By: Susanna Cerasuolo, M.Ed.
Visiting a college campus is an exhilarating experience. Although looking at pictures of a school is great, there is nothing quite like physically being on campus. It gives you a sense of the campus culture in a way that no description, photo or video can. Here are our tips on what to keep in mind when touring a school.
Log in to CollegeMapper to get more information on campus visits!
Transcript:
Hi, I’m Susanna at CollegeMapper and today pug and I are here to tell you how to do a campus visit! So let’s see, when you go on a campus visit there are a few things to keep in mind. I think the most important thing is that your campus visit is an official, registered visit through the Office of Admissions so that they know you were there. This demonstrates interest; you are demonstrating to them you are very interested in attending their school and so it increases the chances they would make you an offer of admission which is very, very good.
If you can’t register and do an official visit then sure, the drive-by is better then nothing when you can at least see the campus and what it’s like. But truly the best thing is to do the tour and then stay after for the question and answer session. On the official tour, it’s always really fun because you get to see the library and the dorms and some classrooms, and you get to meet students, hopefully. I do want to caution you against deciding whether or not to apply to a college based on your tour guide. You may or may not click with your tour guide; this is human nature. It’s perfectly normal, but your tour guide is not the only student who goes to that college, and even if you don’t click with your tour guide you can still consider that college.
I often find when my students come back, that if they didn’t like the (Pug sneezes; goodness, Pug!) if they didn’t like the tour guide or if it was bad weather then for some odd reason they don’t want to apply to that school… So those are things I wouldn’t consider as part of my conditions and criteria if whether I apply to a school or not. But definitely check out the dorms, check out the dining hall, see if you can eat in the commons so you can taste the food, grab a student newspaper, read the postings on walls, and listen to conversations to see if those are the type of people you can see yourself hanging out with. And that’s about all I can think of for a campus visit so have fun! Take care, bye!
