When to Visit Colleges

We don’t know who this fellow is but his hair is blue. Maybe he likes “The Smurfs.” If you only visit colleges during the summer months, you may not realize that students have blue and purple hair. Because most students aren’t on campus during the summer (photo credit: Bovineone).

When is the best time to visit colleges, you ask? Many students and parents choose to visit colleges over the summer months. And we never wish to discourage students and parents from visiting colleges. It has long been our mantra that if you wish to get into a university, you should visit this university. After all, many highly selective colleges calculate your Demonstrated Interest. There’s even what’s called an Interest Quotient. Colleges want to admit students who they think will attend. After all, if they admit too many students who won’t attend, that will negatively impact their yield data, which will indirectly impact their all-important “US News & World Report” ranking.

But visiting over the summer months isn’t always the best idea. At only a select set of colleges across the country are there a good percentage of regular students on campus taking courses. And how can you truly get a sense if you’ll like a university if the students aren’t there? Students are kind of more important than the buildings, wouldn’t you say? “I like this college because it has nice red bricks.” Said nobody ever. If you visit a university in the summer and fall in love with it enough to apply there in the Early Decision or Early Action round, you may be surprised and even potentially disappointed to learn when you show up there the following fall after gaining admission that many students have purple hair. When students aren’t on campus during your college visits, it’s impossible to know if students have purple hair. You may not want to go to a school in which so many students have purple hair. Purple haired students may not appeal to you. Ok, enough purple. But you get the idea. Purple, purple, purple.

If you happen to have a break after AP exams and before final exams (if your school doesn’t wrap up earlier), it would be an opportune time to visit colleges. Many students are still on campus for the next couple of weeks at colleges across America. And if you’re interested in assistance with planning out these campus visits (and on what to do when you’re there), contact us today by filling out our consultation form. And we’ll go from there. Purple. Don’t forget the purple. Or blue for that matter.