By Carol H Cox
For many of us, summer is the best time to head out with our son or daughter to view some prospective college campuses. Trekking to a few schools can help to underscore in the mind of high school students the importance of the college application process, as well as give the flavor of different schools.
Recently, my daughter, husband, and I visited 4 colleges in Southern California. Afterwards we hashed over each of our personal likes, dislikes, and general impressions of each school. And I jotted down a few notes, to have a written record of our visit. (My memory is famously unreliable.)
If your student plans enough ahead, he or she can arrange to get an organized campus tour led by a student. (We managed to go on tours for half of the colleges we visited.) This is the preferred method to get introduced to a school. Instead of blindly ambling around on your own with a campus map, a student-led tour can give a lot of behind-the-scenes information and a youthful perspective on what college life is like at a particular campus. Some schools also offer tours of the dormitories, where you can go inside a dorm room and experience the limited dimensions firsthand.