参观校园

ideally if you can get on college campuses before you're really really invested your mind isn't much more open and you get to see the variances and the differences that are out there so another opportunity that you may or may not be aware of is a lot of schools now have programs that can assist students who don't have the finances to get to the school so a lot of lot of schools now are doing fly-in programs either in the fall before you even have applied or once you've applied and been admitted they also may pay for you to come and visit then so it's again always worth asking questions if you really want to visit a school it's always worth calling that school and saying hey look I'm a low income student you have any programs where I might be able to come and visit and it's you know again a lot of schools will take an opportunity to try to get you one of their campus some may have an application process and some are competitive some aren't as competitive but again it's definitely worth looking into so not all students get a chance to visit but it's always worth asking questions to see if there are opportunities where the school may be able to help you do that so you can make some good decisions start visiting colleges in your neighborhood just so that you get a sense of the difference between a small school and a large school and a school that's an urban campus that's a rural campus so looking for as many diversity variables will give you begin to give you a sense of what you like and where you think you're gonna learn best most students will say that a campus is one of the most important things they're gonna do in helping them determine if the school is going to be a good a good match for them but things you can do typically on the website you can see most schools will offer daily information sessions and tours I think that's probably a good starting point for a lot of students some of them you have to sign up ahead of time some of you can just come to the campus and do that and again it's a good general starting point there are some schools that will offer interviews some of them might be evaluative some of them might just be for informational and again you can decide is that is that a step you want to take but in doing interviews can be an important part for you to get feedback from a college admissions person about specific questions you have but I would also definitely get off the beaten path this as well so if you have time you may also want to be able to schedule some other kinds of things while you're there so if you're really interested in theater you might be able to schedule an opportunity to talk with somebody in the theater department and and what the opportunities might be you might wanted to spend some time in the Student Center and sort of ask questions for some random students there who aren't part of the admissions office just to get their take on different kinds of things you might have an opportunity to sit in a class after they are doing the school year you might be able to schedule it where a lot of opportunities a lot of schools will let you sit in on classes so you can get a take on that so if you're interested in I think I might want to pick school what does it like to be in a lecture hall of 300 students you might get a chance to do that find out what the class size the class size is okay ask yourself do I like being at a big College where a lot of students or does a smaller environment work for me best what do the dormitories look like what are some of the classes that you'll be taking during your first year what are the resources for example do they have if I have problems let's say with writing and my writing assignments do they have tutorials on on that I would also and I used to recruit for graduate students but I would always say to students ask if you can talk to other students well there are some schools that love you do an overnight so you can actually spend you know a night there and you know see what a typical night is like go to the library you know what is the dorm like at night what are the kids talking about so you know a lot of those things can be very helpful the summer time is really important this is a very popular time to visit because students are out of class and you have the opportunity to go but a lot of campuses are very different this summer so you have to remember that if you have the opportunity to go during the school year that's probably ideal but that's a little bit more difficult so again using a campus visit wisely can be incredibly helpful in the process so again most of the students that I've worked with have found that to be a really helpful you know piece of their research process