Help me plan our spring break visits

[Anonymous]

You could consider a one way car rental. Or come back via Skidmore and Bard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You could consider a one way car rental. Or come back via Skidmore and Bard.

Or take Vermonter back from Burlington. Vermonter also stops near Dartmouth (WRJ), Amherst (Northampton), and Wesleyan (Meriden).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You could consider a one way car rental. Or come back via Skidmore and Bard.

I haven't specifically visited these colleges, but to visit schools in New England/New Jersey you could take the Accela train up to Boston, rent a car, and then drive back roughly along the 95 corridor. I would do New England as a separate trip during spring break, and then do a 3-4 day weekend to do a PA/Eastern OH/upstate NY loop.

When you are trying to visit multiple colleges, pick the three most important to do a formal information session & tour at and work your timing around that. Drive the night before to the school with the tour and stay nearby. Have breakfast, go to the session & tour, eat lunch at the student union, and then hit the road to the next place. If there is another school nearby, do an informal drive through/walk through if you can, but don't try to time formal tours for everything. For my DC1 (looking at engineering schools) we did a spring break trip timed specifically to visit Purdue's big info day. Looped through PA/OH/WV/MD and hit 3 planned formal tours, 1 unplanned (timing happened to work) and drove by/ate lunch at 4 other schools. The other schools weren't specifically high on the list and we could have skipped them if overtired (and the last two were drive bys, not walk-arounds) but just seeing all of the variety in campuses was really informative and helped with understanding other schools of interest that we couldn't visit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You could do Wesleyan, then Conn College then Dartmouth on a Saturday. Based on the little you have said about DD, I think she will like Wes better than Conn College.

This is an interesting idea. If we were to do one trip, we could do Home-Wesleyan-Conn College-Dartmouth-UVM-Home (is 4 too much?)

OR

Home-Syracuse-Ithaca-Cornell-Home

I am leaning toward one trip with me. DH is taking her to Oberlin and Keyon in a few weeks. He's not going to like letting go of all of the spring break visits but I think both of us trying to do visits is going to be too much.

I’m from CT and went to Conn. I would drive to Mystic, CT and spend the night. Then do Conn and Wesleyan - you really could do both in one day. Then head up to Dartmouth and then move to Burlington and do UVM. Burlington was fun when we visited last Spring Break - still cold but great restaurants. Also, look at the tour schedules. That is key. It dictated the order in which we did our visits for Spring Break. Availability fills up quickly during that time frame, so check back often if dates/times aren’t listed yet.

This, tours fill up particularly quickly for March/April as lots of people visit over high school spring breaks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You could consider a one way car rental. Or come back via Skidmore and Bard.

I haven't specifically visited these colleges, but to visit schools in New England/New Jersey you could take the Accela train up to Boston, rent a car, and then drive back roughly along the 95 corridor. I would do New England as a separate trip during spring break, and then do a 3-4 day weekend to do a PA/Eastern OH/upstate NY loop.

When you are trying to visit multiple colleges, pick the three most important to do a formal information session & tour at and work your timing around that. Drive the night before to the school with the tour and stay nearby. Have breakfast, go to the session & tour, eat lunch at the student union, and then hit the road to the next place. If there is another school nearby, do an informal drive through/walk through if you can, but don't try to time formal tours for everything. For my DC1 (looking at engineering schools) we did a spring break trip timed specifically to visit Purdue's big info day. Looped through PA/OH/WV/MD and hit 3 planned formal tours, 1 unplanned (timing happened to work) and drove by/ate lunch at 4 other schools. The other schools weren't specifically high on the list and we could have skipped them if overtired (and the last two were drive bys, not walk-arounds) but just seeing all of the variety in campuses was really informative and helped with understanding other schools of interest that we couldn't visit.

This is helpful, thank you. Both me and my daughter get overwhelmed/tired pretty easily so it’s a good idea to plan 3 different tours on 3 days and do informal if they fit. We also have family in Boston (although she’s not interested in any Boston schools). Now I just have to plan a route that makes the most sense.

[Anonymous]

I’d have my husband rent a car one way to Burlington via Ithaca, maybe Hamilton, and Skidmore. He flies down to DC in morning from Burlington. After you know he’s back, you fly up to Burlington in afternoon. DD spends day alone in Burlington but other child is confirmed cared for. Then you and DD do train route back. Or DH drives your car and you drive it back, depending on whether you like driving.

