THCC Episode 181 – Making the Most of College Campus Visits

Presenter 0:00

Welcome to the Taming the High Cost of College podcast. Here is your host, certified financial planner Brad Baldridge.

Brad Baldridge 0:10

Welcome to Taming the High Cost of College. I'm your host, Brad Baldridge. Today, I'm going to talk with Chuck a little bit, and we're going to talk about college visits. So, welcome, Chuck.

Chuck Erickson 0:19

Thanks, Brad. It's always a pleasure to join you on your podcasts and videos, and I love talking with your listeners about whatever topic. And today it sounds like we're talking about campus visits. Let's go.

Brad Baldridge 0:29

All right, so I think campus visits and college visits in general. What's interesting is when you do the research on Google, there's not a lot of search, there's not a lot of people trying to figure out how to do a college visit. I mean, you look at scholarships, you look at loans, you look at a lot of other pieces of the college process. There's lots of activity with people searching and trying to figure it all out, but for whatever reason, I feel like maybe people don't even know that a good college visit can make a difference in their life. Therefore, they don't even know to search for it.

Chuck Erickson 1:00

I completely agree. It's really shocking, and it's also one of the things that many of the college admissions counselors will talk to me when I go and visit schools. They will say, we don't know why, but students and parents aren't visiting as much as they used to 15, 20 years ago, and it really does help students and parents understand more about the college or university just by doing a simple visit

Brad Baldridge 1:21

Absolutely. So, I think college visits are an important piece, and I think you and I would agree that you want to do as many as reasonable, and we'll get into how many and that kind of stuff as we move here, move in here. But go ahead and finish this episode and understand what it is that we're talking about, and why you want to do it, because I think it can help you solidify the direction of your student, whether it's picking majors or picking schools, but it also can potentially save you some hard-earned money just by understanding the college process and the financial aid process a little bit better, and doing that a little bit better, so there's money at stake, as well as helping your student with some of their woes. Absolutely,

Chuck Erickson 2:02

I think you brought up a lot of great points, and it also just helps because most students don't know the difference between the various types of colleges and universities that are out there, and sometimes teenagers really do need to see stuff firsthand in order to truly grasp how something is different between a large school and a small school, or an urban school and a rural school, and for parents it's also beneficial, because colleges have really changed in the last 10 years, 15 years, so it's good to go see your college, even if it is your own alma mater.

Brad Baldridge 2:35

All right, absolutely. So, let's talk about the five types of visits, because I think it's important that we kind of use the same language when we're talking about it, so there's five main types that I've kind of invented, but let's just go through them, and we'll start with the first one, which is what I call the stealth visit. Can you explain what a stealth visit is?

Chuck Erickson 2:52

Sure. How I understand a stealth visit, and for me, I might call it a drive-by visit, similar type idea, where you don't tell the college that you are visiting, you literally drive by, so it might be while you're on vacation or you're traveling for family reasons, and you park the car, you get out, you walk around, and just kind of see what it's all about. You might spend 510, minutes on the campus, and away you go, and that was your stealth visit. It really isn't extremely informational. It's more about kind of catching the visual glance, as to, you know, what does the campus look like, what's kind of around the campus, but it usually is not super detailed

Brad Baldridge 3:31

Right? Exactly, and there's nothing wrong with it, per se, but in my book, in some ways, it just doesn't count, because you're not gathering the information that you would normally, I mean, I think you can get enough information for the student to potentially say no, but I don't think you're getting enough information for the student to say yes. In other words, yes, put it on my list, or no, I'm not interested in that school. Another stealth version would be, you know, we're going to be on that particular campus because our soccer team is going to a tournament there, or I'm doing band ensemble on that campus, or whatever it is, I end up getting on campus because some organization or something is hosting events there that I'm going to go participate in again. Still a stealth visit, you're not interacting with admissions, you're not interacting with the staff of the school, etc. etc. So next we have the open house or campus day, so this is a visit that's much more formal, and often it's a big event. A lot of colleges will have one, two, maybe three times in a semester, sometimes including the summer. They might do one or two, but they have this bigger event. It might land on a weekend where they bring in a lot of staff and faculty, and they invite as many kids as they can get to come, typically, and it might be hundreds or even 1000 kids. It's a big event with lots of breakout sessions and lots of opportunities to take tours and see dorms, and you know, some of them I've seen, you know, start at nine or even eight in the morning and go till four or five in the evening, but I. Think these types of programs are useful in that it doesn't require that you take a day off of work, potentially. If you can find a Saturday or Sunday event, you can also get a lot of information on potential majors, on all kinds of different things, even to the point where you might go to one of these events, even if you're not interested in the school itself, just to learn about all the different things that they are teaching you above and beyond school specific things.

