As college application deadlines approach, several seniors made it a priority to visit potential dream schools before submitting an application.

Most of those who visited schools found it useful, but were less impressed with the official tours, finding them uninformative and repetitive of information from their official websites. These students  found touring the campuses on their own more enlightening.

Few students have visited more campuses than Salina Xia. She visited a majority of the UCs along with other colleges along the East and West coasts including Princeton, MIT, Pepperdine, Claremont McKenna, Yale, Harvard, Pomona College and more. Most of her tours were student-led, and Xia said she found the information given useful.

She learned more about the college’s location and environment—factors crucial to her decision of whether to apply. Xia gained insight on UC Santa Barbara’s study abroad program and unique research opportunities, which aligned with what Xia was looking for. While she toured Princeton, she learned about the “overwhelming amount of weird bugs” she had never seen before, which ultimately influenced her decision to not apply.

“It’s not about the ranking. You have to actually enjoy being at the school,” Xia said.

Rachel Sun paid a visit to UCLA, Harvard and MIT over the summer. Her grandfather was a professor at UCLA—her dream school—and the two often visited in the summer. She also toured Harvard and MIT, which were part of a vacation tour of the East Coast, but learned very little about the schools. Even though Sun thought Harvard and MIT both had beautiful campuses, she was  not convinced to apply to either.

Danny Mansour took trips to seven colleges: Harvard, MIT, Brown, Yale, University of Chicago, Princeton and Columbia. He said he decided to tour these schools because they were colleges he had dreamed of attending.

“I wanted to get a feel before college applications started. Obviously I’m not going to apply to every single college, it was just to get a last minute feel of how they were and it was definitely a rush but I enjoyed it,” Mansour said.

According to Mansour, the official tour for Princeton was not useful because he felt like the information was easily accessible through their website or alumni, and it didn’t permit him to explore the campus. After taking only one official tour, he decided to tour the colleges himself and found the environment of the schools influential to his decision making.

Princeton stood out during his trip; he found small places he enjoyed through the back streets and alleys of the school. Mansour also loved Brown and how it was “small, quaint and felt carefree.”

Ryan Li also toured the East Coast and visited Columbia, NYU, UPenn, Babson and Princeton. Li decided to tour these schools to get a better idea of their cultures.

He said some student tours were not useful to him. He found touring Columbia with his cousin, a current student, more useful, as he gleaned inside information on the school’s student life. The personal insight his cousin gave him during the tour confirmed Li’s decision to apply.

“It’s definitely a good experience. It doesn’t hurt you to go visit the schools and see what it’s like but if you really can’t make it there are a lot of options [such as] virtual tours,” Li said.

As some students toured prominent schools in the East Coast, Andrea Monzon decided to stay in California for her next few years of schooling. Campus life is an important factor of her decision making process, and during campus visits was able to see the school’s diversity.

Monzon visited UC Irvine, CSU San Diego, CSU Fullerton, Azusa Pacific and UCLA. Monzon’s current career goal is to become a teacher, and she felt these schools offered the best programs and credentials for her.

“When I visited UCLA I thought it was such a competitive school and everyone’s heads were going to be in books, but I actually saw a lot of people hanging with friends and doing other things [besides] reading, writing and studying,” Monzon said.

For students who do not choose to visit college campuses, they may do virtual tours online or visit the DBHS Career Center for information regarding colleges. Representatives from schools such as Occidental College, Emory University and UCLA have given informational meetings during lunch and will continue visiting throughout the college application time period.