Making College Visits

This weekend, as my sister and I cheered on UK's victory, I started thinking about all of the different college campuses that I have been on in my life. You will notice that I said “been on” and not “visited” because those are very different totals!

During my time in college I traveled often to LOTS of different college campuses, but my visits to each campus was short and basically consisted of the training rooms, football stadiums, tennis courts, or gyms. I know enough to remember that if I never see the color orange and hear the song Rocky Top again it will be too soon (University of Tennessee) and that everywhere you turn at the University of Arkansas you will see the image of the Razorback which is this bizarre pig like looking creature, but truthfully I cannot tell you much about either campus and the academic offerings at those or most of the schools that I recall traveling to in the past.

So when you are making your college visits – pay attention to the details around you and all that there is to learn about the school.

Try to keep in mind that there are a lot of outside factors that can influence the quality of your visit – positively or negatively. For example, the weather… if it is a gorgeous sunny day with perfect temperatures you may think it is the most beautiful school and if it cold, rainy, or dreary you may think it is miserable, but try to remember that the weather changes from day to day and judge the school without being overly influenced by the weather. (Please also remember that if you are traveling to areas in different climates than Ohio that weather may be a factor, so I am not making a blanket statement to always ignore the weather.)

Tour guides also form a huge impression of the school that you visit. Most colleges know that and will try to find outgoing, positive, energetic students to take you through the campus. Ideally the guides will try to get to know something about you or your interests to help point those aspects of the school out to you, but the reality is the students serving as tour guides are not always great and, let’s be honest here, we all have bad days so even some of the good ones can have off days where they won’t be impressive on the visit. I know it can be hard, but try to separate the guide from the school.

If you can spare the time – stop and sit on a bench and just “people watch.” Are these people that you can imagine being your friends in the future? Remember, you are hoping that in the near future that you will be able to make friends with them and others like them on campus. Think about how you are feeling on the campus – can you imagine yourself being there and being both happy and successful at this school?

And, while you are enduring the weather, on your tour, or sitting on the bench thinking – please don’t forget that I would REALLY like you to take a picture for the “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” display.