favorite school and.

You know, if you have a favorite school doesn’t, that’s a pretty easy place to start. If you don’t, you can just use a search engine like Google and the school’s website to find out categories for each school of interest. Um, and again, like you could start with your favorite school. You could start with the region that you might want to live in.

You could start with the schools that, um, uh, like the type of school. If you know for sure you want to go to liberal arts school, you can start with the school list of liberal arts, uh, colleges. There’s definitely other ways also of thinking about this. You could look at ranking, you could look at admissions rates.

Um, and these are all like ways to kind of narrow down where to continue your search. And then as you’re filling out that spreadsheet, I would keep an eye out for additional categories that you might want to add. Um, and what I mean by that is, and this is also information coming from a previous presentation on the college search process itself.

Um, but when you’re doing the college search process, you usually want to look at a couple categories of, you know, where is the location? What’s like the average size of the school? What are some of the extracurriculars? What are some of the like classes that you’re interested in? And so as you’re using those four categories to fill in your spreadsheet, also think about, you know, what if you see an opportunity to like study abroad and that’s not in one of your categories, like make sure that you’re constantly evolving the categories in that spreadsheet to make sure that you’re able to compare side by side, what are some of the pros and cons to applying to each school?

Um, and then you can fill in the gaps by, um, Oh, and then another way to keep on adding schools is that looking at schools with your intention majors or areas that you want to live in and then indexing by other categories that you think are more important. So, for example, if you’ve narrowed down your search to knowing, like, you really want to go to school on the West Coast, um, and you know, you want to go to a liberal arts college, then it’s time to think a little bit more about others.

Like other attributes of the schools of what specific opportunities are there? Or what are the extracurriculars and social life there? Like, what is the opportunity to maybe do research around the school? If you, especially if you’re pre med or looking into a career where you probably need some research experience, it’s good to think about what are in the surrounding areas.

And so as you’re thinking about Like where you want to make your college visits. This is all a bit of like a pre a prep, pretty much just a preparation for how to decide if you’re going to go on a college visit, how do you administer your money to fund the, the college. Visits that you’re most interested in.

And this is the first step, making the spreadsheet, making sure you’re comparing categories correctly, making sure that you’re making an informed decision on where you want to spend time on your college visits. Um, and then if there’s anything missing in that spreadsheet that you can’t find online, um, you’re more than welcome to fill in gaps by reaching out to admissions officers.

Um, and a lot of the time, I think that one of the best ways to go into a college visit is to have those questions on your mind and to maybe ask them in person during your college visit. And so you could save some of those categories to, or some of those like cells in your spreadsheet to fill in with information that you learned from your college visits.

Um, so when, again, this is all a prep for, um, how to decide which colleges to actually visit. So, um, what factors should you consider when crafting your college list? Um, and I’ve mentioned some of these already, there’s location, geographic, or in relation to other facilities, like I mentioned, if you’re interested in doing research.

You should probably be looking at a place where there are research opportunities. Um, for me, I was looking at Boston as a city. I really wanted to go to school and because there’s a, it’s a big medical hub and I knew that there was going to be a lot of teaching hospitals, a lot of research institutes.

And so that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to go to school there. Um, the type of college, again, liberal arts. If you want to learn more technical trade or their specific schools that focus in on those things, majors and programs of study, as I said, admissions rates, financial aid, study abroad opportunities, professors.

So maybe there’s someone there that you’ve like, read their book. So, you know, they’re. Uh, their work from other things outside of just taking classes there because you’re a high school student. Maybe you’ve, you’ve seen papers come up about them or you’ve seen them in the news. Um, you read a book that has really impacted you by them.

And so taking a look at what professors are teaching and what they’re doing, um, It gives you also a chance to maybe, in like a potential future essay, write about why this school is special to you. And then, social and Greek life, which I think is an important component of just knowing, again, you’re going to be there for four years, usually in very formative years of your life, um, and so knowing whether this is a place that, um, has the right balance of community and academics is also very important.

