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The College Handbook 3,600+ colleges
Campus Visit Checklist
How to Make the Most of the Trip
Here are things your child should not miss while visiting a college. Take a look at this list before planning campus trips to make sure that your family allows enough time on each campus for your child to really get a sense of what the school—and the life of the students there—is really like.
- Take a campus tour.
- Have an interview with admissions officer.
- Get business cards and names of people you meet, for future contacts.
- Pick up financial aid forms.
- Participate in a group information session at the admissions office.
- Sit in on a class of a subject that interests you.
- Talk to a professor in your chosen major or in a subject that interests you.
- Talk to a coach in your chosen sport.
- Talk to a student or counselor in the career center.
- Spend the night in the dorm.
- Read the student newspaper.
- Try to find other student publications—department newsletters, alternative newspapers, literary reviews.
- Scan bulletin boards to see what day-to-day student life is like.
- Eat in the cafeteria.
- Ask students why they chose the college.
- Wander around the campus by yourself.
- Read for a little while in the library and see what it's like.
- Search for your favorite book in the library.
- Read the bulletin boards around the campus.
- Ask students what they hate about the college.
- Browse in the college bookstore.
- Ask students what they love about the college.
- Walk or drive around the community surrounding the campus.
- Ask students what they do on weekends.
- Listen to the college's radio station.
- Try to see a dorm that you didn't see on the tour.
- Imagine yourself attending this college for four years.
