How To Absolutely Forget Every College You Visit
Originally published 3/2014
How? Ignore my advice and don't take any notes.
As a first generation college student, I wasn't able to get much advice from my parents on how to select the right college. So we did our research. One of the best things we did was to go on campus visits. A lot of campus visits. I think it was something like fifty, total. I know, crazy. By the end I was able to decide against applying to a school based on the tour guide's footwear selection. But I don't recommend that.
What I do recommend is keeping a log of your campus visits. If you've not been on any visits yet, you're thinking, "What's wrong with her? I won't forget the schools I see." If you have been on some visits, you're wishing you'd read this beforehand.
Because that first visit was great. Your tour guide was named Leah and she hailed from Phoenix and is majoring in Biochemistry and going to study abroad in China next year. The campus was gorgeous - Georgian brick buildings, lush gardens, ridiculously clean residence halls. The dining commons served sushi. Sushi. You got to meet with the head of the undergraduate business school and he seemed to really understand your passion for both entrepreneurship and accounting - a pairing everyone else has dismissed as weird at best. It seemed like the students were cool - everybody didn't look the same but you saw people that looked like you and people that you wanted to look like. They have a jazz band you can play your double bass in and a cross country team you can compete on. Pretty perfect fit, and every detail is seared into your brain.
Until you've seen three more schools. Then Leah has morphed into Larry and weren't the residence halls pretty dirty? And was that the school where the professor you met told you that no one is able to double major in entrepreneurship and accounting?
By the time you've visited an additional four campuses, (for only a grand total of eight, compared to my fifty) every detail about the individual schools has been put in your brain blender and set to crush. And your folks are not taking you back to all of those places. So you apply to the ones you think you remember really liking, and develop some pretty spectacular stomach cramps worrying that you've gotten it wrong.
So unless stomach cramps are your thing, allow me to assist. There are three primary areas that you should be assessing when you visit a college campus. The first are the campus facilities. Do the buildings look well maintained? Inside and out? How about the sidewalks? Are there seasonally appropriate plantings/gardens? Do you see people working? What about debris and recycling - in the parking lots, outside the dining commons, inside the residence halls? Does the campus have a current feel or does it remind you of your ancient grammar school? Overall question for this piece is "What do things look/feel like?" And you should record your impressions, particularly anything that strikes you as either very appealing or very unappealing.
The second area is student life. What do the students look like? Like you? Like someone you want to become? What don't they look like? As your tour guide ushers you around campus, do other students greet her/him? Do students make eye contact with you? How are students walking around campus - alone, in packs, in pairs? Are students smiling? Can you envision yourself eating meals with these people? Can you envision dating them? I know, you're already dating someone and you're going to stay with them. Good luck with that. It actually works for some people, but it's a pretty small percentage of the students who enter college with that plan. (True story - I cried across the state of Pennsylvania on the way to college about leaving my boyfriend. Three days later I called him and said I didn't think it was going to work out.) How about Greek Life? Is it the key to a social life? Is it very competitive or cliquey? How easy is it to get involved on campus? What are your housing options? How about dining? If you have special dietary needs or preferences, can the school accommodate them? Ask your tour guide about this, not your admission counselor. How safe do you feel on campus? How safe do you think you'd feel at night? Again, record your impressions.
Finally, the primary reason you're attending college, academics. Despite what you saw online, ask about the programs of interest to you - do they exist? (Stranger things have happened, I promise.) Are the programs very popular? How difficult is it to get into specific classes? Is it possible to double major? Even in two subjects that are in different schools, like engineering and music? How accessible are faculty members? What types of special academic opportunities are available - research, internships, co-ops, etc.? Make sure you visit both the largest classroom on campus and a typical classroom. You may be fine in a class of 250 students, but it helps to visualize it. Tour labs or studios or facilities that are specific to your interests. The wind tunnel may be amazing, but if you're a psychology major you won't be spending much time with it. Directly ask your tour guide, "Do I want to study French here?" (Not just French, but whatever majors you're considering.) Then the same drill - jot down what strikes you as great or awful.
Finally, rank the school on a scale of 1=Not Going Here to 5=Perfect Fit.
Did I mention you should also take pictures? Join my email list and I’ll send you my Campus Visit Notes form, my Tour Guide Questions and my suggestions for Campus Photos To Take.