Um, so there, uh, that kind of, like, wraps up that beginning stage of before you do your college visits, you have to make sure that you have a list of places that you’re interested in, and then as you’re budgeting for time and money on, like, which schools to actually go and visit. That resource of making a college list is really important now, uh, we’re transitioning a little bit more into talking about how, like what college visits actually look like now and more specifically how COVID 19 has affected school visits and researching colleges.

So, I would say in 2020 and 2021, a lot of schools limited their school visits and replaced them with virtual tool tours that has changed quite a bit since 2022 because a lot of the mandates have retired or lessened and more campuses were offering tours that in that varied from school to school, but mostly has returned to fully functioning, um, fully functioning tours.

However, a legacy from that 2020, 2021 virtual tour push is that now there’s a greater accessibility to campus visits without having to actually be there and spend money on a trip. And so that’s really important for students who maybe didn’t have the funds to be able to do that or the time to be able to do that.

Um, and so still gives you more flexibility to visit to visit schools that you like the most, and then still get a sense of what other campuses on your list or like without having to be there in person. Um, and then I think that this is still like you have to do some back end research to know which ones you want to visit in person and where you want to make that investment.

But it’s at least not as stark as either a visit or not. You can visit do some virtual visits and then not visit. So you have more of a range of options.

Lonnie: Okay, so with that, we’re going to take a short pause, um, just so that we can get a sense of where you are in the college application process. So, believe it or not, the college application process starts today. Um, way before 12th grade. And so let us know where you are. So perhaps you, you know, you haven’t started, um, are, maybe you are doing research, researching your schools, thinking about which schools you want to visit, um, and eventually apply to, um, perhaps you’re working on essays, you know, you may be, you know, am I getting a good early start on your essays, getting your application material together, or you are almost done.

So let us know. I’m seeing the responses coming in. I’m going to just give it a couple more seconds for any additional responses. Okay, here we go. So with that, we have 67 percent of our audience are currently researching schools. Uh, 19 percent haven’t started, but I’m sure after this webinar they’re going to be ready to get started.

Um, and then we have 7 percent that’s almost done. So we have some students that are almost done with the application process. And 5 percent getting their application material together, and then 3 percent working on their essay. So, great job to you all. Um, and with that, I will turn it back over to

Maria: Leah.

Thank you, Lonnie. That’s really helpful. I hope you all have found, uh, parts of this application to be relevant to where you are now. Uh, or that a couple, uh, in the slides coming up, that that becomes more relevant to you as well. Um, so picking up where we left off, uh, a lot, a lot of students ask themselves if you, if they should visit schools before or after they get into them and how important is that college visit.

And so ideally, uh, students should visit before applying so that they can decide whether, you know, this is actually a school that they want to apply to. Sometimes it gives students more of a confirmation that this is a school they’re really interested in and so they can put more effort into a specific school application.

And so it’s a helpful. Um, like resource of getting information to narrow down. Okay. Do I actually want to apply to this school? Um, like, where on my list of, like, preference does this school lie? And so it’s usually a lot of, um, a lot more helpful before. Uh, but it’s also nice to visit when you’re deciding between schools.

Um, because if you did get into more than one school, then it kind of becomes a little bit more difficult to figure out, okay, where do I want to see? Where do I see myself calling home for the next four years? Um, and sometimes you can only make that decision after being there in person, um, and so it’s Especially if it’s a, if it’s a really close tie between like, you know, there are two really great schools, I’m excited to go to both.

And it comes down to like, which one feels more like home. And maybe a couple of factors that are more personal to you. Um, that’s oftentimes where going in person can be a little bit, a little bit more of a deal breaker. Um, and ultimately it’s not a requirement and can often be financially difficult to visit schools And so it is not an end all be all I didn’t visit any schools and I got into Harvard and so I just I use that just as like a a point that To give folks peace that it’s not necessary to go to a school visit in order to get into a school It’s helpful for you and for you to make informed decisions for me.

