Just as any other beginning of the school year, timelines of college visits are currently posted up all around the school campus. While all students are invited to such college visits, not many other than seniors even care to take a glance at the document that is available to them. Consequently, many college visit sessions are full of only seniors, with the exception of an extremely small number of juniors who show up from time to time.
“College visits are not exclusively for seniors; juniors should definitely be going to the college visits too,” said Christopher Thomson, counselor. “Juniors should not be intimidated to go to or look into college visits; in fact, they are the ones who should be the most enthusiastic in their research for colleges and universities they might be interested in applying to.”
As many seniors have already decided upon a majority of the colleges they are applying to, there is no longer much need to do extensive research on schools and thus attend college visits. In contrast, college visits are good opportunities for juniors to not only begin thinking about which schools they might want to apply to, but for them to show enthusiasm to college representatives.
“Although I knew about the fact that college and university visits information was on hallway walls, I never took the time to carefully look into them,” Irene Park (11) said. “There is a common perception that college visits are largely for seniors, and I think juniors and sophomores are often intimidated to go as a result of such an atmosphere.”
The objective of college visits is to learn more about the school and the programs that each school has to offer. Learning more about a school includes aspects such as its size, location, student life, and unique academic programs the school has. College visits are interactive sessions between a college representative and the students, where students ask questions and get answers, instead of an officer giving a traditional presentation.
“Toward the end of sophomore year is when students should begin thinking about which colleges they might be interested in applying to,” Mr. Thomson said. “I recommend students to go to college visits of schools that they have not heard of, and hence do not know much of. Going to the college visit of a school they already know much about defeats its purpose, unless they have specific questions to ask.”
In essence, since college visits last until the end of the semester, now is not too late to begin going to some of the college visits. The first step would be to spend at least a few minutes in front of a bulletin board to check which visiting colleges might be appealing to you. The earlier your effort is put in, the more clearly you will know–– when the time comes to decide––which schools you want to apply to.