Can Campus Visits Help Me Get In To The Ivy League?

How important are campus visits? This is really two questions: how important might they be to the colleges versus how important they might be to you.

Harkness Tower, Yale University. The article was originally published on Forbes.com.

Demonstrated Interest

Visiting a school is one way to show what is called “demonstrated interest.” The outstanding example of how not to demonstrate interest is unfortunately all too common. I once asked a student why he was applying to a certain large northeastern university.

He replied, “Because it’s Harvard.”

This may make sense to you, but it doesn’t land well with the school. It tells them your interest is rather superficial. You are looking at their school from far away, rather than imagining yourself living there day by day, attending classes with professors whose work you have admired, contributing to campus groups and taking advantage of academic or extracurricular activities that may be distinctive features of their school.

You should demonstrate to a college that you understand who they are and what they care about, and that you will contribute to the intellectual and social life of their school. Show them that you haven’t just picked their name out of a hat (or a rankings list).

How Important Is Demonstrated Interest To The College?

Some colleges will tell you frankly on their websites that they do not take demonstrated interest into account in making admission decisions. Yale, for example, is quite clear on this point:

“Yale does not track ‘demonstrated interest’ in any form for the purpose of evaluating applications. Visiting campus or attending an information session can be an excellent way to learn more about Yale, but it will not affect your chances of admission.”

In other words, Yale is content to let you demonstrate your interest through other parts of your application, notably your answer to their question on the Common Application, “Why Yale?”

More importantly, admissions officers will use every aspect of your application to help them decide how interesting you are to Yale: "As we carefully and respectfully review every application, two questions guide our admissions team: “Who is likely to make the most of Yale’s resources?” and “Who will contribute most significantly to the Yale community?”

Nevertheless, that brings you back to your responsibility to learn more about Yale’s resources and community, by whatever means are feasible for you. It’s not as transactional as ticking off a box to indicate that you took the campus tour. It’s something that should shine through everything you submit—and not only to Yale.

How To Find Out How Much A College Cares

If you want to know how much a college cares about demonstrated interest, consult the Common Data Set for that college. Every year, each college replies to a set of standardized questions. The results are published as the Common Data Set.

You can access this information for a given college by typing into a search bar the name of the college and the words “Common Data Set."

Choose the latest year for which data is available. Go to section C7, which asks a college to rank the “Relative importance of each of the following academic and nonacademic factors in your first-time, first-year, degree-seeking general (not including programs with specific criteria) admission decisions.”

The factors are divided into “Academic” and “Nonacademic.” The last category under “Nonacademic” is “Level of applicant’s interest.” You will see which box the college checked:

• Very Important

• Important

• Considered

• Not Considered

You will find that for 2025, seven of the eight Ivy League colleges checked the box “Not Considered”; Dartmouth checked “Considered.” That should put an end to the rumor that, with the possible exception of a trek to Hanover, New Hampshire, visiting an Ivy League college will, in and of itself, boost your application.

How Important Is It To You?

Whether or not your level of interest is important to the college, it’s always important to you. If your interest remains superficial, you will have difficulty responding to any of the questions on the Common Application that ask, in effect, “Why are you applying to our school?”

However, campus visits are not the only way to learn about a college. In fact, you may be so awed by the architecture or distracted by the stories told by the tour guide that you don’t focus on the factors that are so much more important.

So do not be discouraged if time, distances or financial constraints make it unrealistic for you to visit campus. Focus on other ways to learn about the colleges. Remember that admissions officers may be coming to your region or even your school.

But if a stroll down hallowed halls and ivy-covered walls inspires you to do the hard work of researching the academic side of things or learning from current students or alumni about what distinguishes their alma mater, by all means, have a great campus visit!

The article was originally published on Forbes.com. I write regularly as a Contributor to Forbes.com in the area of international business education. Don’t miss out! Want the latest news about all my publications and talks on admissions? Sign up for my newsletter at www.athenamentor.com.