What's the best route to visit these 5 colleges: UVA, Richmond, W&M, Wake Forest, UNC-Chapel Hill?

[Anonymous]

Starting from DC. Does this make sense? I am trying to do it in the fewest number of days possible.

Day 1 - AM: Leave DC early, AM tour of UVA, PM tour of Richmond
Day 2 - AM: Wm & Mary (as early as possible), PM: UNC-Chapel Hill - spend the night as close to Wake Forest as possible. Not sure if there's enough time between the end of the earliest W&M tour and the start of the latest UNC tour to make this work.
Day 3 - Wake Forest, then back to DC

Too ambitious?

Any tips for seeing these 5, please let me know. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

I don't mind the routing, but that seems extremely ambitious. I'd be cranky AF by the time I got to Wake Forest.

[Anonymous]

If you drove to UVA at night, could you see UVA, Richmond and W&M in one day and then drive to UNC that night? I prefer to drive at night in the summer so I think I would prefer it this way.

[Anonymous]

UNC is a super hard admit out of state. Unless your DC is a legacy, maybe skip that one? Or add a day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't mind the routing, but that seems extremely ambitious. I'd be cranky AF by the time I got to Wake Forest.

Oh, for sure (I'm the OP) - but we really are having a hard time finding a gap of more than 3 days when you try to coordinate the schedules of two adults and two teens and don't include a Sunday. (I think visiting campuses on a Sunday is a waste of time). Would starting with WF and doing it all in reverse make a difference? I'm guessing probably not.

[Anonymous]

From DC?

Is there a reason you need to do this all in three days?

I mean you could do a day trip to UVA, and then another day trip to Richmond. Or you could do Charlottesville one day and Richmond the next. Then do the others in separate trips.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UNC is a super hard admit out of state. Unless your DC is a legacy, maybe skip that one? Or add a day.

Good point. I mainly had it on there because it's so close to WF and because my BFF lives there and I haven't seen her since before Covid, but you're right - might be a waste of time. Do they consider demonstrated interest? That might be the only reason to visit.

[Anonymous]

I think you need to make this more than one trip if you only have three days at a time. My experience is that most schools offer only a couple of tours per day, and usually not later than 2pm. Your kids are likely to mix the schools all up if you are only on campus for a couple of hours each or see more than two (or even one) per day.

You can check the common data set for each school to see if they consider interest.

[Anonymous]

Dang, just checked UNC-Chapel Hill on Naviance for our school. Average accepted student was 4.37 GPA, 1547 SAT. By comparison, average student from our school accepted to Harvard was 4.3 GPA, 1528 SAT. I had no idea it was so competitive for out of state.

[Anonymous]

We did this tour with a few extras when I was looking at college years ago. It was so hot, we were all cranky. Especially my mom. Really shaped her opinion of the schools. Most of the campuses were empty in the summer, so the tours all kind of blurred into each other, too. We were coming from the Midwest so had to see them in one group, but if you have an option to take a day trip to see Richmond or UVA, I'd take it.

[Anonymous]

Is your kid graduating from a UNC
-favored HS (read: Big 3). Is your kid a legacy?

If no, it’s reaaallly difficult to be accepted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is your kid graduating from a UNC
-favored HS (read: Big 3). Is your kid a legacy?

If no, it’s reaaallly difficult to be accepted.

No and no. So: skip it?

[Anonymous]

Yes skip it

I’d do UVA, W&M and Richmond on this trip and save NC schools for another trip. If you’re set on doing Wake, maybe stop at Davidson and/or Elon while you’re there.

[Anonymous]

We tried to do W&M and Richmond on the same day and missed our tour time. It’s very aggressive to do two on one day.

[Anonymous]

I did this trip twice but without UNC-Chapel Hill for the reasons mentioned -- we went to Davidson one trip and Elon the other. Check the times of the tours -- the difference between a 9:00 a.m./10:00 start and 1:00 /2:00can mean the difference in getting to the next school on time. We substituted self-guided walking tour for one school, but it's not nearly as good as the presentations/guided tours in my opinion.