I Just didn’t have the time or the finances to go and visit schools and to do, um, those trips. And so I really relied on talking to students who had been there before, calling the admissions office, trying to get as much information. as I could from, um, the website and really just making the best out of it when I went.

And I really did find a really great community and definitely call Harvard a second home or a home that I feel like I grew a lot in. And so, I think it really depends on what you, like, if you do have the money and finances or the finances and the time to go, then that’s like really great. But if not, it’s definitely not a deal breaker.

You’re not necessarily at a big disadvantage or anything like that. Um, and you will, I’m sure make the best out of wherever you’re at.

Um, so what do you usually learn during the school school visits? So we kind of talked about preparing for school visits, what school visits look like, and then, Uh, this is kind of a continuation of what, why might a school visit be interesting to you or how you can make the most out of them. So, you’ll learn some of the basics of the school history, usually the mission, the alumni achievements, but it’s really, uh, helpful for students to learn more about.

Campus life to get some answers about specific academic and extracurricular questions that they may have about a specific school Um, and then just getting a sense for the campus layout and the proximity of different buildings So like how close is the residential halls to the dining halls? How close are classes like is this a place where if you want to live off campus like you can drive in or not?

Like it’s just a really helpful Uh way to get a sense of what attending school there will look like Um, and then also the potential to meet with professors, coaches or other personnel who could, um, just answer some of your questions. And I think that this is a point to be very careful about where it’s not like if you go on a school visit, all of a sudden you everyone’s that like, you know, is available to meet with you or to talk with you.

That’s not the case. You have to usually plan these well in advance, making sure that you are reaching out to folks with specific questions about. You know, if you’re really interested about potentially joining a team, then you would message like, you know, a coach or at sports department and you will let them know like, Hey, you’re visiting on this in this day.

Is there availability to tour facilities? Is there availability to talk to a coach? And that’s usually something that I would do weeks in advance. Um, same with, if you want to visit a specific academic department and learn more about a major, um, talk to a professor, those are all things. And usually talking to professors is a lot.

Uh, I’ve yet to meet someone who’s able to meet a professor because they reached out earlier on that’s usually discouraged just because if not professors would be meeting with all these high school students, but definitely want to talk when it comes to like this. Potentially touring the department or getting a sense for maybe meeting with someone on staff, uh, like, uh, an academic department and by academic department, I mean, like the department of mathematics, the department of sociology, the department of biology, like different, um, majors have their own department with like staff that are usually there to help professors and to help with, um, registration and whatnot, and, um, are usually doing a lot of the administrative work for that major.

Um, and so it’s possible to meet with them. Again, these are all things that you would have to think of well in advance, um, and make sure that you have specific questions because they will be there to answer your questions, not to give you like a personalized tour. Um, so how can you find out if a school offers virtual visits in the case that you can’t?

You can’t go in person and you can’t do all those things that I just mentioned in person. Um, so I would say just use your favorite search engine and just use like, xSchoolVirtualVisit, so like HarvardSchoolVirtualVisit. Um, and if the school does have a tour, it’ll usually pop up among the top finds and be on the school’s website, and here I would be very careful to make sure that whatever link that you click on that’s a tour, that it’s coming directly from the school’s website that usually ends with a edu URL.

Um, and if you can’t find it there, you can always email the admissions office to ask if they have any virtual tours available, and you can find that email on the school’s website. Um, and so, as of whether that is an in person tour or an online tour, how can you use your visits to help finalize your college list?

So you can use them by having more narrow focus and purpose for the visit. So, um, you know, having a couple of questions that you draft up about, okay, what would really make it or break it between one school or another? And especially if you’re really close on trying to decide between school A and school B, make a list for yourself.

