Halfway through my junior year, all of my friends were talking about college. It was decision season for seniors, and with the start of our own senior year impending, it was impossible to not have college on the brain. As I talked to all of my friends, I gradually began to form the perception that I was behind. At that point, I had done very little research into colleges, and I hadn’t completed a single visit. On the other hand, it seemed that all of my friends had already created lists of schools they were applying to and had all visited a few schools apiece. I wasn’t truly panicked until my parents asked me why I hadn’t started talking to them about visits. I began to realize that, at least in comparison to my peers, I was dreadfully behind.
I would later realize, however, that my pace, while different from many of my friends, was what suited me as an applicant. I started my visits over spring break of my junior year. I took a road trip in which I visited about five schools, and I supplemented this with a couple visits over the summer. Then, this fall, I visited my top three choices in order to discern which school was my true top choice.
As I reached outside the bubble of my friend group, I learned that many had followed a similar timeline, or had even started visiting schools later than I had. Some didn’t visit schools at all and just completed online tours.
The general guidance surrounding college visits is actually quite similar to my own trajectory. College Board recommends that students visit colleges in the spring of their junior year and/or in the early fall of their senior year. The main point of writings surrounding the topic of when to visit colleges, though, is that the process isn’t one-size-fits-all.
Visiting during the school year comes with upsides. Unlike during summer visits, college campuses tend to be buzzing with students and showcase a more accurate representation of the student experience at the school. Summer visits can be more convenient for many students who are particularly busy during the school year but can also lead to a student forming an inaccurate perception of a school. In my experience, it made a big difference in my perception of a school and I specifically re-visited a school that I otherwise liked because I was unsure of the campus environment.
Visits in fall of senior year allow for a lot more time to form opinions surrounding schools and what you want to do in the future and at college, but can also cause stress due to close proximity to application season. I knew that this would be a specific source of stress for me if I pushed my visits to the fall, so my only goal with my fall visits was to look at the specific schools for my major within colleges I had already visited and loved.
These different factors of stress, decision time and perception of a campus were the main drivers behind why I visited colleges when I did. Many of my friends, however, had completely different stances on all of these matters. While there may be what many consider to be the ideal time to visit schools, the choice on when to do so is unique to each student, just like their choice of where they apply.