Chuck Erickson 5:26

Absolutely, the school open house or the campus open house days are typically on the weekends, as you mentioned, but they're also during the week when many of the local high schools are off of school, so maybe there is a standard teacher in-service day, so all of the high schools in the state or in that region are closed on a Monday or a Friday. Oftentimes colleges will then offer an open house, and as you said, there's a lot of opportunity to go to presentations, various tours. They do typically start 8am and go all the way till the end of the day. You don't have to stay the whole time, but it is an open house, you're going to kind of see all the bells and whistles and check all everything that's open and available to you. It's a great way for students to get a really detailed version of the college visit. The only challenge, as you mentioned, it can be hundreds of other students that are visiting on the same time, and for some students and families, that can be overwhelming, or it might be difficult to tell who are the prospective students and who are the students that are actually attending the college. If you're trying to figure out, like, what the student vibe is like, and what are the current students like, you might have a hard time telling the difference between a prospective student and an enrolled student. But yeah, these are available in the spring, in the summer and in the fall, and they're a great time for juniors and even sophomores and freshmen to kind of get a first look at a college, because it is an open house

Brad Baldridge 6:04

Right. Absolutely, and then the last main type of visit would be what I would call the formal visit, which is kind of the antithesis of the open house, which is a big event, a typical formal visit. A lot of colleges will say we offer a visit at 10 o'clock or 2o'clock any weekday, except for days that are blocked off because of holidays or because we have an open house or because we have a big event going on. Most of the time it's weekdays. Sometimes you might be able to get a Saturday morning, but those fill up fast, and these types of visits, you know, you're just maybe just your family gets a tour, or maybe that's three or four families, it depends on who shows up on that particular day, and sometimes it's a little bit focused and custom to whatever it is you mentioned, you know, I'm going to be a chemistry major. Well, then let's go to the chemistry building, sometimes it's not, so it depends on what you ask for, as far as that goes.

Chuck Erickson 6:32

Yeah, the formal visit, also known as an individual visit, is where you're making an individual appointment, you're scheduling yourself for a tour and information session, maybe looking at a specific college, like the College of Engineering, or the College of Business, or the College of Design, where you're doing a very focused visit, and it's usually very short. The visit typically only lasts maybe a tour plus an information session, so a couple of hours. It's not the full day, and as you said, it could be the, you might be the only family that's on this visit. If it's a smaller college, in particular, these are the types of visits that I will request as a college counselor, is an individual or a formal visit, so I'm looking at very specific things and trying to get a very accurate look at the college campus for that very short amount of time, because I'm only on a college campus typically for a couple hours

Brad Baldridge 8:32

Right? Exactly, so I think most families are going to do some combination of these three types of visits kind of early on, and as you mentioned, you could start as early as freshmen, and certainly it would make sense if you have multiple children. If you have a junior that's visiting, your freshmen certainly should tag along if you try and remind them to pay attention a little, because a lot of times I think a freshman will play on their phone instead of paying attention, but they'll absorb some things, and it might be helpful in the long run to acclimate him a little bit. Absolutely, some other tips or ideas that we would talk about when it comes to the formal visit as far as...

Chuck Erickson 9:09

I agree, also with your point with starting early, way too many families. In fact, I just had a family email me saying, should we wait until after our kid is admitted before we visit colleges, or should we visit colleges before, and the student is currently a junior, and my response is, go visit when you're a junior, because it will help narrow down the list a whole lot more if you can see some of these places. Now, travel is expensive, and the cost of gas consistently keeps going up, so you want to make sure that you're planning it out well, but it's a great way to do a look through your colleges and narrow your list that way. The biggest tip I would have is plan ahead for students and parents. Your schedules are extremely busy, so can you look a couple months into the future and find a day or days that you all are free and block that off and say, hey, we're going to go visit colleges that time.

