Campus Visits: When? Before writing application or...?

I hear you..I don't think school visits when classes are not on in full swing are even remotely as effective as those when the entire student body is around.

I would say that broadly speaking, you would be able to gather a 'sense' of your fit with any school by speaking with alums & current students, reading school websites & blogs by adcoms & students and other anecdotal evidence. Based on this, you would more or less be certain of a bunch of schools. You can always start writing your essays and be done with a major chunk of that work before you start your school visits. Once classes start in fall, you could schedule your school visits and then use your experiences to fine tune your essays. I don't think, or at least I never felt, that a school visit can help you start writing an essay from scratch; in my opinion, it can only help you tailor your essay for that particular school..

You might like a school more than or lesser than earlier after a school visit. In any case the ranking or prioritization of that school within your target list might change. I don't think you would ever regret having decided to apply to that school without having visited it earlier..

Further, you could split your school selection into R1 and R2 such that you have sufficient time to use your school visit experiences in modifying your essays for all schools.

So, all in all, I think you have good time on hand. If you can manage to shortlist your schools, prioritize them and be done with writing a major part of at least your R1 apps, you should be just fine visiting schools after classes begin in Fall.

Agree with all the previous comments! September is too long to wait if you're trying to meet an October R1 deadline.

For me, I started writing essays in July and August and was 90% done by the time I did school visits in late September. After these visits, I added 2-3 sentences that spoke to my experiences there. Since these visits don't make up the core of your essays, it's a much safer strategy to get started earlier - and just leave some room for additional color!

Great input here. I am in a similar boat. I regret not having sat in on classes last spring. But here we are. I feel much better about it based on your advice so thanks guys!

I'm visiting 7 schools in the last week of October. I will have applied to my top schools by then and hope to check with admissions if they can offer me an on campus interview. That way they get to see me in flesh and blood and may be it'll give me an edge, given that I'm traveling from Kuwait. I suppose that's the advantage of visiting after.

4 of the 7, I will be sending in applications after my trip and I'll be looking to solidify my application based on it. You can derive strong answers to questions like how can XYZ college help you achieve your objectives based on what you learn during the trip.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

FYI, if your'e talking about visiting HBS, Wharton, etc. you cannot request an on campus interview unless you have already been invited to interview. There is no self initiating. Trying to do so would not reflect well on you. I couldn't tell from your post if that is your intention but if it was I just wanted to give you a heads up.

One extra tip on visiting schools - When you visit, make an effort to talk to current students, especially ones who are not official ambassadors for the admissions office. Ask them questions about how often they interact with professors outside the classroom, how helpful careers services has been, what other schools they were considering and why they picked this particular school, how the social scene is, etc. Think about the aspects of an MBA program that matter most to you, and ask questions around these topics.