Georgia College Visits From North Atlanta: When to Make It a Day Trip—and When to Stay Overnight

The first college tour often feels more complicated than it needs to be.

There is the reservation, the drive, parking, the admissions presentation, the walking tour, perhaps a meeting with a department—and then the temptation to squeeze another college into the same afternoon because everyone is already in the car.

For North Atlanta families, a better strategy may be to take advantage of geography.

Students in Johns Creek, Alpharetta, Milton, Cumming and Suwanee can reach an unusually wide range of Georgia colleges without getting on a plane or spending several nights on the road. Kennesaw State, Georgia Gwinnett College, Georgia Tech and the University of North Georgia can all fit naturally into day trips for many local families. The University of Georgia is far enough away that an overnight stay can sometimes turn the trip into something more useful: not simply a campus tour, but a chance to see what living in Athens might actually feel like.

And that is ultimately the point of visiting.

A college should look different after two or three hours on the ground than it did on a website.

UGA: This is the visit worth slowing down for

The University of Georgia is probably the easiest Georgia college visit to justify turning into an overnight trip.

UGA’s formal campus visit lasts about two hours, beginning with an admissions presentation and continuing with a combination of bus and walking tours. Registration is required, and space is limited. Families who cannot secure a scheduled visit can use the university’s self-guided tour instead.

The official tour is useful, but Athens deserves more than two hours.

Afterward, walk through North Campus and out toward downtown. Have lunch somewhere students actually eat. Walk a few blocks without a tour guide. Look at the distance between the academic core and the surrounding neighborhoods. If your teenager is interested in a particular school or college within UGA, see whether a separate visit can be arranged there as well; several academic units offer their own tours.

UGA Visitors Center.

This is also where staying overnight begins to make sense.

A family arriving from North Fulton or Forsyth County for an early-morning tour can avoid turning the day into a predawn commute. An afternoon visit can work the other way: tour campus, spend the evening in Athens and drive home the following morning.

For hotel searches, concentrate first on downtown Athens, where families can walk between restaurants, the edge of North Campus and much of the city’s college-town activity. Five Points is another useful area if the goal is a quieter stay that still feels connected to UGA.

There is one date worth checking before booking anything: football Saturday. UGA’s Visitors Center is closed on home football Saturdays, and Athens hotel prices and availability can look very different on major event weekends.

For a prospective student, that first quiet evening in Athens may tell you almost as much as the official tour.

Georgia Tech: See the campus, then see Midtown

Georgia Tech presents a different kind of college visit because there is no real boundary between understanding the school and understanding Atlanta.

The university offers in-person, virtual and self-guided options for prospective first-year students. Tech also makes an important point that anxious applicants may appreciate: demonstrated interest is not considered in admission. You do not need to make a campus visit to prove that you want to attend.

Georgia Tech Admission

That means the visit can concentrate on something more useful: fit.

Tech sits in Midtown, and families should resist the urge to leave immediately after the admissions session. Walk beyond the formal tour route. See Tech Square. Look at the surrounding streets and MARTA access. Have lunch nearby. Consider what it would mean to attend a residential university embedded in the center of a major city rather than on an isolated college campus.

Some Georgia Tech visit sessions combine an admissions presentation with a self-guided walking tour. For those events, the university recommends arriving early enough to park and check in; visitor parking is not necessarily free or validated.

Georgia Tech Undergraduate Admission

For most North Atlanta families, Georgia Tech does not require a hotel. That is part of its appeal as a college-search trip: it is close enough to revisit.

An overnight stay becomes more reasonable when a family wants to combine the tour with a second day in Midtown or Downtown Atlanta, attend a special admissions program, or simply allow a student to experience the neighborhood after the workday ends. If you do stay, Midtown is the obvious base. There is little reason to book far away and spend the college visit sitting in Atlanta traffic.

Kennesaw State: First make sure you tour the right campus

Kennesaw State may be one of the easiest visits for families on the North Atlanta side of metro Atlanta, but there is one mistake worth avoiding before you leave home.

KSU has two primary campuses, in Kennesaw and Marietta, and the campus you should visit depends on the student’s intended major.

The university’s standard tours include a roughly 30-minute information session followed by a 60-minute walking tour, and KSU explicitly tells prospective students to check where their major is located before choosing a campus.

