This summer I have been fortunate enough to participate in a rite of passage for many parents of high school seniors: college visits. Understanding that not all families can visit schools, and that the status of campus visits is still in a state of unpredictability for most admission offices, I have felt a particularly keen appreciation for this luxury these past few months. In fact, my giddiness on entering admission buildings this summer and gently prodding (okay, she might say shoving) my youngest child forward to check in for our visits has been, as my travel companion has pointed out on more than one occasion, slightly over the top. Then again, she would be the first to admit that she may be a bit jaded when it comes to college visits. This particular prospective student sat through far too many information sessions to count on her older sisters’ Grand College Tours until finally realizing with relief that she could sit in the reception area and read a book instead. (This is also the same child who asked her Loomis Chaffee tour guide what percentage of the volumes in the Katharine Brush Library were fiction versus non-fiction. True story.) Additionally, not only has she long been immersed in college visits as a younger sister, but college visiting is just not quite the same when your mom does this admission stuff for a living. Whether in my former life as a college counselor or current life as an admission officer, I’m basically taking my kids on work trips when we look at colleges. They know this. My second daughter was in a backpack on a tour of Tufts University during my maternity leave in 2002. So, visiting schools doesn’t hold quite the same level of, let’s say, excitement as it might if one’s parent had not set foot on a college campus in decades (or at all).

Genuine admission: it’s a lot of fun to be both a parent and a professional during the process of researching schools. I take inspiration from my higher ed admission colleagues in many ways, whether it’s an especially creatively designed web portal or a compelling print publication that my daughter actually reads. But it’s the campus visit that I take particular interest in, and when one of my children was unable to attend accepted student days for her colleges in June 2020 due to COVID-19, it wasn’t just disappointing personally — it was professionally, as well. I enjoy seeing the choices that schools make about what they decide to highlight on their campuses and the ways their tour guides express what they love about their schools. As I wrote last year in Armchair Visiting, virtual visiting has significant and often underestimated merit. But there’s no denying that it’s still helpful to see a campus in the flesh.

While in a normal year campus tours would not necessarily be unique from the vantage point of a youngest child, this year just the fact that we were able to be on a campus at all felt unique. It’s also been telling to see the differences between how schools in different states are handling visits in this “new normal,” ranging from completely outside and everyone masked to information sessions of 50+ inside and no masks required. It’s been a visual reminder of the differences in approaches to COVID-19 on campuses, as well. Depending on where in the U.S. the school is located, the setting of the campus, the population density, the residential setup, the financial resources, and of course what that particular day, week, and month might bring regarding the number of cases in the local area — so many factors have gone into visit decisions that are as unique as the institutions themselves. And of course, things are still changing. At Loomis, we began the summer offering a few on-campus group tours for the first time as an experiment, and within weeks realized we needed to have multiple small group tours per day and weekly virtual tours as well. Based on recent events, this fall we plan to offer both in-person and virtual tours, webinars and online programs, and only remote interviews for all. In this “new normal,” it doesn’t matter to us how one learns about Loomis; what is most important is that students have different options to do so that work for them.

“I can’t wait to go to college,” my college tour co-pilot enthused in the car after one visit on a late July day. As a parent and admission professional, there is nothing I want more for my child than to feel that college is something to look forward to rather than something to take for granted, especially given her mom’s career. Then again, I think there is little any of our children will really take for granted again. While the status of the campus visit may change from school to school and week to week, the joy of doing something that reminds us of a future without social distancing or “you’re on mute!” has made this summer one I will not take for granted, whether on visits myself or meeting those families who have been able to visit Loomis Chaffee. And regardless of how one visits schools — whether virtually or in person — I hope that prospective Pelicans feel the same sense of excitement about their future as my experienced-but-thankfully-not-jaded daughter does. And I’m grateful for another year of sharing all I love about Loomis with those visiting both on campus and off.