Or it can be a waste of time.
To make a campus visit as productive as possible, a student should first answer a series of questions:
Are you comfortable being an outsider, when most of the people around you have different beliefs and opinions than you?
Are you comfortable being an insider, when most of the people around you have beliefs and opinions similar to yours?
Are you comfortable being anonymous, in a large crowd of thousands, when nobody knows you?
Are you comfortable being in a small group, when most of the people around you know you?
How important is it to you to have the best possible knowledge of the topics that you’re studying?
How important is it to you to have other people think highly of you?
How important is it to you to earn lots of money some day?
Why are you going to a college or university?
That last question is central. Students go to institutions of higher education for a variety of reasons: some go to prepare for a career; others are simply interested in being well-educated. Some go to have social experiences with friends; others go to find a future spouse and eventually get married. Some are interested in earning lots of money; others are looking for a future which is personally fulfilling.
After answering these questions, the second part of getting ready for a campus visit is to write some questions to ask. A student on a campus visit should be asking lots of questions.
In addition, a student can ask questions before and after a campus visit.
Students should look at the university’s or college’s website — or read the printed literature which inevitably arrives in the mail. Looking at those things will help students think of questions to ask.
If a student doesn’t answer some questions before a campus visit, and if a student doesn’t write some questions before a campus visit, then the trip might simply be a waste of time.
Every college or university can show lots of impressive buildings, offer a sample of excellent cafeteria food, and talk about its exciting athletic teams.
Every college or university will introduce several of its students, who will tell you about all the excellent experiences that they’re having on campus.
And because every college or university can do this, visiting a series of campuses will leave a student with the impression that they’re all the same.
Or, even worse, a student might choose one school over another because the people on that campus seemed fun, exciting, or interesting. But those people were a tiny skewed sample of a large student body, and give no real indication of what the average students on that campus really are.
The bottom line: a campus visit can be a productive and useful experience, but only if the visiting high school student has prepared for the visit.
