Need to Know: College Trips

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. 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. The reason that this is true is because you are going to visit the college fully prepared rather than on a whim so you will be able to take a close look at the good and the bad that the college has to offer not to mention you will be able to ask the right questions from the right people to help you make that important decision.

Here are some tips that you need to know about college trips.

Tip 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 nt 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.

Tip 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 had what when you are making that final decision.

Tip Three:

One thing that you need to keep in mind when going on college trips is that you are going on the trip to see if the college is going to be right for your child. What this means is that you are not going to want to go when the college is on break or closed for the weekend or only offering weekend classes. You are actually going to want to visit the college when the college is in session. The reason for this is that it is important to see the daily activities of the college when it is in session so you know what is going on and what is considered normal. So although the summer and winter breaks are a great time to visit colleges because everybody has time off this means the college has time off too so you need to plan on visiting during regular sessions.

Tip Four:

Another thing that you want to do when you are taking those college trips is to pick up any important brochures that the college has to offer. This can be brochures on financial aid, admission policies, financial aid forms, etc. But these brochures will be helpful in answering certain questions that you might have and make a great resource for later on when you are making the final decision.