Among those who visited at least one campus, only one-quarter reported that they found nothing that adversely influenced their perceptions about a particular school. The overwhelming majority of students reported a variety of factors that they found negative or discouraging about the colleges they visited. Reasons most frequently cited about what aspects of the campus visit "turned them off" toward certain schools included: school too large (9 percent); campus appearance not appealing (8 percent); small campus (8 percent); out-dated dorms (8 percent); not clean - dorms and campus (7 percent); unfriendly atmosphere or discourteous, unfriendly students (6 percent).

By clustering factors associated with size (too large, small), campus (campus appearance not appealing, out-dated dorms, not clean) and location (rural location/urban, big city campus), we found that on a net basis, size was a negative factor for 19 percent of students, the campus for 16 percent, location for 9 percent.