Beyond the Brochure - Preparing for Your College Visit

Have you ever thought, “Is there something I am missing out on?” when visiting a college to know if it’s the right fit for you? More often than not, you are probably getting a brochure or some other form of a guide when you visit colleges, but sometimes, they might leave something out for you to learn from or see on the campus itself that could help you. Preparing for college is the biggest reason we want to help you get the best opportunities.

In this blog, we will break down what you can look for when visiting colleges that those brochures and guides won’t tell you or show you!

What Does a Brochure Really Do For You?

The purpose of a college brochure is to introduce, promote, educate, and sell the key benefits of college to students and their parents. They are one of the most traditional ways that colleges get information out to people, and these days they can be created digitally or printed, if you receive one on an in-person tour at the college.

No matter how a brochure is presented, they have to produce the right kind of information that incentivizes you to consider that college even more than the next choice on your list of colleges to visit. You can’t really get a full cultural experience of a college or its campus by just looking at print media and website information. You’ll have to see it in person to get a real feel!

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask Unique Questions

One thing we make a note of on our 12 Mistakes to Avoid page is this: “A college education may be a family's single largest investment, so 'winging it' rarely leads to a successful outcome.” The idea behind this statement is mainly for how you handle your financial situation, but it can also be a motto for how you go about exploring the college itself, with the financials aside. 

Asking unique and interesting questions is a great way to get your name across to student guides who might want to answer the questions that are a little less generic. Tour guides, more than anything, want to make sure your tour experience is the best there is.

Like with any type of tour around a place you’ve never seen before, you will probably get a lot of generic questions asked, but now and then, you’ll have a question asked about something that blows your mind and opens up your view in a bigger way. A brochure normally won’t tell you about that. They are filled with so much information, but most of the time it’s information that’s standard and doesn’t tell you anything you already knew or assumed to be true.

Here’s a great and unique question example we recommend: “Out of all the libraries on campus, which one in your mind offers the best experience for students?”. It’s a question that has purpose to it for receiving information that you wouldn’t be told about unless you asked. You’ll get a tour of a library, but you won’t fully know if it’s the best one for your studying. That’s the same thought process as when you look at the college as a whole. What is the purpose if you can’t learn enough about it? 

These are the important questions we all want you to have when you go on your adventures into this new life!

Our Advice to You When Visiting College for The First Time

Our best advice to you comes from a simple but perfect point of view for how to handle college and starting this new adventure in your life. Treat it with a sense of fun and great anticipation! The fun aspect of this blog that allows for that comes from your wonder of where this new part of your life will take you.

With that in mind, it means standing out from the rest of your classmates and making sure that your experience is the best it can be. Brochures and guides won’t always give you what you're looking for broadly, but we also believe in you to bring a sense of fun and joy that will allow you to have a better experience exploring these colleges for the first time. Please contact us for any questions, and we look forward to helping!