Fortunately, at the end of each October, my school has a week off called Fall Break. Many juniors and seniors take advantage of this unique time off from school to go visit colleges, as I did. There is no better way to get a taste of what a school is like than to go visit it yourself. Since college will be your home for the next four years, if you have the chance to take a day or two to go visit, it is well worth it.

Visiting colleges, being able to experience college life (for however brief a time), is extremely exciting, but it is also somewhat painful when you realize that your visit was just that, a visit, and you have to return to high school afterwards. College will be here soon enough and now is not the time to focus on the prize. Rather, now is the time to focus on the effort needed to get the prize. Let me take a moment to discuss some of the things I learned while visiting colleges, some of the things I would have found useful before I went.

The first thing I learned was the importance of having a consistent experience at each school. What I mean by that is it’s unfair to see one thing at one school, a completely unrelated thing at another, and then try to compare the two schools. What I attempted to do at each school to keep the experiences similar was to:

1. Go on the campus tour
2. Sit in on a class
3. Try to meet a student at that school for coffee or a walk around campus to get his or her perspective on aspects of the school that the admission office doesn’t cover.

The second thing I learned is to not restrict yourself too much during college visits. Take some time to explore, because the random experiences I had—like going to the school’s library late one night when I couldn’t sleep—gave me better insight into the school and the students than anything else. Blocking off an hour or two to just wander around campus and observe was one of the most useful things I did at each school. I always started at the student center to see what was going on, maybe even grabbed a snack, and then watched different groups of students to see what they were up to.

The third thing is to remember that this is your future and not your parents’ future. Far too many times, the parents on the informational tours were acting as if it were they who were the ones going to the school, not their children. Whether students fully realize it or not, Mom and Dad won’t be the ones having to spend the next four years of their life at the school, so it is up to them to do the research, figure out what they like and do not like and make the best college choice. There are so many colleges and opportunities out there. Students shouldn’t limit their college search to those schools that Mom and Dad know about, care about, or even want you to attend. Of course you must respect your parents (and their finances), but the choice of where to spend the next four years of your life ultimately is up to you. Take advantage of that opportunity.

Visiting schools last week, I learned the need to have a consistent experience at each of them, the things you can learn off the beaten path, and the importance of the student—and not the parent—in this process. Happy hunting. I hope these college visit tips help.