College campus tours are an essential way to make sure the college you decide to attend is the right choice. Meeting with the admission team is the first step of any college visit. On an college campus tour with GO, students will have an opportunity to meet with the admissions team* and take a tour of the campus. Here are a few important tips on how to plan your college campus tour with your students:
This is important as college admissions follow fairly strict calendars. The earlier the better. If you plan a January trip it may only be for admissions for the following year. In many cases it’s recommended to apply in January to April of your Junior year. This means if your group are juniors it would still give them time to apply. So we would even recommend a fall trip of their junior year and this way it will help narrow their choices to the campuses they are preferring.
This is also something that we put a lot of effort in our own designed programs. A typical college trip itinerary can only fit 2 schools per day unless they are really close to each other. A campus visit includes a session with an admissions team. The campus tour and a meal on campus (lunch or dinner). In the morning you would have to typically arrive around 930am then have the admissions sessions at 10 then the tour around 11 and lunch after. Then back to the motorcoach to transit to the next school and repeat around 2pm then the 3pm tour and then dinner around 530pm.
So based on the time you have and your budget you can see 4-5 schools on a three day trip and about 6 on a 4 day trip. Only rarely can three schools be done in one day.
We have pre designed programs for popular regions. For HBCU schools you could focus on northern Florida and southern Georgia or perhaps Alabama and southern Georgia. For other schools you have the New England circuits which could be Boston or Connecticut. There are the NY and NJ schools and then closer to DC you can also do three to four day programs in that area easily.
Students get the most out of the experience when they are well prepared by their guidance counselors. Having their questions answered is the number priority. You can use our quick workbook as a cheat sheet. But it allows students to keep track of the answers and create side by side comparisons.
Feel free to reach out to our planning team. We can help you customize your own college campus trip or present our pre planned itineraries by region. GO is here to help you answer the question: How to plan your college campus tour?