College Visit Conundrum

Mira Ponnambalam ’26 (Features Associate) in Features | October 4, 2024

With Fall Term comes pumpkin-spiced everything, new students, as well as incredible stress for the V Form class. That’s right—it’s college application season. As students work to perfect their applications and essays, they must consider what they want to do with their futures. An integral part of this decision process is college visits. College visits often include a student-led tour, an information session, and a chance to explore the surrounding area.

Information sessions typically give visiting prospective students details about applications and the school itself. These meetings can often feel like a copied-and-pasted experience: land acknowledgments, statistics about faculty-to-student ratios, and buzzwords like “holistic review.” Samantha Costikyan ’25 noted that “some of the statistics would overlap, and [those] don’t really stick.” Still, she found that the schools managed to distinguish themselves in the nuances of their presentations.

“Knowing which particular facts the school chooses to [emphasize] gives a sense of what the school actually values,” said Sophia Liu ’25. Even little details, such as the building where an information session takes place or the format of the presentation can give prospective students a hint about the culture of the school.

The quintessential campus tour led by a backwards-walking current student creates an easy opportunity to learn about the student experience, see the campus, and ask any questions. Gloria Yu ’26 noted that “students [have] the information on what college life is like…as well as what makes a college truly unique.” Getting a glimpse of interactions between tour guides and students offers a pretty realistic picture of the school’s social culture.

“I want to go to a school that has energy, where students want to be with each other, and you can’t really see that if you’re just reading a statistic,” noted Costikyan. Tours combine overall facts about the school with a specific student’s experience, and they tend to focus more on student life, emphasizing things like traditions.

“It’s just always so fun to actually find a link between yourself and the tour guide and…pursue that link,” commented Liu. To facilitate the formation of this bond, many schools allow prospective students to choose from a group of tour guides based on their interests.

On the other hand, people who chose to be tour guides most likely have had a good experience with their school. A tour guide’s job entails presenting the best version of the school, meaning that a school’s flaws are often brushed over or dismissed.

Matthew Brooks ’25 found it “really useful to have an extra perspective” from other students he knows who attend some of the colleges he visited. Reaching out to alumni can provide a much more nuanced view and a great chance to catch up. Most tours are also limited in their ability to show students’ classes and the inside of buildings based on school regulations, and reaching out to a current student can allow you to explore aspects of student life that aren’t easily gathered from a tour.

While the structured guidance of an information session and a tour are important to understanding a college, oftentimes, the less-structured or intangible aspects can be just as telling. “The feeling of being on a campus is really important to me,” commented Brooks.

Even the area outside of the physical boundaries of the college can be helpful to explore. As Costikyan explained,“when you’re going to a college, you’re making a four-year commitment. You want to know what kind of environment you’re going to be surrounded by.” Little features outside the campus grounds, like where one can find the nearest grocery store or diner, can define the student experience.

In addition, getting to explore a new place can be genuinely fun and give students a better picture of their potential experience on that campus. For Liu, this feeling acts “as a motivation…to continue with this long college process.”

Some parts of the college visit process are challenging. Yu, for one, noticed that tours fill up rather quickly. Also, many people don’t have the time or resources to visit every school they apply to. Even when students find a way to visit schools, “weather and the context in which you’re visiting a school can impact how you feel” about a particular school, noted Brooks, who was left wanting more after a tour on a rainy day. Virtual visits and college fairs can help students overcome some of these obstacles, though these alternatives don’t allow students to get a sense of the campus in the same way as a proper visit.

Statistics and websites can only say so much. Although they are often inconvenient and limited, stepping on campus through college visits provides valuable insights into the life and energy of a school, showing that one cannot underestimate the power of a “vibe.”

Related Articles

Recent Articles

Menu

College Visit Conundrum