Potential students can request specific information for the tour and can possibly schedule meetings with professors in their academic field of choice. The open house allows students to look at the breadth of the institution, while individual tours allow them to look at its depth. Or even worse, they don't make any visit, show up for the fall semester, and then realize they are going to be miserable. If you have purple hair and don't see any purple hair in the campus' publications, it's probably because there aren't any people with purple hair on campus. If you want to be where purple hair is accepted, then you need to visit that school and see for yourself if you fit in.
Higher education is a significant investment, and many parents pay some, or all, of the bill.
Parents are jeopardizing the success of their son or daughter if they control the investigation. Typically, parents are very involved early in the selection process. It's much like negotiating a contract, Christiansen says. When it's time to visit a campus, it is important to find out about the social scene, but prospective students should be sure to talk with some students about academics, too. Keep in mind that most students spend more time in the hall than in the classroom, Christiansen says.