If you are a senior, you are in crunch time. Your days are full of hard classes, hard studying for the SAT or ACT, and hard decisions as a leader in your extracurriculars. You may not feel like there is a ton of time to set aside a few weekends, or take a couple of days off of school, but if you didn’t prioritize campus visits as before senior year you have some hard decisions to make.
Now, it is true that most colleges do not take demonstrated interest into account anymore. Even 5 or 10 years ago, demonstrated interest, like visiting campus, was crucial to improving your chances of acceptance. However, colleges changed their policies in recent years to try to make admissions more equitable. This decision means that being geographically close to a school or having the financial means to visit a far-away campus does not benefit your odds of admission.
As a result, you shouldn’t classify your college visits as something that you ‘need’ to do, but they are something that we highly encourage. You will spend four years at the school you pick, and you want to make sure that those are the most impactful four years possible towards your future. Yes, you can transfer, but transferring is not as simple as many colleges make it out to be. We believe that it’s better to invest upfront on a visit than to have to invest even more down the line on a transfer application.
Below, we’ll break down what you need to be doing before and during your college visits as a senior, and how to make them as impactful as possible.
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If you haven’t made an effort to visit colleges yet, we are hoping that you are early in your senior year and have time to implement a visit strategy before you press submit on your applications. We also understand, though, that for many students (not ours) the college application process is a game of catch-up. With that in mind, we’re going to approach college visits as a senior from two angles: first, what to do before you’ve applied, and then what to do after you’ve received an acceptance if you haven’t been to the school before but are seriously considering committing to attend.
BEFORE COLLEGE DECISIONS
If you do not have a number one school and early deadlines are approaching, it is imperative that you visit your top choice schools if you have the ability to do so. Early Decision, or Restricted Early Action, is one of your strongest tools as a college application. Using it correctly, for the right school for you, is critical. There are schools that you may be able to get into ED or REA that you almost certainly would not get into Regular Decision. This could be because you are a legacy, an unrecruited athlete with coach interest, an ‘edge case’ student but with an exceptional extracurricular, like being a world-class mountain biker, or a student at the tippy-top of the pile but with little to amplify outside of your classwork. There are so many reasons why you may be a strong candidate for ED, but not RD, and that is something that we work with our students to figure out as a key piece of their application strategy. It isn’t only where you apply, but how you apply.
So, if you do not have a #1 in this moment, and are nervous about committing ED or REA to a school you haven’t been to, visiting or revisiting is critical.
If you do have a #1 that you’ll be applying to early, but the rest of your list is not locked down yet, you need to visit the colleges you are considering to help you finalize your priorities — especially if they offer an EA option. So, get on campus. Talk to people. As a senior, admissions offices will prioritize your visit as long as it is ahead of application deadlines. Book a tour and info session, and communicate clearly and early with the admissions office that you are planning on visiting and would love to be able to have lunch with a student or attend a class.
When you are on campus:
TAKE NOTES
Write down what you notice and how it makes you feel, good or bad, along with details from any meaningful conversations. Even things that seem like there is no way that you will forget them have a unique ability to disappear from your memory in the chaos of college application season. So, write them down.
SEND A THANK YOU
Always send a thank you to a school that you intend to apply to — especially if you are considering applying early. We love snail mail, but when you are close to the deadline it is often better to simply email. That doesn’t mean that it should be informal, though. Treat this like you’re following up on a job interview. That means “Dear Mr…” and all that. We encourage our students to follow this format:
Sentence 1: Give your name, city/state, that you are a prospective member of the Class of 202X, and share that you are writing to thank them for your recent visit.
Sentence 2: Give someone a compliment. Usually, this is the tour guide simply because it’s the person you spent the most time with. If you don’t remember their name that is okay, but this is also why we encourage students to take notes.
Sentence 3: Tell them something that you really loved. Not the landscaping and not the architecture. Say something specific and complimentary about the academic program you are interested in pursuing.
Sentence 4: Keep this letter short and sweet, so now it’s time to sign off with a final positive thought about the school and your excitement to apply.
AFTER COLLEGE DECISIONS
If you feel like you still need to visit a college after you’ve been accepted, but before committing, the time is basically immediately. This is especially true if you applied regular decision, as it’s now spring and the admissions office is more focused on next years’ seniors than students like you.
And we do highly recommend visiting a school before you commit to attend. No matter how many friends and family members have said that it is your perfect fit, and no matter how beautiful the website looks, you don’t really know if a school is a strong fit for you if you don’t step on campus, experience a class, talk to students, and otherwise engage with the student body. It is always possible that a school sounds ideal on paper and social media and the web, but isn’t so great for you up close. And, if that is the case, it is much better to figure it out before you turn down other options and move into a dorm.
IF YOU VISIT BEFORE COMMITTING
Colleges you have been accepted to may have ‘revisit’ days for accepted students who have not made a final decision on where to go to college — yet. If a school you are seriously considering does have one of these revisit days, go. It will be a great opportunity to not only get to know the school, but also to meet some of your potential peers next year.
Other colleges are less enthusiastic about making room for seniors to visit after decisions have come out. They have juniors to worry about now, and you may need to visit unofficially without a schedule tour.
IF YOU VISIT AFTER COMMITTING
Is it worth visiting a college if you have already committed to attend? Yes and no. You’re going to be there in a few months regardless, so this visit would really simply be an opportunity to get a measure of campus and community in-person before officially moving onto campus.
Personally, though, we feel like there isn’t much of a point, even if the college has an official revisit day ahead of orientation. If you haven’t visited already, and you are already committed to attend, there isn’t much of a purpose to visiting ahead of first-year orientation.
Ultimately, sure, you could go if you a committed senior curious about their future school, but don’t stress about it. You’ll learn everything you need to know soon.
As a senior, you are in the final countdown to your collegiate future. You are in a wildly exciting moment, and making the right moves now can make a huge difference in your college outcomes. We work with our students to make the most of this time, catapulting them to exceptional application results.
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