I get some version of this question from almost every family I work with: should we spend the money and the vacation days to fly out and see this school in person? The honest answer depends entirely on which school you're asking about, and most families never find out the answer before they book the trip.
The uncomfortable truth: most visits do nothing
Here's what surprises people. At every Ivy League school, at MIT, Stanford, Caltech, and at most large public flagship universities, a campus visit has zero effect on your admissions decision. These schools receive so many more qualified applicants than they have seats that tracking who showed up to an information session would be a rounding error in a process driven almost entirely by the strength of the application itself. If your list is full of schools like this, you can visit for your own decision-making (which matters enormously) without worrying that skipping a visit costs you anything in the admissions office.
Where visits genuinely matter
At smaller and mid-sized private colleges, roughly 40 to 45% of schools nationally, admissions offices track demonstrated interest as a real input into decisions, especially for students near the borderline. These schools use CRM software (the same category of system used in sales) to log every interaction: portal registration, event check-in, email opens, and yes, campus visits. When two applicants look similar on paper, a documented history of engagement can be the differentiator that tips a waitlist or admit decision. The catch is that the visit only counts if it's registered.
How to actually make a visit count
- Register through the school's official admissions portal before you arrive, not after.
- Check in at the admissions office when you get there. This is the step families skip most often.
- Attend the official information session rather than just walking the tour.
- If your schedule allows, sit in on an introductory class in your intended major.
- Take detailed, specific notes: a professor's name, a building, a program detail. These become the raw material for your 'Why This College?' essay.
- Send a short, specific thank-you email to whoever hosted your session within 48 hours.
A family I worked with
A family I worked with had budgeted a full week and several thousand dollars to tour six schools the summer before senior year. Two of those schools were Ivies. I walked them through which schools on the list actually tracked interest, and we cut the itinerary to the four schools where the visit would show up in an admissions file, redirecting the saved time and money toward virtual sessions and a stronger 'Why Us?' essay for the two schools that didn't need the trip at all. Their daughter was admitted to three of the four visited schools; the visit-tracking data had nothing to do with the Ivy decisions either way.
Virtual visits count too
If travel isn't realistic, register for the school's official virtual info sessions and online tours through their portal. Schools that track demonstrated interest generally treat a registered virtual touchpoint as equivalent, or close to it, to an in-person visit registration. What doesn't count: watching a campus tour video on YouTube without ever registering anywhere.
Mistakes families make
- Visiting schools that don't track interest and assuming it helped anyway
- Driving to campus without registering or checking in, then believing it counted
- Skipping the information session in favor of just the tour
- Not writing down specifics, then struggling to write a genuine 'Why Us?' essay later
- Spending the whole travel budget on schools where the trip won't move the needle
Not sure which schools on your list actually track visits?
47 Secrets Top Consultants Charge $5,000 to Tell You breaks down exactly how demonstrated interest works school by school, so you stop spending time and money on visits that don't move your file.
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