Chuck Erickson 10:01

Often when students have a day off of school, they just want to hang out, play video games, chill with their friends, and I get that, but it's also a great opportunity to go visit a college if you don't have high school that day, if the college is providing visit opportunities, and I think it's a really big missed opportunity where students just go, oh yeah, I have Friday off of school. I'm just going to sit at home and play video games. I'm like, no, go visit a college, even if it's one that's close by

Brad Baldridge 10:27

Right? Exactly. And another, I guess, when you're, when you're planning ahead, a good time to plan ahead is just before a semester starts, so January and August, early September, because that's when you know the high school schedule. The colleges actually have the their information out. A lot of colleges will only put out one semester's worth of information, and then refresh it every so often. You know, that's a good time to know that they probably have their most recent information available to you, and especially when the spring of when we have spring break, you know, spring of junior year and spring of sophomore year, I think for a lot of families taking advantage of the high school spring break is another good reason to start planning in January. It's like, well, we've got five or six days where we could do visits, but then you have to pay attention and say, well, if we're going to use the spring break for visits, then we can't use it for family vacation. So I see that conflict a lot, of we always go here on spring break, so we can't visit then. It's like, okay, nothing wrong with that. But now you have to plan some other ways to do it.

Chuck Erickson 11:28

You can blend them together. I've had more and more families that, as they're planning their spring break, they're also planning college visits that are nearby. One of the biggest scary things for students is picking where they want to go to college if they have been going to the same location for spring break, they might feel really comfortable going to college close to where they've gone for spring break in the past. So that is totally plausible, especially if you have relatives in that area as well. That's a great way to narrow down the list is by picking colleges that are close to spring break, so they can be on the same trip. What I don't want is for students and families to pack in the college visits, so myself as a college counselor, as a professional independent educational consultant, I will tour two or three colleges per day. I think that is way too much for a student or a family to be doing. One, maybe two is a good amount, but I had a family saying, oh, we're gonna do our spring break, and we're gonna see six colleges during our spring break, and I said six is way too much, it's you're gonna be tired, all the information is gonna jumble together, and you're not gonna have a great experience, let's look at two, maybe three in a week, not six

Brad Baldridge 12:39

Right, exactly, yeah, certainly there's the overwhelm and the just the stress of traveling and all that type of thing. So, absolutely. So, the other two types of visits, we'll let's mention those quick, and then we can kind of circle back around with some more tips and strategy. So, we have the accepted senior visit, which, again, as it sounds, is not something they're going to be doing with a sophomore or junior, because it kind of defines itself as an accepted senior, so what's this about?

Chuck Erickson 13:03

The accepted senior visits are really for students who have been admitted. These can start as early as January of the senior year, however, most of them take place during March or April, and this is where the colleges and universities literally roll out, and I do sometimes mean literally roll out the red carpet. This is where they are trying to show you and convince you that this college is the one that you should be picking. You typically will be able to meet with academic advisors to start planning. You can meet with coaches or ensemble directors to start really finding your place on the campus, eating on campus, and experiencing the food, it really is doing that final visit to say yes or no, this is the place where I want to enroll, but these are great opportunities, and again they do fill up, so when you do get invited to these, see if they will fit into your schedule, and it's a great way to do that final visit to a college as an admitted student, because you'll have the admission in your hand, you'll probably also have the scholarship and financial aid information in your hand, so you're really kind of crossing your Ts and dotting your Is

Brad Baldridge 14:12

Right? I think a lot of cases it's kind of that one last visit to just to confirm, a couple years ago I had a family where they had gone out to Boston, so it was a major trip for them very early in the process, and that's the school that they thought they wanted to pick, but it's like, well, I haven't been there in a year and a half, and I was a young junior at the time, let's go back and do an accepted senior visit and see if it's still, you know, if what I remember, and it still speaks to me, and that type of thing, so I've had other families where you do two visits, right? These are the two schools I'm trying to pick between. I'll go visit both of them one more time, gather as much information as I can, and maybe it'll help me decide. And that's the whole purpose of the accepted senior visit. Colleges are trying to close the deal, they want you to learn more, and it's also important to realize it's not the same. Tour that you may have taken prior, because they know you're accepted. They're not going to talk about how to fill out financial aid. They're not going to talk about how to apply, because they know you've been accepted already. So, you've been through all of that. They're going to start talking about other things, what makes their university different, or why you should pick their university, or in some cases, that maybe they're there to just provide the information that you're asking for what are your questions. How can we help you decide?