So maybe ask yourself, do you prefer the campus culture here? Do you like the proximity to the city or to other amenities? Do you like the residential system? Again, those are questions that I asked myself when I was thinking about I was choosing between Princeton and Harvard, uh, in March before, before committing.

And I, um, those were two, three questions that I really asked myself, um, before deciding, um, talking to students and staff. So trying to maybe schedule a meeting with a professor or an administrator and your desired major, like I mentioned, those academic departments, or asking students on campus about their decision to go to that school and what they enjoy and don’t enjoy.

So sometimes speaking to students is available through an admissions, um, office program. Uh, other times that’s not possible. And so that’s where sometimes in person visits can come in handy. If you like run into a student and you know, a bit very respectfully and kindly like ask if they have a moment to maybe tell you a little bit about their experience.

And so that’s definitely where sometimes in person interactions can just spark. Spontaneous wasted to ask students about about their experience. And so I kind of answered or kind of started answering this question about whether you should connect to the admissions officers on your visit. I would say you should definitely if you have questions about the school that you’re not able to answer on the website.

Definitely like, Like shoot an email to them and and ask those questions. But if you’re going on a visit, I would say just like I mentioned with like coaches or reaching out to departments, like you should well in advance of your visit message and ask if there’s availability to talk to an admissions officer because an admissions officer is not obligated to meet with someone the day of that they come to to to the school like they’re, you know, They have really busy schedules, and so this is something you would have to schedule in advance.

And I would also say that, think critically about whether, why, well, why you want to meet with an admissions officer. There’s specific questions that you have in mind. Um, because a lot of times you can get that general, like, information from a tour. But talking to an admissions officer is helpful when you have specific questions that you want to ask either about the admissions process, um, maybe any intricacies in your specific application, um, any, again, complicated scenarios that, you know, are difficult to express in.

In, uh, the common app and you want to learn more about how to do that effectively on your common app, things like that, that are more specific or, uh, questions that you might have about financial aid, that they can point you to a financial aid officer. Um, and so those are all important things that you could have in mind, but I would say if you’re going to meet with an admissions officer, making sure you have a list of questions you want to ask, because they can be really busy.

Um, and yeah, that, that would also help you to make sure you stand out as someone who has a genuine question and not someone who like wasted their time.

And then my final advice on how to maximize your college visits is just kind of a wrap up of the things that I’ve been saying, which is just do some in depth research about the schools that you’re interested in before deciding on college visits, as this will help you figure out how to invest in in person visits and give you clear purpose for specifically as you go into each school.

What are the specific questions you want to ask at each one? What are the experiences you want to get out of them? All those things will help you to prepare for a college visit and make sure that if there’s people you want to reach out to that you do that ahead of time and that research will help you do that.

Lonnie: Okay, thank you Maria for this really great information on making the most out of your college visit. Now we’re going to move into our live question and answer. So how this will work is you will be able to Write your questions, um, in the Q& A tab and then I will read them out loud, um, for Maria to answer.

And then also, just a note, if you’re curious on if this webinar is being recorded so that you can view it later, it will be recorded, um, we, um, you’re able to view that on our CollegeAdvisor website. Okay, so with that, we are going to move into the Q& A. Our first question, and this question comes, was submitted during our registration.

And so this question reads, is there a process needed for some colleges or universities to reach out to you? Regarding visiting their campus.

Maria: So usually there might be some schools that will send admissions officers on recruiting visits to schools in general so this is not to recruit a specific student, but rather to Just go to your school and to present a little bit about like what their school is like To make sure that folks know that about the school um, and so and usually that will be more of a process that is based in the admissions office to You Like, uh, an awareness campaign, I would say more than like a, a specific like recruiting campaign or anything like that.

Um, and so I would say like, that’s usually the process of the school reaching out to you. Um, but most of the time, like, the school won’t reach out to specific students until after application, and if they have a question about your application or some follow up about something that’s missing or anything like that, usually it’s up to the student to reach out to the admissions officer to ask if they, if they can meet or to ask any questions specifically.

