Right about now, seniors across the country are trying to decide where they would like to spend the next four years of their lives – or are hopelessly procrastinating over the process. Either way, many students try to visit at least one, maybe three colleges to get a feel for what they like most about a campus. Imagine visiting, not three, but fifteen colleges in one summer – talk about information overload.
Highlights of the summer tour include dome-stomping at Syracuse University, finding dorms with personal bathrooms for freshmen at West Chester, sitting in the outside amphitheater and arboretum at American University, being projected onscreen as a possible president at St. Joseph’s University, and exploring the television studio and the immense theater wall at Ithaca.
However, the high points did not come without the low. Some details that were a total turn-off were the musty dorms at Lehigh, loud and obnoxious buses going in and out of Cornell, and the potential freezing weather at Syracuse.
These lists and the entire application process seem never-ending, but maybe more so for all the options now available. It seems impossible to take in every detail of every separate college and decide if I could spend four years of my life living, sleeping, eating, studying, and socializing there; but, in many ways visiting so many colleges opened up a plethora of opportunities and ideas about what post-high school life could look like.
Pictures on a computer screen only show the best part of the college and have probably been staged and set up to look perfect; so how could anyone judge a college based on their website? Especially when after scanning through many colleges in the area, they all begin to look and sound the same.
The wow-factor – the one that will let you know “This is where I want to go!” – is in the feel a person gets when stepping onto the college college. While a school may have a great academic program, you won’t learn anything if you aren’t comfortable or happy in the space you are living in. As probably the first time away from home for an extended period of time, the livability of space is at its utmost importance.
To those who entered senior year with their college visit count at zero, it’s time to up the ante. In this generation, searching on College Board isn’t enough. The defining factor in the college search encompasses all the quirky, interesting parts on tours and the off-putting, annoying parts. In the grueling and frustrating process of applying to colleges and then finally picking one, a college visit is an indisputable aspect in the ultimate decision.