Chuck Erickson 15:23

That I think is the key point that students and parents need to remember. They're there to answer your questions. And I was just doing a bunch of college visits, and the tour guides would stop and say, do you have any questions? And there were admitted students on our tour, and they didn't have any questions, and I was so frustrated, because, like, you're doing your final check here, you should be asking about, you know, what is weekend life like, what do you do, you know, for fun in the local area, what is the best experience you've had with a professor, what is the worst experience you've had with a professor, you know, you really want to ask all the questions that are going to help you decide, and those admitted student days are a great way to really dig into that stuff. You can ask those questions at other visit opportunities as well, but the admitted student day is the time that you should be coming in with a list of 10, 15, maybe even 20 questions that you want to have answers to by the time you leave the campus.

Brad Baldridge 16:17

Yes, absolutely. And then there's a handful of universities out there that still will do what I, what they call an overnight visit, where not only is it an accepted senior visit, but they're going to bring you on campus, pair you with somebody in a dorm room, typically, and have you stay overnight and really get an experience where you, you know, stay in the dorm overnight, eat breakfast in the, in the commons, etc. etc. and kind of a day in the life of a college student at that particular university, so that's pretty compelling for some families.

Chuck Erickson 16:47

Absolutely, it can be a little weird because you're typically sleeping on the floor in a dorm room, so it may not be the most comfortable of experiences, but if you really want to see behind the curtain and see how the sausage is made, so to speak, an overnight visit is great. Colleges may offer that only for out-of-state students, so you may want to check with the college or university to see, is there an overnight experience available, and is it available for you based off of where you are coming from. It is plausible that they may say no, we don't offer that experience for students, but it never hurts to ask, especially if you're traveling from farther away. Now, parents, you still have to get a hotel room. You don't get to stay in the residence hall with them. I've had parents ask me this. So, parents, you get a hotel room, count it up as a night away from your kid, but then the kid is staying in the dorm and really getting to experience what is life like outside of the classroom? Dinner, breakfast, all of the things that students would be doing in a day in the life on that college campus, which is great

Brad Baldridge 17:48

Right? Absolutely. All right. And then the final visit, or visit types, would be an athletic visit and a performing arts visit. So these are very specific visits with very specific requirements and goals. I know you're pretty involved in the performing arts, so can you jump into that one a little bit for us?

Chuck Erickson 18:05

Sure. So, I used to work in Conservatory of Music Admissions, and we would have performing arts admitted student visits that are really trying to recruit the top performers, so this is going to be things like music, theater, dance, art for some Bachelor of Fine Arts type programs, but you have gone through the very challenging audition process, or or portfolio process. You've been admitted, and now the college is trying to woo you because they think that you're going to be an added bonus to their fine and performing arts department. So you may get a private lesson, you may get to sit in on an ensemble, you may get to see behind the scenes, look at what is going on in the fine and performing arts area. You really are kind of VIP for that particular visit, and sometimes they may even help you with travel expenses. If they really are interested in you, they may help pay for your travel to the campus if you are being highly recruited for a fine and performing art, so if this is a category that you find yourself in, I'm happy to help, and I'm happy to answer questions on this. But yes, there are fine and performing art, VIP, admitted student recruited visits

Brad Baldridge 19:14

Right? And the same thing happens in athletics, especially in the money sports, football and basketball, but other sports as well, at some colleges where the coach is essentially treating someone as a VIP because they're actively trying to recruit that student, they think it'll be a strong addition to the team, and there's rules, of course, the NCAA and the other athletic organizations put out a bunch of rules as far as what the college can pay for and what they can't and how it works, now all those rules are binding on the coach. You're welcome to call and ask questions and do what you want. You can't break a rule because they don't apply to you. So, feel free to ask questions, and they'll tell you. We can't talk about that right now. There's a rule against it. But again, in the athletic side of things, a coach may, you know, pay for your airfare, probably give you tickets to a sporting event, you. And you're on campus, et cetera, et cetera, in an effort to recruit you, and that's a good sign that you're actually in the running with that coach, if they're willing to spend some of their budget to bring you on campus

Chuck Erickson 20:11

And I think the misnomer with this is that it's only available at D1 and D1 has a lot of those opportunities, but there are opportunities at the D2, D3, and the NAIA conference as well, so don't think that you just have to be a D1 in order to get the VIP treatment. If you're a top athlete in the D2 or the D3 world, coaches may use their budget as well to help recruit you, because those are still highly competitive sports, and coaches want to have the best teams possible

Brad Baldridge 20:40

Right. Absolutely. So, again, so that's the five types of visits. Again, we've got the stealth visit, the open house or campus day, the formal visit, which is what everybody's going to get involved in, and then accepted seniors for people that want to follow up, and ultimately then the athletic and performing arts. So, not everybody's going to use all of those, but certainly you want to be aware of your choices and, and kind of lay that out now. If we are building or thinking about visits, what are some tips and benefits that we might be looking for, or what might we do in order to make the most of our budget and make the most of our visit time?