Lonnie: Okay, so going into our next question.

One second.

Alright, so this is like reiterating, um, a point, let’s see. So, do you have to go to the college, or can you just do your own research about the college? Like, our campus visits like, Required.

Maria: Yeah. So campus visits are not required. I think this is like part of what I was mentioning in the slides of if you don’t have the resources of time or time to go like that is, it’s not supposed to be a disadvantage for students who are not able to go.

It’s more of an opportunity to learn more. Um, but it’s not something that you can’t like look up on. On the website to learn more about the information or to schedule a call with an admissions officer I would say like being in person definitely has its pros But it’s not something that is required or will make it or break it for you if you’re applying to school

Lonnie: Okay Um, how do you book of college visits when you’re in the ninth or tenth grade?

Maria: Um, so for for either one you can look on um, and you can actually book like a visit As early as possible. Like I know that at Harvard there was constantly tours that were happening and there was parents who were like pregnant or had just had a baby and said future freshmen and they were touring for them.

And so there’s really no age limit for when you can visit schools. It’s more so the older you are, the closer you are to the process, the more you will probably have questions about. Um, things that are a little bit more relevant and, um, it will be most impactful for your application.

Lonnie: Thank you. So what is the difference between a campus tour and open house? If they are different, which one, which is preferable to attend?

Maria: So I’ve mostly heard of school campus visits. So this is like a wider, like usually they have like a trained tour guide, who’s walking you around. The school and telling you like, you know, basic facts about the school, allowing you to see the campus, like telling you more about the history and the opportunities there, uh, an open house is usually, I, I’ve never seen a school wide open house.

Like that’s usually what happens in like grade school, like. Elementary, middle school, high school, um, open houses can sometimes be for a specific department. So the, for example, a sociology department could do a department open house. And that’s usually open to students who are already like college students in the school trying to decide on a major And so I would not I have never heard of like an open house for a specific college

Lonnie: Is there any process to get in contact with students from a school that you are interested in?

Maria: Yeah, so oftentimes you can call the admissions office and ask if they have a program where where they have that available I think at harvard there was that available Um, at least while I was applying Um, there’s also opportunities to, uh, I know I have, and then this is not an official, I would say the official process is reaching out to the admissions officer.

The unofficial process is to sometimes ask your school if there are alumni, um, who have, uh, applied to that school or, you know, like asking if there is opportunity, like a directory for your. You know, your region of folks who have gone to other schools and if there’s contact info there, but that can be a little bit more easy.

I would say the most clear process is just reaching out to the admissions office.

Lonnie: Okay, so this question reads, I am looking to go to school out of the country. Is it wise to spend the money when they have online visits?

Maria: Um, if you’re looking to go to school out of the country, that is, yeah, I would say that that increases the financial burden, uh, and the time as well, uh, a lot more.

I think if this is like, maybe you’re, if you have a specific area that you for sure want to go to, so if like it’s a specific city, um, where you’re applying to several schools versus like, if you’re just applying internationally to several countries or just several cities, um, I would say like, The online versions are probably best and to maybe if you are really wanting to invest in at least one or two visits, um, then definitely making sure that you’ve narrowed down like what your top, top choices are.

But like I said, it’s not necessary to do so. It’s not necessary to go to an in person visit.

Lonnie: Is there a site you could recommend on how to search for certain? uh, size school in the U. S.?

Maria: Um, I usually think honestly like Google or like a search engine is the best way to do that. I just can see more links at once and I’m able to to like figure out, okay, you know, especially if it’s like a trusted source that ends with like the dot edu because it’s specific school or if it’s like You know, uh, Newsweek or some other like organization that compiles these things.

But I would say Google is the first place that I go.

Lonnie: Do you have any advice for students who are totally undecided with regard to any area of study?

