High School Visits.

My experience as a director of admissions & admissions officer:

So how can you make the most of your travel season?

Let’s face it. Travel season can be a slog. Depending on your office, you might spend two to eight weeks on the road — away from your family, football games, pumpkin spice lattes, and the last bit of summer weather (hopefully, you can get at least some of all of these things while traveling). Here are some tips for making your travel season the most successful ever.

• Map out the amount of time you want to (or you’re expected to) spend in each of your territories. I used to represent Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Indiana while I was at Vanderbilt, so I spent two weeks in each: 2 in Minneapolis/St. Paul, 1 in Madison/ south central Wisconsin, 1 in Milwaukee, 1 in Indianapolis, and 1 typically in northern Indiana.

• Before scheduling which weeks go where, start with the biggies: avoid NACAC week (you might as well forget it - and if you’re scheduling visits in Columbus this year, I hope you’ve either already reached out to schedule or you’re WELL outside of Columbus); avoid the Jewish High Holy Days (in many parts of the country); and avoid your own conflicts, like fly-in program days.

• Start Googling “Teacher Conferences in _______ fall 2025” your states. Or seek out the academic calendar at some of your very large, well known public schools. You might be able to figure out some no-go zones for specific states - when nearly everyone will turn down your visit.

• Visit your regional ACAC website to see when they’re holding college fairs. It might be tempting, especially if your school expects you to attend a lot of college fairs, to visit those schools close by during that college fair week. But a more successful visit schedule will avoid these weeks altogether and go another time in the fall.

• Once you’ve figured out where you probably want to spend your time, now build your list. Use whatever resources you have — past application patterns; largest number of prospects or inquiries; schools you’ve always wanted to visit but haven’t; largest number of counselor nominations for your fly-in program. There are so many ways to slice and dice the data, but you should NOT just rely on what you did last year (or what the previous AO did in your territory).

• Then start with RepVisits, Maia Learning, SCOIR and the other schedulers out there. a) you can easily sign up here (if the school has posted their visit schedule), and b) you might be able to see some common blackout dates on the visit scheduler at popular schools.

• But don’t stop there. The least resourced (often public) schools don’t always know about RepVisits or schedulers. They’re still scheduling old-school - either via phone call to the counseling office or email. Things are getting better, but if you actually want to change your visit patterns and reach underserved populations, you’ll have to be very diligent and persistent. I sometimes had to reach out to the same school 5-6 times to get a visit scheduled.

• Once you have a skeleton outline based maybe on some openings you see on RepVisits, now you can develop your ideal visit plan. It’ll go out the window pretty quickly, but at least you will know what you want to do. I used to GoogleMap distances and allow some buffers for traffic, arrival, etc. And please leave room in your schedule for lunch. You don’t get paid enough to skip lunch.

• A special note about rural schools. I founded the NACAC Rural and Small Town Special Interest Group, and I know from our member surveys: admissions officers rarely visit rural schools. So my ask if that you try to find time in your schedule to visit rural schools, and if you do, ask for a phone call with the school counselor before you visit. Maybe 1-2 weeks out. If they’re not familiar with your college, talk about the type of student you’d love to see at the visit — and don’t get frustrated if you only see one student or just the counselor. Plant the seeds and visit again. That’s the only way this works.

• On the day of your visit, leave early. Find parking. Get your GPS ready for your next visit, before leaving your car (you’ll thank yourself if you’re running late). Find the flagpole — that usually marks the entrance. Have the name and phone/email of your contact person ready. Again, some schools are well-oiled machines for visits, and some don’t do this very often.

• During your visit, try your best not to just do your song and dance. It’s so, so tempting to just memorize your script and give your points, but you should try to build your muscle to have a conversation with students. Tailor your visit to the students actually in front of you. If you don’t have any students, politely ask if the counselor has a few minutes to chat with you — and if they don’t, try not to get frustrated. Some of these schools have counselor ratios of 500:1, and you’re not their only priority that day.

• After the visit, follow up. I regret not doing this more often. This profession is about relationship building. When I was a very young admissions officer, I followed up with each student. Then I figured out how to get the system (i.e., Slate) to do this for me and automatically. But you should absolutely reach out and thank the counselor for their time. It’s a small gesture, but it goes a long way.

• Finally, during the season, take care of yourself. Do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself physically and mentally. If you release stress by going for a run, then do so — while you take in the sights of Charleston. Pick up a new novel. Take advantage of work paying for meals and try to eat healthy. Get plenty of rest, and say no to things that don’t work. If you never see interested students at a particular college fair, convince folks in your office to decline. Stay connected to friends and family, and enjoy your surroundings!