Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Rit Fuller was quoted in a Wall Street Journal article about college admission. Companies are providing bus tours for prospective students and Fuller comments on the importance of campus visits:
In the latest opportunity to outsource your child rearing, private companies are offering to pick up one of the time-honored duties of parenthood: carting the kids around to visit colleges. These firms, essentially bus tours that hop from campus to campus, oversee all the logistics -- from arranging meetings with admissions officers to dispensing advice on how to make the best impression.
...Driving the tour-bus business is the new weight that some admissions departments are giving to the college visit. A bit of face time can tip the balance for an applicant teetering between acceptance and rejection. Emory University in Atlanta, for example, "codes" every single interaction that it has with a student applicant, including orders for orientation videotapes. Students who make such extra efforts are deemed to be more serious about the school, and thus more likely to attend if accepted.
Hamilton College's dean of admission Richard Fuller recalls a recent applicant "who had all the credentials to be accepted here" but was wait listed because he hadn't bothered to pay a visit or otherwise demonstrate interest. "It was enough to say, `Thanks for your application but there are others who would rather be here and are going to move ahead of you on the list."'
... The National Association for College Admission Counseling, a professional group whose rulings most colleges follow, is currently looking into how many colleges are giving extra emphasis to the visits and why.
The handful of companies that offer these tours all have slightly different services, from their prices to the level of coaching they provide to would-be applicants.
Taking a page from the elite colleges themselves, College Authority sometimes checks students' grades before giving them a seat on the bus.
... College Visits Inc. only rarely offers financial aid, while most of the others typically give discounts, even full free rides, to a couple of students a trip if they can demonstrate need. Some moms and dads like to tag along on the tours, but that's not always an option. College Authority has a no-parents rule (so campus guides can talk openly about the social scene).
