Start early. Especially if you're looking out of state. We did our first tours in OCT of my kid's sophomore year and quite honestly, I feel we are running out of time to get many more in. For us, fall is a wash because of high school volleyball taking up every FRI night so a weekend trip is out of the question. We did miss a match to make that trip to Colorado to tour CU, CSU, and Mines as sophomore because it also coincided with a Monday district day off. I didn't feel like we could it again this year with her being on varsity and the coach being pissy about missing games. Also, official tours don't happen every day and Saturday tour dates are hit and miss. There are usually no tours on spring break or other holidays so you need to miss school or go during the summer. Our summer is already pretty booked but we are going to try to squeeze in a trip to the University of Vermont the day after AISD lets out.