Your Campus Visit Roadmap

Admissions Beat

If you’ve not done so already, many Admissions Beat listeners will soon embark on a campus visit, whether by road, rail, or air, or perhaps via a keyboard and screen. To ensure you’re prepared to get the most from that journey, host Lee Coffin, dean of admissions and financial aid at Dartmouth, has recruited two expert tour guides. They are Elena Hicks, assistant vice president and dean of admissions at Southern Methodist University, and the former dean of admissions at Loyola University, and Matthew Hyde, the dean of admissions at Trinity College, and the former dean of admissions at Lafayette College. They’ve got lots of advice for students and parents alike — including how, during a tour or information session, a parent might quietly deploy a strategically placed “elbow,” which can signal “that might be something you should look into,” while being careful not to express an opinion too strongly at this early stage of the search.