Taking the Kids™
Touring Colleges With Your Teens
The day was beach perfect but the teens weren't anywhere near the sand. No wonder they didn't look happy. Neither did their parents as they trudged in and out of non-air-conditioned dorm rooms and classrooms.
Some had been following the same routine for several days at different colleges in the area, seeing the same faces in admissions offices, motels, and inns. All of the campuses were starting to look the same, no matter what the enthusiastic tour guides said. The teens were getting testy. Parents wished they'd worn more comfortable shoes.
"Think of this as an experience you can have with your children that you don't get at any other time," says Judith Brody, associate dean of admissions at Colby College in Maine, who has taken college tours with her own three children. "You can actually get to know your young person on these trips because they're not running off to soccer practice."
Nice thought but in reality, touring colleges often means racing from tour to interview, navigating hundreds of miles on unfamiliar roads, and trying to find a hotel, a restaurant that's open late (we were lucky to find takeout pizza late one night in one college town) and, of course, a campus that feels "right."
Then, kids and parents get up and do it all over again the next day, trying to get a handle on where a teen might want to spend the next four years – not to mention a big chunk of your money.
That's not counting the sticky subject of how competitive the college admissions process has become, with more students applying to more schools – 15 or 20 in some cases. Families are starting the process earlier, with parents taking a more hands-on approach, says Vince Cuseo, director of admissions at Occidental College in Los Angeles, an admissions official for more than two decades. No wonder everyone is so stressed by the time they get to the campus tour.
Here's how to lower the stress quotient – at least a little:
- Check out campuses on line, then narrow down the choices. The comprehensive site Campus Tours.com (www.campustours.com) offers online tours of some 800 colleges and universities.
- Leave the siblings behind. They'll be bored.
- Only visit one or at most, two campuses a day. Don't plan more than three or four days of touring at a stretch. The schools will all start to seem the same. Bring a notebook or laptop so your teen can jot down some initial impressions after each visit.
- Build some time into the schedule for fun. Take in a famous local site, cool out at the hotel pool, or splurge on a nice dinner.
- Avoid the fray entirely by sending your teens on organized college tours such as the ones run by former Johns Hopkins University admissions official Bob Rummerfield. His Charleston, S.C.-based company, College Visits (www.college-visits.com), shepherds groups of teens from big universities to small colleges, hitting two schools a day for tours and discussions with admissions counselors.
- Seek out a local inn or bed & breakfast near the campus (the university or college web site should have suggestions) where you can pick up lots of intelligence about the town, the campus, and the kids who go to school there.
- Bring a college-bound friend so they can tour together. In that case, consider booking a suite so you all have more room to spread out and they will have their own TV. Homewood Suites by Hilton (www.homewoodsuites.com) like other suite hotels offers free breakfasts and afternoon snacks.
Most important, keep smiling – even when you've driven four hours and your child decides he has no interest in the school. You'll both laugh about it a year from now.
By: Eileen Ogintz
