Sophomore year is a big year--you’re no longer a freshman and, if you switched schools for high school, you’re well-acclimated to the environment and to the increased workload that defines your high school academic experience. It also means that grades matter more (though do not get it twisted--they matter starting the first day of freshman year), your course difficulty is increasing, and you’re starting to think about testing. Because sophomore year tends to be a bit lighter (particularly first semester) in terms of test preparation, we are fans of taking advantage of this “free” time and using it to begin to check things off of your college list as early as possible.
We encourage our clients to begin touring colleges starting sophomore year as opposed to waiting until junior year, for three key reasons.
Gathering data early is good
A lot of parents ask us: where should we tour our first school? Our answer: anywhere. The reason we aren’t particularly choosy about where you begin your college visits is because the moment you set foot on campus you’ll begin to form opinions on likes and dislikes about the campus (read about how to arrange college visits here). These are data points. We encourage all of our students to create spreadsheets to record their thoughts on each and every visit, along with when they visited, who they spoke to, and their contact information (we are huge believers in post-visit thank you notes).
We often tell students that discussing and fleshing out what you don’t like about a school or campus is much more useful than focusing on what you do like. Dislikes eliminate schools by the hundred, which is helpful when there are thousands of schools to choose from and we need to narrow it down to 8-12. For example, if you loved the film department at UCLA but hated the size and the city noise that is helpful to know--that means that you’ll probably do best at small-medium sized schools in less urban areas. We can course-correct going forward. It’s more difficult to course-correct junior year because we have limited time. Make sure that you take note of everything you learned, liked, and disliked after every visit. You’ll want to be able to flip back and remember this stuff next year when you’re thinking about where you apply.
Maximizing quantity now means quality visits junior year
Doing the quantity-based work (visiting as many colleges as possible) during sophomore year means that we can take that data and channel it into a series of high-quality visits to schools where we think you’d thrive during your junior year. If you wait until junior year to tour, you could spend a weekend visiting schools that are not your vibe. In contrast, if you do the time-consuming work upfront (and visit a range of schools), we can more accurately narrow your junior year college visit list to schools that we think you’ll have a high likelihood of falling in love with. Additionally, you’re going to have less time junior year to take a carefree wintertime trip--between classes, studying for the ACT/SAT, balancing your leadership roles in your various extracurricular activities, and your internship, you’re booked. And you’re stressed, which isn’t a great time to be daydreaming and thinking about if you want to go to school near the mountains, near the beach, or in the middle of the city.
Visiting sophomore year shows consistent and early demonstrated interest
Schools track your participation and engagement with the school starting, well, the moment you first engage with them. For example, if Northwestern sees that you visited sophomore year, initiated engagement with your regional admissions representative and tour guide after the visit, and then attended two of their boots at college fairs junior year, that’s going to work in your favor! They know you’re interested and they love consistency over time.
We know that starting from 0 can be overwhelming, particularly with so many schools to choose from. If you need help figuring out where to start, call or email us. We’d be happy to help guide you or even put together an itinerary for you.