Maria: Yeah, so that that can sometimes be a little frustrating when you maybe are seeing other folks like decide on a major ahead of time. There is no like schools are not necessarily like they’re not prefer seeing someone who has chosen a major over someone who hasn’t, like several students that I knew came to Harvard undecided and decided their first year of college.

So I would say, unless your school requires you to declare a major before, like during application or before your first year, then that’s not something that like you, that is necessary. Um, however, if you are looking to decide and you don’t want to be undecided, or What I just said is just to like give you common piece that you don’t need to decide, but if you are in the process of deciding, I think thinking pretty critically about what are the classes that you enjoy most in high school, like not just the title of class, like why are you interested in that class?

What are the activities in that class that you’re interested in? What is the content that is interesting to you? talking to people who are in different fields and asking them what are the pros and cons of being in their field. Um, I know those were all things that I was also thinking about when I was deciding what to major in and ultimately decided I wanted to go to medical school to learn some of the practical things about becoming a doctor, but I also wanted to major in sociology because I wanted to learn about some of the things that I maybe could not focus on in medical school, such as like, The different cultural context in which medicine can be practiced and how different historical um, ethical transgressions have happened to people that make them scared to go to the doctor and like how that plays into, um, how folks have access to care.

And so all those types of questions that are a little bit more cultural and I wanted to learn more about, um, more reasons to start pointing me to sociology. And so I, I say, I give that example as a way to say, like how thinking about. What I wanted to do helped me to think retro, like retrospectively about what I wanted to study in school.

Lonnie: Okay. So if you are looking at a school for a specific sport, do you let the coaches know when you are visiting so you can maybe meet with them?

Maria: Um, that’s usually done pretty early on. I would say, especially if you’re looking at a varsity sport, you’re thinking about the very, um, Standardized recruiting process that usually starts as early as sophomore year.

Sometimes you’re junior year And so I would be talking with your current high school coach or your club coach To make sure that they are making connections with a college coach or if you’re making direct connections I would say I would email them like a lot earlier because sometimes like those Um, like recruiting weekends and recruiting processes have already started by junior year.

And so it’s important for you to do that ahead of time.

Lonnie: How do campus visits impact your interest on the school? I’ve heard some colleges want to see demonstrated interest.

Maria: Yeah, definitely for schools that say that they want demonstrated interest, and usually they make that very clear. Um, There are different ways of doing that.

There’s going on a college visits, there’s emailing admissions officers. And so there’s two different ways, or like there’s provisions for expressing interest, both by doing things in person and by doing things virtually.

Lonnie: How many schools would you recommend a student visit?

Maria: I think it depends on your budget and on your time.

Um, and how many schools you’re choosing between. I think that, um, Again, that’s a very personal question of like, are you able to afford that? Are you able to take the time to do that? But I would say the litmus test is, is this a school that you really, really are interested in and you, you, um, have the, the expensive or like, again, the resources to be able to visit it.

Are you between two schools or three schools and really deciding on which one to apply? So if there are those types of questions and you have the resources, um, I would say like go to as many as as as you think are is most reasonable for your specific financial like trade offs.

Lonnie: Okay so we’re just going to take a short pause from our questions and answers so you can definitely still place your questions in the Q& A tab and I want to share more about the work that we do here in CollegeAdvisor. So for those in the room who aren’t already working with us, we know how overwhelming the process, the admission process can be, especially for a competitive applicants like yourselves who are already getting insight into how to prepare for college visits.

Our team of over 300 former admission officers and admission experts are ready to help you and your family navigate it all in one on one advising sessions. Take the next step in your college admission journey. by signing up for a free consultation using the QR code on the screen. During the consultation, a member of our team will review your current extracurricular list.

discuss how it lines up with your college goals, and help you find opportunities for growth and leadership. After scanning the QR code, you’ll be able to select a date and time for a phone conversation with a member of our team. Okay, so we will, um, leave the question, the QR, we’ll leave the QR code on the screen as we continue with our questions and answers.