[Anonymous]

We didn’t find walking around on our own to be helpful at all. The best are when there is a tour and an info session but at least a tour to make it worthwhile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d have my husband rent a car one way to Burlington via Ithaca, maybe Hamilton, and Skidmore. He flies down to DC in morning from Burlington. After you know he’s back, you fly up to Burlington in afternoon. DD spends day alone in Burlington but other child is confirmed cared for. Then you and DD do train route back. Or DH drives your car and you drive it back, depending on whether you like driving.

That's a good idea!

I also just thought we could all go to my mothers in Boston, leave other DC there and both take DD to Dartmouth, Conn, Wesleyan and UVM. Lotta driving and a little backwards but it might work.

[Anonymous]

On a side note, Dartmouth, UVM, Cornell and Wesleyan give little to no merit aid. Not sure about Vassar, but given the admit rate I have a feeling merit aid is limited.

[Anonymous]

We saw four schools over about 7 days of spring break a couple years ago and she was burned out after two. I would hesitate to overprogram. I would visit schools that are close together and/or early favorites and/or where she is most likely to be accepted. I would not visit reaches or schools you can’t afford until/unless she is accepted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d have my husband rent a car one way to Burlington via Ithaca, maybe Hamilton, and Skidmore. He flies down to DC in morning from Burlington. After you know he’s back, you fly up to Burlington in afternoon. DD spends day alone in Burlington but other child is confirmed cared for. Then you and DD do train route back. Or DH drives your car and you drive it back, depending on whether you like driving.

That's a good idea!

I also just thought we could all go to my mothers in Boston, leave other DC there and both take DD to Dartmouth, Conn, Wesleyan and UVM. Lotta driving and a little backwards but it might work.

That’s a good idea. IMHO Conn College (and maybe Dartmouth) doesn’t fit in with the other schools on her list. But I guess it’s good to explore different options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d have my husband rent a car one way to Burlington via Ithaca, maybe Hamilton, and Skidmore. He flies down to DC in morning from Burlington. After you know he’s back, you fly up to Burlington in afternoon. DD spends day alone in Burlington but other child is confirmed cared for. Then you and DD do train route back. Or DH drives your car and you drive it back, depending on whether you like driving.

That's a good idea!

I also just thought we could all go to my mothers in Boston, leave other DC there and both take DD to Dartmouth, Conn, Wesleyan and UVM. Lotta driving and a little backwards but it might work.

That’s a good idea. IMHO Conn College (and maybe Dartmouth) doesn’t fit in with the other schools on her list. But I guess it’s good to explore different options.

Do you think that Ithaca College fits in ?

Regardless, OP seems to be open-minded to options an taking advantage of proximity.

[Anonymous]

OP, it would be very easy to see Cornell, Ithaca, Colgate, Syracuse and Hamilton in one weekend. If you are seeing the other NY schools, I would definitely add Colgate and Ham.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On a side note, Dartmouth, UVM, Cornell and Wesleyan give little to no merit aid. Not sure about Vassar, but given the admit rate I have a feeling merit aid is limited.

Extremely slim to none chance she’ll get into Dartmouth or Cornell so if we see one of those it’s just for fun. My data shows that UVM gives good merit aid. You’re probably right about Wesleyan and Vassar. I want to make at least one visit in this trip a visit to schools that give good merit aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d have my husband rent a car one way to Burlington via Ithaca, maybe Hamilton, and Skidmore. He flies down to DC in morning from Burlington. After you know he’s back, you fly up to Burlington in afternoon. DD spends day alone in Burlington but other child is confirmed cared for. Then you and DD do train route back. Or DH drives your car and you drive it back, depending on whether you like driving.

That's a good idea!

I also just thought we could all go to my mothers in Boston, leave other DC there and both take DD to Dartmouth, Conn, Wesleyan and UVM. Lotta driving and a little backwards but it might work.

That’s a good idea. IMHO Conn College (and maybe Dartmouth) doesn’t fit in with the other schools on her list. But I guess it’s good to explore different options.

Do you think that Ithaca College fits in ?

Regardless, OP seems to be open-minded to options an taking advantage of proximity.

I am VERY open minded - I’d like her to look at everything from Clark/UMass to UVM to Brown. She’s similarly open minded (Syracuse/Ithaca to Dartmouth) but has a random strong opinion on some schools; like Brandies is a hard no. Rochester hard no. Amherst hard no. Won’t consider women’s colleges. And some of her hard no’s are silly like she heard from someone that the food is terrible. But once my kid makes a decision like that she’s never in her entire life changed her mind so I’m taking her word for it.