One of the best ways to get the most out of any campus visit is to take advantage of the opportunity to visit campuses while school is still in session. Waiting to tour a business school (or any grad school) during the summer months is almost a complete waste of time, because there are no classes in session and all you are seeing is a bunch of empty buildings.
With that in mind, here are a few suggestions for maximizing your campus visit:
1. Be the buyer, not the seller.
Too many people think of a campus visit as a chance to show off and impress the school. This is a poor use of your energy, for a couple of reasons. First, a campus visit is all about acquiring information – info that will help you choose your list of schools and info that will help you gain admission in the first place. You are on an investigative mission, not an audition. Second, MBA programs simply will not know whether you were amazing or an abomination. No business school has the resources to closely monitor and record the actions of a random visitor who comes to campus months before the next application deadline.
2. Work on your sales pitch.
If your reasons for pursuing an MBA seem odd, if your timing is all wrong, if your career goals are overly ambitious, there is no better way to find that out than by talking to a current MBA student who is dealing with a live marketplace.
You want to come out of a campus visit feeling like your personal pitch – your reasons for applying, your goals, and your passions – has either been validated or improved.
3. Start composing your application.
We don’t mean literally, of course, but you should absolutely do some thinking about what the MBA program in question really cares about. Knowing that Wharton has an ongoing focus on student community and globalism helps you when you go to the Penn campus. Now you can ask questions, visit classes, take tours, and explore programs with those key themes in mind. You will leave your visit with a better idea of how you fit with that school and also with some specific conversations and interests that you will want to mention in your essays.
These are three simple suggestions, but they will make a big difference on your campus visit. If you stay relaxed about your own need to “perform,” it will allow you to stress test your goals and start building a powerful application story, even as you are checking things off your own wish list.
About the Author
I am Atul Jose, Founding Consultant of F1GMAT, an MBA admissions consultancy that has worked with applicants since 2009.
For the past 15 years I have edited the application files of admits to the M7 programs: Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Wharton School, MIT Sloan, Chicago Booth, Kellogg School of Management, and Columbia Business School, together with admits to Berkeley Haas, Yale School of Management, NYU Stern, Michigan Ross, Duke Fuqua, Darden, Tuck, IMD, London Business School, INSEAD, SDA Bocconi, IESE Business School, HEC Paris, McCombs, and Tepper, plus other programs inside the global top 30.
My work covers the full MBA application deliverable: career planning and profile evaluation, application essay editing, recommendation letter editing, mock interviews and interview preparation, scholarship and fellowship essay editing, and cover letter editing for funding applications. Full bio with credentials and admit history is here.
I am the author of the Winning MBA Essay Guide, the best-selling essay guide covering M7 MBA programs. I have written and updated the guide annually since 2013, which makes the 2026 edition the thirteenth.
The reason I still write and edit essays every cycle: a good MBA essay carries a real applicant's voice. Writing essays for F1GMAT's Books and Editing essays weekly is how I stay calibrated to what current admissions committees respond to.
Contact me for school selection, career planning, essay strategy, narrative development, essay editing, interview preparation, scholarship essay editing, or guidance documents for recommendation letters.