s/o Worst college towns?
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Anonymous
Shuttles are great until your kid's flight is delayed and doesn't land until midnight or 2 am and the shuttles have stopped running. Then you are out $150+ in whatever cab/uber/lyft you can get at that hour. As it is my kid would have 2 plane rides for any school like that, then to add a 1-2 hour car ride, made it no for us. As it is the have a 4 hour flight and then a 1 hour flight, but they are only 5-10 mins from the airport. Sometimes the layover is 4+ hours so you leave home at 3:45am (6:45 am time at school) and it's 6/6:30pm when they get to the dorm. So us personally were not willing to do places that would then add 2 hours of waiting for shuttle/car/uber and then the ride. |
Anonymous
Well that will be awesome for Purdue students. Assuming they can get to ORD or DTW from there makes kids life so much simpler |
Anonymous
My Cornell kids enjoyed.... Skiing within 30 minutes Access to one of the nicest lakes in the Northeast Hiking at several of the best parks on the East Coast RT Jones golf course on campus One of the top Farmers Markets in NY State every weekend. Buses running every da to/from NYC Several buses per day to/from the DMV during breaks. Dozens of wineries and distilleries Great restaurants and bars off campus Perennial top 10 hockey team |
Anonymous
| The people putting down New Haven probably haven't visited in decades. Lots of great pizza and restaurants, live music, etc. |
Anonymous
Wow, busses & hiking. Not many schools with that kind of excitement. |
Anonymous
I'm sorry, where would be preferable? Palo Alto is a pretty nice place. |
Anonymous
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Baton Rouge, LA
Tucson, AZ Baltimore, MD South Central, LA (USC) |
Anonymous
Yes, used to be one of the top locations in country to go to college. |
Anonymous
For sure! The flights from West Lafayette (LAF) are to ORD and done in partnership with American and United Airlines, so plenty of connections. I believe the airport plans to expand to further routes (hopefully DTW, which it used to have flights to years ago), but is in the process of building a bigger airport terminal to handle those flights. As a previous post mentioned, having such flights avoids the risk of getting stuck somewhere without a shuttle, so it'll be great |
Anonymous
This is great, but be aware that those small flights out of O’Hare tend to get cancelled at the drop of a hat, especially in December and January, when it’s snowy. I say this as someone who’s wasted entirely too much time hanging out in that airport trying to get home for the holidays. |
Anonymous
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Where is Lehigh? That’s the worst college town I’ve seen with the shut down factories and the poverty, contrasted with the wealthy college kids. Yuck.
Poughkeepsie doesn’t belong on this list. Cute area (other than some parts of the city of Poughkeepsie) and the Hudson River is beautiful. If you need more than that, hop on the train and go into the city. Someone must have been rejected by Vassar. |
Anonymous
| Anyone putting college park down hasn’t visited in years. The areas adjacent to the campus where the kids hang out is not bad at all. Further up is drab but kids wouldn’t be going that far anyway. |
Anonymous
Oh, I get it. My kid connects thru DTW on a "small plane". Have had random issues when weather doesn't even seem to really be the issue. Had "the small plane cannot keep itself cool and it's 98+ degrees out and 120+ inside the plane (I know because was with kid in Aug and they actually boarded then got us off) So what is a 45 min flight got us there 4 hours late. Put that with the waittime between flights and we could have done the 6 hour drive from Detroit and gotten there faster (yes it was 8 hours from when we landed in DTW until we got to a destination 6 hours away). Also had in winter---oh your 2pm connection today is cancelled (no apparent weather issues). And all of the other flights today (3 more) and 4 more tomorrow morning are "full", so here's your seat tomorrow night at 9:45pm (30+hours later). Good luck finding a hotel room for an under 21yo and no we won't help. |
Anonymous
That's very true- and as the other post mentioned, getting a hotel as an under 21 can be impossible. I'd say that Purdue, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and UW Madison are lucky in that they have airline service to their local airport connecting to big hubs, but also have regular, fairly reasonable shuttles to/from several airports. For example, if your flight from ORD to CMI or LAF was cancelled, you could just pay ~$50 to hop on a shuttle for a few hours, direct from the airport to the university. Definitely not as convenient or quick as the flight, but a crucial back-up option to have (in my opinion). On the other hand, some cities like Ithaca or State College also have a small airport, but are located many hours away from any other large airport. If you're flying to ITH or SCE and the small flight gets cancelled, you're probably just stuck wherever you're connecting without a whole lot of options to get to town. |
Anonymous
I've learned which hotels at my kid's transfer city will allow under 21 to check in. Found one last spring break when DTW got slammed with a mini blizzard. I planned ahead and did it 8 hours ahead---had to book under adult Hotel account and send a written approval to the manger, then they approved it. Was so glad a did, when 4 hours after the storm hit, my kid was finally let off the plane (sat on runway for over 3 hours). At that point there were not many rooms left, and certainly not at a hotel that would allow checkin. So now I know the hotel to use and the amazing manager who will assist if at all possible. But yes, it's a royal pain in the ass. I think it has something to do with if there is a minibar in the room, which is ridiculous---take the damn mini bar out or let me sign a waiver for my kid. But there's 8" of snow and airport is closed I'd prefer my 18 yo female not spend the night alone in the airport |