Summer is a popular time to visit college and university campuses – and it’s a good time to go, if summer is the only time someone has to travel to a far-away campus, or to spend a few hours thoroughly exploring a school’s grounds and facilities.
But, you need to remember that you’ll be seeing schools during their ‘down time.’
During the summer, college campuses are not always the bustling places of activity that they are from September until May. While the summer is a wonderful time to take tours and complete college admission interviews – if only to have these college admission tasks out of the way before the start of your senior year – summer campus visits also merit asking yourself some precautionary questions.
One – Ask yourself, ‘Who are the students I’m seeing walking across campus?’ Are they high school students attending a summer program, or are they visiting students from another college? Or are they full-time degree candidates at the school who are taking advantage of a summer term?
The point we want to make is that the behavior that you’ll observe in people on campus in the summer may or may not be reflective of what you would see in students enrolled at the school during the academic year.
Two – Ask someone, ‘How much snow or rain does this area typically receive?’ Summer is filled with warm sunny days across the country. But be mindful that September until May might not bring the same kind of weather. It is easy to get wrapped up with the vision of yourself carrying a backpack across campus and hanging out at the benches outside of the student union in nice weather. Press your tour guide to find out how realistic this image is and whether the local weather could ‘cloud’ your daydream.”