College Trips: How to Find Your Best Match

If you and your child plan on making a few trips to colleges to help decide which college would be the best choice then you need to think about a few things. What this means is that you don’t want to just jump in the car and grab your kid and take a road trip, you actually want to plan out these trips so that you can find the best match for your child. The reason that you want to plan out these college trips is that the better you plan them the more valuable they are to you.

Difficulty rating: Easy

Step one:

One thing that you are going to want to do is to try and schedule all of your trips into a certain amount of time. What this means is that you should actually visit more than one college at a time, especially if they are close together. But this doesn’t mean that you should visit five different colleges in one day. And when visiting more than one college you are not going to be doing an in depth tour of the place, you are going to want to get a general idea of what the college has to offer so that you can narrow down your possibilities before making the in depth visits.

Step two:

You also should bring along a camera and a notebook when making college trips. In your notebook you should write down a list of questions that you want to ask or things that you want to look for before visiting the colleges. Many people will write down things that the college must have and things that the college can’t have. Then when you are doing your walkthrough you can take pictures of things that interest you so you can separate the colleges. You can also take notes on the various colleges so that it is easier to remember what they had when you are making that final decision.

Step three:

You are also going to want to create a list of things that you want to do while you are visiting that college. By having a list drawn up ahead of time you are not going to miss doing something because it slipped your mind.

Step four:

You are also going to think about and create a list of the things that you are looking for. You are going to want to write down what your favorite things are, the must haves that the colleges have, but at the same time you are also going to want to write down things that you will not accept. This way when you go and visit you can take notes about what each place has to offer and then compare that to what you want or don’t want to narrow down your choices.

Step five:

Next you are going to want to schedule the best time for you to visit the college campus with your child. Keep in mind that you do not want to go to the campus when the classes are on break or when regular school is not in session. The best time to go visit the college campuses is during the fall session because everything is in full swing and it usually starts in the middle of August which means your child won’t be missing school.

Step six:

Now that you have done all of this and visited each campus you can narrow down your choices by comparing everything you have seen and considered to make the best match for your child. This match is going to be based on affordability, what is offered and other factors that you looked at.

Other tips/resources:

College Board
Go College
Both of the above websites are great resources for finding out what you should do when visiting colleges with your child or even alone. They provide numerous resources for you to use as a parent to help make the college search process easier.