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 Anyone who has ever gone off to college will tell you
that the campus visit is the most important part of your college search
- and they're right! Every school has a nice building to put on the
cover of a brochure and smiling students on their website, but you owe
it to yourself to dig deeper. Actually being on campus - seeing
the students in classes, walking through the residence halls, and trying
the food in the dining hall - is the only way that you'll truly be able
to answer the question of whether or not a particular college is a place
that you can envision yourself being a student.
I began my college search with the sort of "window
shopping" that you're probably doing right now. I poured through the
college admission publications that flooded my mailbox every afternoon
and tried to imagine what the real campuses and students looked like.
But once I began visiting campuses (nearly 20 in all!), I realized that
the brochures never quite captured the real school. Some had me
enamored as soon as I set foot on campus, surpassing their publications
with their warm people and inviting campus features; at others, I found
myself unsuccessfully searching for that one beautiful building and
those happy, smiling students that graced their brochures.
It was my visit to Albion that solidified my decision to
enroll almost immediately. When I arrived here, I knew I was home. On
tour, I met with students whom I wanted to be friends, strolled through
residence halls in which I wanted to live, and encountered professors
with whom I wanted to study. Albion's campus welcomed me from the first
moment I set foot upon it - which was a feeling I never could have
gotten from a brochure, no matter how stunning the photos.
While I don't believe that there is just one school out
there for each person, I do believe there are schools that are a better
"fit" than others. Brochures and websites don't tell the whole story,
but visits do. What's more, finding the college or university that is
your perfect match can be lots of fun - take the time to do your
research, go out and explore campuses, and you'll end up at a place that
will change your life. I know I did!
Good luck!
Laurel (Weinman) Whalen, '01
What are your options to
visit campus?
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