Making College Visits Fun
For many families, the search for the “right” college and the rounds of visits to prospective schools begin in earnest from the moment their child enters junior year in high school. Some even begin earlier. And for most families, these visits can create a high degree of tension.
Talking with my daughter’s friends and their parents, I’ve found that college visits can stir up anxieties in parents and students alike, especially when aiming for competitive schools.
Even with the best of grades, SAT/ACT scores and extra curricula activities, students know they may have slim choice of getting into their first choice college. And if students weren’t worried before, they will be once they’ve attended an orientation where “helpful” speakers make a point of letting students know that most qualified applicants don’t get in. So anything that can take some of the stress out of those visits is a good thing.
Fun is good. For this reason, my family agreed to build fun around these visits. By making the trip about more than a university tour, we’ve defused a lot of the stress. And less stress means we can take in more of the ambience and offerings of each school we visit.
Focus on nearby sights. We’ve found that combining college visits with sightseeing goes a long way towards diffusing the tension. We’ve visited national parks, hiked and gone bike riding in addition to exploring college towns, shops and restaurants.
Bring a friend. We’ve also found it helpful to travel with a like-minded, compatible family. This allows the kids to break off and get more of a sense of campus life than they would if they were walking around with a parent or on their own.
The potential downside is that we sometimes visit colleges suited more to one student than the other. While we’ve discussed splitting up and visiting separate schools, the kids have tended to be open to visiting each other’s schools. An unanticipated benefit of this has been to identify aspects of university life that we can then look for and ask about on future tours.
In upcoming columns, I’ll talk about creating a checklist that will help you make the most of your college visit, insider tips on experiencing a campus and specific sightseeing/campus visits trips we’ve taken.
Is your family enjoying the college search process? Do you have any tips for other families?
Geri Bain's Blog 