Chuck Erickson 21:16

If you're thinking about budget, the one thing that we have really been blessed by after the COVID pandemic, is that there are virtual visit options, so if you, that's one visit we didn't really mention, but before you head out and jump in the car and drive, you could do a virtual tour as well to give yourself the option of checking out the campus before you actually step foot on it. For more budget things, I always tell families, start close to home, don't budget your first trip as we're going to fly to the other side of the country, because you probably have a variety of colleges within a short drive of your home, so go check those out first. I'm not saying that the kid has to pick one of those as their final college option, but again, students need awareness about what a college campus looks like, feels like, smells like, so why not start off with colleges that are close to home as an affordable way to start visiting colleges?

Brad Baldridge 22:08

Right? I mean, the way I explain it is, if you visit the local college or two, and then you start flying around, and you go a lot of places, and then you realize, oh, you know, that first visit we didn't really know what we were doing, we're gonna have to go back to that local college, okay. Well, that's not a big deal, that if it's right there in town or very close, it'd be a real drag to say now we have to plan another trip across country, because we, when we flew to Boston, we didn't do very well, or flew to Texas, or whatever it might be. So put some practice in, especially if you're starting early. Sometimes students are ready for true visits, sometimes they're just exploratory visits of let's just go on a college campus. Well, I don't know about college, you know, I'm nervous about that. It's like, okay, well, no pressure, we're not picking the college, we're not going to the college, or we're just going to go learn about what college is like. That helps get some kids out of their shell. Of that, I've had parents say things like, well, we can't do this and we can't do that, because our student can't pick a major or can't decide on what they like, or whatever it is. It's like, well, you're asking them to make decisions sight unseen, and that's hard for a lot of kids. So, give them some options, let them just go look at a few things again, especially at the local visits. You know, spread it out, start early, start sophomore year, start early junior year, because I think what happens for a lot of families is before they know it, they're at the end of the junior year, and they get the emails from the counseling office that says, oh, by the way, you know, are you going to do the college admissions tests? Here's the procedure to send your grades to colleges, and it's like, oh, wow, we're here, and we haven't done much yet. Oh, start early is, I think, another very important thing to do. What else do we do while we're there? What should we be looking for, and what kind of things might be on the list?

Chuck Erickson 23:54

I have a lot of things on that note, because keep in mind that when you look at college websites or college videos, they are always showing you the best stuff. They never show you what's on the other side of the camera or what's on the other side of the video. So, when you're checking out of college, you shouldn't just drive in, go do the campus tour, get back in your car, and leave. You know that that's just too basic. Take some time to explore the neighborhood, explore the area around it. Go to the coffee shop, or the local cafe, or the local restaurant. Talk to the people who work there, and say, "Hey, what do you think about this college? As you're taking a campus tour, take note of the places that they showed you on the campus tour, and maybe the places they didn't show you, and maybe you want to spend some time after the tour to go check those spaces out, so maybe they did not show you the recreation facility, and your kid is very interested in wellness and athletics, so maybe after the tour you go back and you check that out. Colleges are trying to show you the best things that they can on that campus tour, but you are not going to see every building and. In every nook and cranny, so feel free and take a look at that. You can always ask admissions as well. Hey, we only saw one residence hall, is there an opportunity to see other residence halls? Or, hey, we only saw one academic building. My student might be interested in this other academic area. Is there a way that we could go visit that? Be inquisitive and take note of what you are seeing and what you are not seeing, both on campus and in the local area.

