Travels With Mom (and Dad) to See College Campuses

When I was a high school senior, my mother drove me all over the Midwest looking at college campuses. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton did the same thing for Chelsea, taking tours at Harvard, Yale and Princeton before settling on Stanford. These days, with so many women in the work force, more and more dads are primary players in the grand college campus tour. And during that all-important summer before a teenager’s senior year, college visits often are a feature, if not the primary purpose, of family vacations.

With the average price of tuition, room and board at private institutions currently running $20,000 and up, campus visits “only make sense,” says Richard Vos, dean of admissions at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif. “You’d take a car out for a test drive before you buy it, wouldn’t you?”

According to “Profiles of American Colleges” (Barron, $23.95), the number of high school seniors peaked at 3.1 million in 1977 and is expected to drop to 2.3 million by the end of this decade. As a result, even the most prestigious colleges and universities are in hot pursuit of students to fill their freshman classes. But while it may be somewhat easier to get into college today, choosing the right one is just as confounding as ever.

Guidance counselors and educational consultants help students research their options by using reference books, the Internet, catalogs and the newer video-taped campus tours. But even Cliff Kramon of the New Jersey-based campus tour videotape company, Collegiate Choice, says that video-taped tours are meant to assist parents and students in deciding which institutions to visit, not to replace campus visits altogether.

So these days, the average college-bound teenager sees 10 campuses during the decision process, sometimes in one harried two-week trip. “I see families coming through,” says Mary Pat McMahon, assistant director of admissions for Yale University, “with glazed looks in their eyes--as if they’re on a whirlwind tour of Europe and wondering which cathedral they’re visiting now.”

What is more, the grand campus tour can be hard to schedule for working moms and dads, not to mention busy high school juniors and seniors. And expensive. During spring break last year, Sandra Feld of Irvine went with her husband and daughter, Cori, to see several schools in Boston and Atlanta. The price for air fare, rental cars, meals, accommodations and incidentals was about $4,000.

One option for busy parents is to send their children on campus tours organized by companies such as College Visits in Charleston, S.C., and the National Institute for Educational Planning in Irvine. Such tours are usually in the summer and last about a week, with vans for transport, as many as two schools seen a day, lots of counseling on the application process, sessions with admissions advisors and overnight stays in dorms on campus. Kids sometimes feel more free to ask tough questions about issues such as sex and drugs when their parents aren’t around, and seeing lots of schools makes it easier to understand how one institution differs from another.

But most experts agree that nothing is quite as useful as joining your son or daughter on campus visits. Here are a few tips to help make the trip a success:

* Call first to find out about tour and information-session schedules, whether an interview can be arranged and precisely where the admissions office is located--so you don’t end up driving around in circles in some strange city, late for an appointment. It is sometimes also possible to schedule meetings with faculty members and stays in dorms--which is the best way for your child to discover what their day-to-day life would be like on campus for the next four years.

Connie Belda of Laguna Beach and her daughter, Laurie, found that the Web sites for many colleges and universities include maps, tour schedules, lodging information and even nearby attractions, which is how the two of them ending up seeing Monticello after taking the tour at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

* The pace at colleges slows in the summer, which makes for pleasant, focused visits. But to really take the pulse of the place, visits should be scheduled during the week while school is in session. With many colleges and universities starting up in late August, while high schools wait to open their doors until September, there may be a little window of opportunity at the tail end of the summer for campus visits.

* Even if you know your child wants to go to a big public school in an urban setting, visit at least one campus that is completely different from what he or she has in mind. Many a teen has been surprised to find the perfect fit at an institution that looked all wrong on paper.

* Take notes and photos because it can be hard to remember one campus from another when you get home from a 10-college swing.

* Keep flexible about your itinerary. You and your child may cruise through a campus and know immediately that it’s not the right place--so move on. By the same token, on your way to the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, you may pass Hampshire College and find it appealing--so stop in.

* Remember that the time you set aside for college visits is emotionally charged. Teens may be wondering whether they’ll make the grade when letters of acceptance are mailed out, while moms and dads must contemplate strained finances for the next four years. Give each other time and space and schedule fun touristy activities between college visits. Use long plane and car trips for discussions about the big picture--for instance, where your children see themselves in 10 years, and what they want out of life--and realize that this may be the start of a new, more adult relationship between you and your teen. As Margaret Pollack of Bethesda, Md., who recently took her daughter on a 10-day college tour in Florida, says: “We got over a little threshold. We were no longer mother and minor. We were mother and grown daughter.”

* And one last thing: Long before your children are ready to start looking at colleges, it doesn’t hurt to stop in at a few along your vacation routes. It’s amazing how a college can lodge in a child’s mind, informing the way they see their future.

When I was a very little girl, my family visited Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, where our hoop-skirted tour guide was a student at the historic College of William and Mary nearby. For the next 10 years, there was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to attend William and Mary, which is why I paid such close attention during American history classes.

For information on Collegiate Choice videotapes call (201) 871-0098 or visit the Web site at https://www.collegiatechoice.com. Campustours.com, telephone (412) 741-4210, offers on-line tours of 850 college campuses. College Visits is at tel. (843) 853-8149, fax (843) 577-2813, Internet https://www.college-visits.com; and the National Institute for Educational Planning; tel. (714) 833-7867, fax (714) 833-7849, https://www.niep.com.

For more advice, consult “Campus Visits and College Interviews” by Lola Schneider (College Entrance Examination Board, $9.95) or “The Princeton Review Student Advantage Guide to Visiting College Campuses” by Janet Spencer and Sandra Maleson (Random House, Inc., $20).