So this question reads, my son’s at the PSATs. And is now being flooded with emails. Are these schools genuinely interested or is this just a modern day mass marketing with no real thought behind it?

Maria: Yeah, so I think, um, so this happened to me as well, it’s pretty much happened to all the schools, to all the students in my school who took it.

So I would say it’s not necessarily a, No thought at all, but it’s if a student is taking a PSAT, then they’re probably interested in going to college. And so I don’t think it is like a very unique experience necessarily in that, like, you know, this means that this school really wants them, but it’s more so an expression of like, Hey, we know your child is interested in college.

We want them to consider our college. So I would say that is maybe like the level, um, at which I would take those type of outreach. I do think it is quote, unquote, mass marketing in the sense that they get a ton of emails from that prop from the test taking process, because I think you have to add your emails to get your results.

Um, and then they use those emails to send things out.

Lonnie: Okay. Um, If you ask if whether during your visit you can sit in on a class in your intended major, do colleges typically make that option available?

Maria: Yeah, so some schools do. Uh, there’s some schools that have like an ID, like, Requirement where to get into a building, you need an ID.

And so if that’s the case, it’s often a lot more restricted. Um, that’s been the case usually as like, unfortunately, there’s been like violence on school campuses and things like that, where they just want security to be higher and make sure that there, there aren’t, uh, folks in classes that shouldn’t be.

And so that’s often restricted, but it, some schools do pro do make a provision for students who are interested in department. And, uh, that would go through an admissions officer, like first, and you would need like, their permission you would need to like set that up well in advance of your admissions visit.

Um, that doesn’t mean that if you get there that there isn’t a chance that they might let you do that but I would say if you’re interested and know that’s something that you definitely want to do during your visit that you reach out earlier on. Um, and see if that’s available at your specific school or the school that you’re specifically interested in because it does vary from school to school.

Um,

Lonnie: what do you hear? People wish they had spent more time focusing on during a visit.

Maria: I think that a lot of students. Wish that they would have spent more time looking at where they will be living, looking at the surrounding areas of the city, where they would be and what opportunities there are there as well.

Potentially, like, reaching out earlier and talking to an admissions officer or to a specific department staff and asking if they can tour their, their department.

Lonnie: Okay, so this question, I’m kind of going to paraphrase it down a little bit, but it basically reads, it says, For the student who is being swamped with the different emails that are coming from the colleges, should a student be replying to those emails?

Does it hurt their chances? What are your thoughts on that?

Maria: Sorry, to which emails? I didn’t hear that part.

Lonnie: Emails that come from the colleges. I think if

Maria: no, I think that if you’re getting a marketing email that is like a general email, you don’t want to necessarily be replying to those because they can often be to like a no reply email chain that is not directed to a specific admissions officer.

Usually, you will have the email, the admissions email if you have any questions, but oftentimes those marketing emails are not meant to be replied to, but rather this is like a.

Lonnie: When is the best time of the year to visit a college?

Maria: So I would say, um, like, I think during times where there are students there, and so you probably not the summer where there’s probably only like students in summer programs. They’re, um, like, I think probably you wouldn’t want to go during like, terrible weather.

So maybe not in like the, the winter. Probably like the spring or uh, the fall and in springtime. I wouldn’t go too late in the spring where there might be Um preparing for graduation and it may not look like what the campus will look like Most of the year or where students are like stressed out with finals and not likely to stop and tell you about their experience

Lonnie: Okay, if you are unable to schedule a formal tour Is it still beneficial to visit on your own and tour the school?

Maria: Yeah, it definitely is. I know a lot of students who have done that, um, and just got a sense for what the school campus is like, what, um, opportunities they are just by being there and getting to see students in action. And that’s not something that you necessarily need a tour for.

Lonnie: Is it really hard to get a feel for the social platform of a school?

Example, like how much maybe they party by visits? Are there any tips you could offer a website to be able to gain that insight?