Brad Baldridge 25:25

Right, I think the local area is what a lot of people may or may not realize, right? You know, where is the nearest Starbucks, if that's something your kid is interested in? Or that for my daughter it was Chipotle, right? Where's the nearest Chipotle? I got to figure out if I get where I can get my food, but there's always, you know, some of that, where you know, where would you buy groceries, or where would you find entertainment, or fast food, or where do all the kids go to the bar, as much as you, you know, ask the question and find out, that's the reality, parents, whether you like it or not

Chuck Erickson 25:56

Or is there a local ice cream shop, or pizza place, or you know what is available, and I think there's a perception that every college is close to that type of stuff, and that's not true. There are colleges that are miles away from stuff. I worked at one college years ago that was over an hour away from a Target, and so there was, you know, if Target is an important part of your shopping experience, I would have had to have drive driven over an hour to get there. It wasn't what I was used to, and that was one of my challenges of working at that college. But you've got to explore, and also things like where do you get medications, or where do you get your hair cut, you know? Think about your entire life responsibilities and experiences, and how would that translate, because your kid's going to live there for four years

Brad Baldridge 26:41

Right. Absolutely. And then my general recommendation, too, is go do a few visits to learn what visits are like, but then when you start realizing that actually there's some questions or some buildings that we'd really like to see, you can phone ahead and see if you can line some of that stuff up. They're happy to accommodate families that are planning and are that serious about it. They don't really like, you know, to spend a lot of time if you're not organized, but if you demonstrate you're organized and you, you know what you're looking for and why, then they're much more likely to, you know, set up a meeting with the Dean of the Music Department, because you have questions about jazz or whatever it might be. They're happy to arrange that at many colleges now. Some colleges, maybe you will get a little bit of a cold shoulder, and that again, that's a data point. Now, if that's the way they treat before I'm a student, how will they treat you after you're a student?

Chuck Erickson 27:33

Yeah, I agree. I love when students and parents want to go meet with a particular professor or a staff person, but you need to have a reason for requesting that meeting, you know, I'll have parents that will say, well, my kid's interested in engineering, so we should talk to the Dean of Engineering, and I'll say, why? Well, so that the Dean can sell us on why their engineering is the best. I'm like, that's not the dean's job. The dean's job is not to sell you as to why their engineering college is the best. Admissions is the one that would do that type of information. The dean is going to answer questions, or a professor is going to answer questions on how does the major work, how do classes work, what happens to students after they graduate, what are internships that we've sent students to in previous years. So, you're going to want to ask very specific information. Don't just sign up for a meeting to sign up for a meeting. These people are very busy, and they have lots on their plate. So, make sure when you're requesting one of those specific meetings that you have questions that you are trying to get answers to.

Brad Baldridge 28:28

Right. Yeah. So, so here's an example. I had a student a few years ago. He was very interested in jazz, and he wanted to study trumpet, so he was on a mission to figure out if the trumpet instructors at the various institutions were classically trained or jazz trained, because he was of the opinion that he wanted to learn jazz from someone that, whose jazz was their number one, just like it was for him, and it turned out really well for him too, because now he's in Chicago, he's doing well. Every once in a while, that professor would say, you know, I've got three gigs on this Friday night, obviously I can only show up to one. Do you want to go play at this bar or this restaurant, or whatever it is, and you know, so he's into the jazz community, you know, because he took the time to verify that the people he is working with would be in the jazz community.

Chuck Erickson 29:13

I think that's excellent, and I would go one level beyond that and say, if you are doing those specific meetings, get that contact information of that person, email is fine, or their mailing address, and send a follow-up, and get those people into your contact list. If you want to stand out to a college, when I was an admissions counselor, many, many moons ago, if I met individually with a student or a family, well, particularly a student, and then that student sent me a follow-up with questions or just thanking for meeting with me. That student stood out in my mind when I went through the admissions process again. Is every college going to be excited to get a thank you? No, but most of them are the ones that stood out to me the most were when a kid literally hand wrote a thank you card and mailed it to me at the admissions office. Yes, you want to, you want to get a gold star next to your name, that's how you can really stand out at a lot of places.

