College Visits

University of Rochester Library

The "college visit," another form of walking, has gotten completely out of hand, as has the entire application process.

"Back in the day," as my students say, I applied to five colleges.  I visited two of them, one because it was nearby and one because it was easily accessible on spring break.  I handled my applications pretty much on my own, having little idea what grade points or SAT scores meant.  No idea, in fact. No one else proofread my essays, or even discussed them with me.  Most of my friends approached the process in the same manner.  And we attended a school designed to prepare us for the best in college education!

Today, the college application process is a roller coaster ride that picks up speed with every passing month of a student's junior year, the incline steepening as catalogs are collected, visits are planned, SAT and ACT and AP tests are scheduled, and the applications themselves, with their dreaded essays, loom ahead as the summer screeches downhill to an autumn so packed with classes, activities and sports that, we are warned, there will be no more time to make visits or write essays. 

Selective colleges, parents are advised, expect propsective applicants to show an interest.  That means, at minimum, actual visits, complete with tours and, if available, interviews.  Even though the internet now makes far more material available to high school stduents and their parents than was ever accessible through the paper catalogs of my generation; even though colleges apparently have unlimited funds with which to ply students with postcards, letters, brochures, and viewbooks; and even though college admissions representatives fan across the countryside in the fall to meet with seniors; the visit is still an integral part of the process with respect to any college within 500 miles.  And many young people criss-cross large chuncks of geography, sometimes more than once, long before they complete a single application form. I'm not entirely sure where the money for tuition is supposed to come from after parents' funds have been exhausted by the visit process.

Of course, there are tremendous benefits to in-person visits.  Although pretty much every campus boasts Georgian architecture, Gothic architecture, 1950s monstrosities that do not warrant the appellation "architecture," and contemporary architecture, and although pretty much every campus has "extensive new science facilities" and "impressive acoustics in the new music and theatre auditoriums" and workout facilities for a few thousand students that put the new recreation center for our city of 60,000 to shame, each one does have its distinct flavor. 

The University of Rochester, which we visited on Friday, is casually impressive.  The grounds and buildings are meticulously maintained, the libraries are elegant, and the student union is contemporary, comfortable, and full of light.  It was easy to imagine the energy that must suffuse the place when students are in residence. The admissions representative who met with us and the student who showed us around were both relaxed and good-natured, and left us with the feeling that the school would be a great place to spend four years: excellent and comprehensive academics with plenty of choice in course selection, a diverse group of students from all over the country, and a friendly atmosphere. 

The young man who served as our tour guide was himself probably the most positive aspect of our visit.  Originally from the Bronx, he had decided early in the game that he wanted to pursue engineering and, in the end, applied to only two schools: the University of Rochester, upon which he focused all his efforts, and a safety school that would have enabled him to live at home.  His ability to research and hone in on his goals was impressive (and in distinct contrast to our guide at another university, who had applied to no fewer than THIRTY-NINE colleges) and made him a convincing representative for the quality of his school. 

Do I sound like a catalog yet?  It really does seem like a terrific school.  And we walked around the campus for two hours!

Walked: 3.5 miles