9 Things to Consider when Touring College Campuses

College touring season is just kicking into gear for you high school juniors (who will be seniors before you realize it!). Once the fall comes and you’re going back and forth in between classes, sports, and college applications, there will be little time for you to get on campus, so it’s time for you to start touring NOW.

Ready to get started? Here’s a few tips for what to look for during early campus visits, and how to assess whether a school is right for you.

1. Get onto campus early — this means now! Ideally, it’s best for a prospective college student to tour a campus when current students are around, if but that’s not possible, it’s good to at least get onto the campus and walk around, even if it’s during the summer. There will still be tours and students to talk to, and even though the general scene will be quieter, you can still learn something from the visit.
2. If you love what you see during the summer, you can streamline any fall visits by only visiting those places that make your final list or your top three. Then you’ve done your homework already and are just doing a review session — just visiting a few choice campuses to make sure that you will choose the school that is the best fit for you.
3. Make sure you speak to students, not just the tour guide. Remember that even if the tour guide is a student, they are paid by the admissions office, so of course you will hear things like “the food is not like it is at home, but it’s pretty good”, or “there’s always something to do on the weekend — it’s so hard to choose between the activities.” Or, for the parents, “I’m not going to lie — this is a college campus, but you won’t find too much alcohol or marijuana here.” Do your own investigation. Ask other students questions, and explore the campus yourself. When you do find a student to talk to, ask her what she did last weekend, rather than what was available to do last weekend.
4. Make sure you look carefully at curriculum. This is an area that students often forget to research. No one thinks much about what different schools require or what they actually offer, but this is going to be a huge part of your college life. We make the assumption that every school offers everything and this is not true. So please take some time before your visit to search the academic offerings of a given school. It’s all online and as easy to do as going on facebook.
5. After the tour is over, take notes on what your learned — but make sure you don’t wait too long after the tour ends to take your notes! After a while, all the campuses will start to look the same, and you’ll find yourself asking, which school had the nice gym? Oh, the food was so good at — darn, I can’t remember. To avoid mixing the schools together, keep a record!
6. There is no need to interview early in your search process. Make sure you know what you are looking for before you volunteer to interview (especially at the small schools where an interview can help to shape your application). Schools will interview via Skype or if you live in a larger metropolitan area, they will interview at a hotel or a local Starbucks. Save the interview until you are able and ready to tell the admissions rep why you think their school is the right fit for you.
7. If necessary, pay the financial aid office a visit. Schools differ in their approach to financial aid and it is important for most students to know whether or not the school is a financial reality. Ask the financial aid officers to explain to you how they award aid, what percent of the cost of attendance they usually cover and how much of that is loan based versus institutional awards which do not have to be paid back. This is an important part of the research for whether a particular campus is actually a good fit for a student.
8. You might want to pay a visit to the academic department of interest to you. How many professors are in the department? Two? Six? Ten? Please ask the office manager whether graduate students teach the introductory courses (only at the universities). You might see if a professor is in his office and has a few minutes to tell you about the department.
9. Take photographs. It will help you to remember the campus later.