Brad Baldridge 30:04

Right? Exactly. And then a lot of situations, say a college here in Milwaukee, if they're recruiting kids from Kentucky, there might be a person that reads the applications and flies to Kentucky and gives presentations, and they're the sole contact for everybody in Kentucky, so as long as you are visiting, or maybe they don't get to Kentucky very often, so as long as you're visiting, you could find that out and actually meet the person that you've been emailing with or zooming with, you know, because they might be in their office, so make schedule an appointment and that type of thing. I think for a lot of students they certainly don't understand at this point, like parents - lots of parents understand - it's not always what you know, but who you know, and who you're willing to ask, and who you know. But start teaching your student about some of that. It's like, don't be afraid of this person, just thank them, send them an email, send them a thank you note. There are people just like everybody else, you don't need to be afraid, it could, you know, it could be the tiebreaker, and absolutely, you'll never even know it was a tie breaker, one of these students for this or that. Well, here's the kid that I know and like and have met, and here's the other kid that's just a piece of paper.

Chuck Erickson 31:17

Yeah, when I was in admissions, I would, we would go to admissions committee, and the students who I had a great interaction with, or strong communication with, that stood out my mind. And so, when the dean said to me, 'All right, you only can recommend five more students, who from this long list of students would you recommend? You better believe the kids that have interacted with me, email in person, when I went to their high school at a college fair, those kids stood out my brain, and I was like, yep, these are the ones that I want. And I am totally aware that teenagers have horrible handwriting, for the most part. And I think some students don't want to write a thank you note, because they go, well, my handwriting's horrible. We know that as adults, you don't have to be worried about it. As long as I can kind of figure out what you're writing, that's fine, but it doesn't have to be beautiful, perfect penmanship to send a thank you note that really does make a lasting impression.

Brad Baldridge 32:07

Right. Absolutely. All right, so on that note, let's wrap things up here. Any final thoughts on visit, visit strategy, why we should visit?

Chuck Erickson 32:16

I think the biggest thing to remember, though, always is that admissions is marketing and sales, and they're always going to be positive, so try and take everything with a grain of salt, and understand that, yes, the admissions counselors and the tour guides are always going to be super excited, so you have to try and look past some of those things and really experience the entire college and the location, as you've said before. Start early, don't put this off till the last minute, because then you're scrambling. Enjoy this process of spending time as a family touring these places, because it really is fun to tour colleges and spend time with each other. So, enjoy this process.

Brad Baldridge 32:52

Absolutely, spend a little time at the colleges, spend a little time with your students, preparing to go, spending a little time following up after you went and kind of discuss what you saw, what you liked, what you didn't like, what you'd like to see, and all that type of thing. And I think that's a big help for students to start processing, you know. Why did you like this school? Well, the tour guide was cute. Okay. Well, interesting. Probably not going to be there when you go, so maybe you need to find other reasons to pick one school over the other. And, of course, weather, I think, is the other thing that you know, my son went, we went in an April visit, we drove six hours, and we got out of the car, and it was the wind was blowing 30 or 40 miles an hour sideways, and it was snowing, and this was in April, so it should not have been that, and about the time we left campus, this, you know, the wind died down, the snow stopped, the sun came out. He attended that school anyway, so apparently even a snowstorm wasn't going to drive him away. But those kind of things happen all the time, and you're another thing to help your students, you know, get past is that can leave a lasting impression that isn't fair, so to speak. Whether it was a nice day or not a nice day, something good or bad happened on the way there, or on the way back, you know, the flat tire, or whatever. Try and keep some of that stuff out of the mix, and try and keep the stuff that's actually relevant in the mix, which could be hard. All right. Well, let's wrap things up. As always, why don't you share a little bit, Chuck, about where we can find you if we want to learn more about your business and your help for students? Where can people go?

Chuck Erickson 34:20

Sure, if you want to learn more about my work, I'm Chuck Erickson. I'm an independent educational consultant working with College Connectors. You can always check out collegeconnectors.com or find me on my podcast and YouTube channel called Don't Chuck It Up, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube, so come check out the Don't Chuck It Up podcast for more information about what I do as an independent educational consultant.

Brad Baldridge 34:47

All right, thanks, Chuck, and we'll talk again soon.

Presenter 34:50

Thank you for listening to the Taming the High Cost of College podcast. Now it's time for you to take action. Head to tamingthehighcostofcollege.com for show notes, bonus content, and to leave feedback for Brad. The next step on your college journey starts now.

Presenter 1 35:07

Brad Baldridge is a registered representative of Cambridge Investment Research and an investment advisor representative of Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, a registered investment advisor. Securities are offered through Cambridge Investment Research Incorporated, a broker dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC. Brad owns two companies, Baldridge Wealth Management and Baldridge College Solutions. The Baldridge companies are not affiliated with Cambridge Investment Research.

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