How and When to Visit a Campus

By Dave Goldberg, Guidance Counselor

A show of hands, when is the best time to visit campuses? Well, you can answer this a few ways. The odds of having a great visit during the summer, over the college's spring break or during the holiday break are diminished. College students return home during those spans, and the places are ghost towns.

Better to use the canned tours available under the college's website heading, Visit Campus. Tours and info sessions are usually led by current student ambassadors who are peppy and skilled at walking backward. They are well trained and know the historical underpinnings of the school. Often, they hold leadership positions in clubs and organizations and they have a good finger on the pulse of the institution. During the tour, nary a bad word is said about the institution though here's a horror story. Seems a few students along the tour route were having a bad day and decided to chime in boorishly as the tour group passed by, "Don't do here! It's a terrible school and we're all treated like cattle."

You never know what you'll see on a college tour. During spring tours, parents' eyes sometimes go agog when they see the more libertine and bohemian students clad scantily in their spring attire. There is no real dress code in college. Remember the nude guy at Berkeley? Google it. How would you like your kid sitting next to him in Chem 101? How would you like to catch a glimpse of him on tour? Who would hire this guy? Old Navy? He lent new meaning to the phrase starving student. He was apparently so poor he couldn't afford clothing. This is the naked truth.

On any given day, your tour group might walk by the resident mall preacher espousing loudly that all the students are going to hell. Some of you remember Brother Jed from the UofA and his back and forth rants with passersby. For a while he, or a similar mall preacher, used to put his children in a cage while he preached with a megaphone. Both were a hoot but not grist for touring prospects who'd flown in from Poughkeepsie and gotten dressed up in their Sunday best red and blue.

Shocking things used to be more common back when college was more affordable. The anything goes attitude has given way to a more corporate student body, not prone to screwing around. You may still see things that jar but that's not super likely.

Please make sure you visit your selected college before enrolling. Not doing this is akin to purchasing a home without having set foot in it. Some schools are much smaller than their name cache presupposes. Their reputation makes them seem large in scale when they are relatively puny. Some schools are dispersed over large swaths of big cities, and these require a commuter's attitude. Still other schools are in remote rural areas and you would not think it. And others are large and self-contained such as UofA. In Tucson, we are used to UofA as the image of a university but it is not so for many, many schools.

So, the final point is that if you choose to visit colleges over the Winter Break or even over our Spring Intercession or Rodeo Break, and these coincide with breaks at your respective colleges, you can still make a strong visit happen.

The Guerilla Tour is sometimes a great option. You can often get into buildings on your own accord but you have to be stealthy. Aside from the isolation of Zombieville U, there are always studious types who remain on campus because they love learning or they came from other nations and they don't have time, capital or inclination to take even one minute off, ever. You won't find any "Beats" headphones on their heads.

A Poor Day for a Campus Tour

If you choose to visit under these circumstances, the places will be empty but you can always find a few hearty souls of which to make inquiry. Ask about how the campus feels when it's abuzz. Ask your typical questions about the tenor of the campus, town-gown relations, famous alumni, is it easy to get your classes, what is the reputation on the street, why did they select that particular college, are full-time professors readily available and do they teach undergrads, etc. You will always find students on campus, but if you beeline for them across the mall as a family, like a flock of hungry birds, they will fly away from you.

Don't think you cannot have a productive visit during a campus break. The feel of the school is indeed different without the typical buzz of students scurrying to classes, music on the quad, credit card vendors and those milling about. However, you still see the school and you can go about seeking and doing all kinds of things you otherwise would not be privy to.

Other visit options sometimes include school-sponsored overnighters, being flown out by the school, honors invitations and large programs for students from everywhere. They all work well to get your child acquainted with their commitment. These are fun and important times for your children, and they will eventually have that early morning epiphany that College X is the place for them. Soon your senior will be off and you can finally turn that extra bedroom into the aviary you've been envisioning, the Brother Jed's of the world be darned.