Different Ways to Visit a College Campus

Campus Tours

Campus tours are the most common form of college visit, and they offer several benefits. For one, they are often run by a current student, so you'll get a student perspective on the college. Also, they tend to be offered throughout the week and on weekends, so they are typically easy to fit in around the busy schedules of high school students.

Make the most of your tour by asking your tour guide questions that will help you understand the college better and whether it's a good fit for you. Expect a campus tour to take an hour or more.

Unable to travel? Take a virtual college tour.

College Information Sessions

College information sessions tend to be more formal than campus tours, and they are offered less frequently, often on Saturdays and select Fridays. Attendance can range from a small group to hundreds of students depending on the school and the time of year. The majority of information sessions are run by a member of the admissions staff, but you'll also encounter some that are run by students, Deans, or a combination of staff and students.

At an information session, you can expect to learn about a college's distinguishing features and the opportunities it affords students, and you may also get tips for applying and financial aid information. There will typically be time for questions, but for large groups an open question period can be a challenge. 

College information sessions are usually 60 to 90 minutes long, and you'll often have the opportunity to linger afterwards to ask the staff any specific questions you might have.

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9 Tips for Making the Most of a College Visit

By Allen Grove

Open Houses

Typically in August and the fall, colleges will hold special admissions open houses for prospective students. These events can be challenging for high school students to schedule since they are offered just a few times a year, but it is worth making the effort to attend if at all possible.

Open houses can be half-day to full-day events. Typically they will include a general information session and a campus tour, but they will also include events such as lunch with students and faculty, a meeting with financial aid, academic and activity fairs, program-specific tours and events, and student-centered panels and discussions. 

Because an open house offers you multiple ways to get information and interact with the staff, students, and faculty, you're likely to come away with a much better sense of the college than you would after a typical tour or information session.

In the spring, colleges will often hold similar types of open houses exclusively for students who have been admitted. These open houses are an excellent tool for helping you choose the college you will attend.

Overnight Visits

An overnight visit is the gold standard of campus visits, for there is no better way to get the feel of a college and its campus culture. If at all possible, you should do one before making your final college choice. 

During an overnight visit, you'll eat in the dining hall, sleep in a residence hall, visit a class or two, and mingle with students who haven't been paid to make a good impression on you. Your host will have been selected by the admissions staff as an upbeat and positive ambassador for the college, but the other people you encounter during your stay will not. 

For highly selective colleges, overnight visits are often an option only after you've been admitted. Top schools simply don't have enough resources to accommodate requests from thousands of students, most of whom won't actually be admitted. At less selective schools, an overnight stay might be an option at any point in the admissions cycle.

College Bus Tours

A bus tour won't be an option for all high school students, for they tend to be more common in highly populated areas. If you do have the opportunity for a bus tour, it can be a great way to visit a school or multiple schools.

Bus tours can take many forms: sometimes a college pays to bus in interested students from a particular region; sometimes a high school or private company organizes a tour of multiple campuses; sometimes several colleges will pool resources to bring students to an area to visit their campuses. Schools with out-of-the-way locations are most likely to leverage bus tours as a way to get prospective students to their campuses.

Bus tours can be fun and social excursions, and they can be an economical way to visit colleges. Some will be free (paid for by the colleges), and others will still be much cheaper than if you were to drive yourself and handle your own lodging arrangements. They also make organizing your trip easy, for the tour planners will arrange your campus tours and information sessions.

College Fairs

College fairs are typically held at a high school or other large community space. Even if there are no fairs at your school, you may find one in your area. A college fair gives you a way to collect information about many colleges, and you will have the opportunity to chat with a representative from schools that interest you. They can be a good first step in your college search process, although you'll want to follow up with an actual campus visit to those schools that you think might be a good match for you.

Don't be passive at college fairs and settle for simply picking up brochures. Talk to the representatives and get your name on mailing lists for those schools that you like. This will get you into the computer database for the admissions office, and it will show that you had contact with a school representative before you applied.

College Visit to Your High School

College admissions offices have a small army of counselors who spend the fall on the road visiting high schools. Each counselor is assigned to a specific geographic region with the goal of reaching out to prospective students in that area.

When a college representative visits your school, that visit can take different forms. Some schools hold an open assembly for all students. More frequently, the representative will be in a specific location such as a conference room or the library, and interested students can go meet with the admissions counselor during lunch period or a study hall.

Take advantage of these visits when they happen. College counselors are eager to talk to you (that's why they're there, after all), and this is one more way to learn more about a school and get your name into the school's recruitment pipeline. If you can build a relationship with your regional recruiter, that person may go to bat for you when admissions decisions are being made.

A Final Word on Campus Visits

Whether you meet with a counselor at your high school or stay overnight at a college, make sure you come away with a better understanding of the school, and work to make a positive and personal connection with the school. Your engagement with a school does matter at many colleges, and campus visits and meetings with admissions personnel are one of the better ways to demonstrate interest. Building a relationship with a college representative and putting in effort to get to know a school well can play in your favor

While this point might be rather obvious, the more time you spend on a campus, the better your understanding of a college will be. This is why open houses and overnight visits are the most effective tools for figuring out if a college is a good match for your interests and personality.