Kennesaw State University

For families in Cumming, Alpharetta or Milton, this is usually a straightforward day trip. That makes KSU particularly useful early in the college-search process. There is relatively little cost or logistical commitment involved, and a student who has never toured a university can begin learning what to look for before the family starts traveling farther.

Do not rush the visit simply because home is nearby. KSU has become a very large university, and understanding the scale, campus layout and difference between its Kennesaw and Marietta locations matters.

An overnight hotel stay normally makes little sense for North Atlanta residents unless the visit is tied to an early special event, athletics, orientation or another reason to remain in the area.

That is money better saved for the campuses farther from home.

Georgia Gwinnett College: One of the easiest campuses to investigate thoroughly

For students in Johns Creek, Suwanee, Duluth, Sugar Hill and other parts of Northeast Gwinnett, Georgia Gwinnett College may be close enough that families overlook the value of taking a formal tour.

It is worth doing anyway.

GGC offers guided tours throughout the fall, spring and summer semesters, generally with morning and afternoon options on weekdays. A visit begins with a short information session followed by a student-led walking tour of the 261-acre campus. Prospective students must register in advance and can bring up to two guests. A self-guided option takes about an hour.

Georgia Gwinnett College

The proximity creates an advantage families do not always have with college visits: you can come back.

A student can tour once during the early search, return for an academic program or event, and later visit again after admission without building a weekend around each trip.

For North Atlanta Star readers in the Northeast Gwinnett corridor, there is almost never a practical reason to book a hotel just for a GGC campus tour.

UNG: Don’t overlook the campus already in Cumming

For South Forsyth families, one of the most convenient college visits may require almost no travel at all.

The University of North Georgia operates a Cumming campus that serves roughly 1,000 students and offers both associate pathways and bachelor’s-degree options. UNG is located about 20 minutes north of Alpharetta and less than an hour from Downtown Atlanta.

University of North Georgia

That makes it an especially useful visit for students considering whether they really want the traditional residential-campus experience in the first place.

College planning often begins with an assumption that leaving home is part of the package. Visiting a nearby commuter campus gives families another point of comparison. A student may decide that the big residential university is exactly what he or she wants. Another may realize that starting closer to home, reducing housing costs or taking a different path toward a degree has advantages.

Either realization is useful.

One college in a day is usually enough

There is a temptation to treat college touring like sightseeing: UGA in the morning, another campus after lunch, home by dinner.

That makes the trip efficient. It does not necessarily make it useful.

Georgia State advises visiting families to consider only one university or college in a day so students have enough time to absorb the experience rather than rushing from one appointment to another.

That is sensible advice even outside Atlanta. A campus tour is only the organized part of a college visit. The revealing part often happens afterward. Would your student voluntarily spend another hour walking around? Did the campus feel too large or surprisingly comfortable? Could he imagine eating there every day? Living in the dorms? Crossing the campus in August heat or February rain? Did she seem interested in the students around her—or relieved when it was time to leave?

Those reactions can disappear when the family is racing toward another admissions appointment.

Visit before senior year if you can

Families also do not need to wait until applications begin.

Sophomore year is not too early for an informal campus visit, particularly when the university is nearby. Junior year is an excellent time to start touring seriously. By then, a student usually knows enough about his academic interests to ask better questions but still has time to change direction.

North Atlanta’s location makes this easier than it is for families in much of the country.

Visit Kennesaw State on an available tour day. Spend an afternoon at Georgia Gwinnett. See the difference between Georgia Tech and downtown Georgia State. Visit UNG in Cumming. Then make Athens the first true college road trip.

By the time a family begins spending money on flights and hotels for colleges outside Georgia, the student may already know whether she prefers urban or traditional, enormous or intimate, close to home or far away.

• Where North Atlanta’s High School Graduates Actually Go to College
• Atlanta’s Universities Are Increasingly Rewriting What “Elite” Means
• Free Tuition in North Atlanta: What Families Actually Qualify For (and What’s Not Free)
• Could North Atlanta Benefit From the Tech Reset?

About the Author

Tsvi Jolles

Author, Editor & Publisher

Tsvi Jolles is the author of seven books and the founder and publisher of North Atlanta Star. He has lived in Cumming for almost a decade.

Explore Tsvi Jolles's books → View profile About North Atlanta Star