Maria: And sorry, you cut out just a little bit. Can you repeat that?

Lonnie: Yes. Is it really hard to get a feel for the social platform? How much partying, like example, how much partying perhaps?

The school maybe where students they do at the school Um by visits are there any tips you could offer or websites?

Maria: Got it. Got it. So so sorry the the like the social environment So I was thinking social platform and I was immediately thinking like facebook instagram like yeah. Um, okay. So for the so yeah so I would say um it’s hard during the day because a lot of the social scene will be like You know, there’s dinners or there’s you know, like parties those will usually not happen in person Like during the daytime when there’s classes and so it could be a little bit harder if you’re looking at just like the social interactions of like, you know, folks in like the lawn and like maybe some of the social places like the like a cafeteria or things like that.

This will be some of them will be evident during your visit. Others will happen usually in like residential halls where you can’t go in. And so that can be hard, but you can definitely talk to students about what they’re, um, What their like social life is like a lot of times on websites They’ll have in the extracurricular like whether there’s like Greek life.

Look if there’s fraternities or sororities And so those are all opportunities to learn a little bit more about the social life.

Lonnie: Okay Um, I’ve seen this question come up a couple of times from our audience Do you have just like a few of the best questions to ask when you’re on a tour?

Maria: Um, I’ve never been on a tour, um, but I think questions that, like, would come to mind are more, like, regarding the specific schools, like, specific classes that folks are taking at the school that you, maybe, like, if you’ve looked online, I think there’s, I would make sure that you’re asking questions that you can’t just look up online.

So like, if you know there’s certain classes available online, maybe asking like, you know, how do students usually decide how to pick their classes? Like maybe that’s not something that’s online. Um, so I, I think the first, I don’t have a specific list, but I think as you make your own list, what I would think about is, what do you see online?

That’s sparking more questions about like that specific school. So again, at Harvard, like how do schools, how do students choose their classes? You probably know from online that, I mean, there used to be something called reading week where you got a chance to go and like, or sorry, uh, shopping week where you went and like, chose like, Uh, tried classes before you, you decided to, to like enroll in them and a lot of students would like ask upperclassmen, uh, but some of those things aren’t things you would see on the website, you would see that their shopping week, but you wouldn’t know maybe how that shopping week works or like how students within that framework decide on classes.

And so it’s an example of like. I know a specific school. I saw on their website that there’s something called shopping week. I don’t know enough about it. I’m going to put that down and ask that for it while i’m on tour.

Lonnie: Okay Um, is it possible for a student to be turned down by a school if they don’t have their major?

But the student meets all the other requirements

Maria: I think that’s only possible, or that that’s only really happening if you need to decide on a major as you’re applying. Otherwise, being undecided is not wrong. Okay,

Lonnie: let’s see. I mean, I’ve seen this question come up, and I know we’ve answered it, but just to reiterate it, will college admissions factor if you book a college visit?

Maria: Only if they say that it’s, uh, you should express interest, uh, and they will consider expressed interest.

Lonnie: Okay. All

right. So what is your take on going to a college visit during your junior year of high school?

Maria: Yeah, I think that that’s a really great time. That’s where you’re deciding between schools, where you’re trying to decide what schools to, or when you’re deciding between what schools to apply to, not between actual, like which ones you’ve been admitted to, but that’s like a good place to try to narrow down how many applications you want to work on.

All right.

Lonnie: Well, with that, I think we’ve gotten all the questions in regards to the college visit. So thank you, Maria, um, for this presentation and sharing your insight with our audience and to our audience, just to let you know that we do have. Two more webinars that are happening this week before the U.

S. holiday break. And with that, every month we’re going to have webinars all geared towards helping you prepare for the college admission process and applying to college. So we hope to see you in a future webinar. Thank you again for your time. And that now concludes this webinar.

Maria: Okay. Thanks everyone.

Lonnie: Thank you.