Perhaps unhealthy is too strong. I was afraid she would make herself crazy with this decision.
It is exasperating to me that after all the visits, applications, interviews and waiting that she wants to visit them again. My wife and I are tired of the visits. My daughter enjoys them. Perhaps solo travel is the answer. Thanks for all the affirmations that solo travel is ok.
Her peers are trouble, only know Ivies. Another problem is US News & World report. She thinks she is settling, if she doesn’t take the highest rated. Visits may counter these fallacies.
The family drove to her accepted ED college last week. She was on her own the entire time. She’s going back this weekend for another overnight program. Because the college is 400 miles away, we drove the first time and will drive again this weekend. After we dropped her off, she was on her own the first time and will be again this weekend. Between now and August, she will still need to learn how to navigate Amtrak on her own.
I’m with esdad697, I too am tired of visiting schools. D is insisting on two more “admitted student” presentations. One is a school that I have not visited so I’m going with her but its not an overnight unfortunately. It is, however, a 5 hour drive, so a hotel and several meals are in order. If the financial package wasn’t the best on the table, I might have refused. The other she will have to take a bus which makes the normal 3.5 hour trip more like 5 but she’ll going to go alone. This college search process was the first time D has travelled by herself and I agree that its great practice for the upcoming year.
Someone mentioned Hertz renting cars to 18 year olds with memberships (which she does have). Does anyone have experience with hotel reservations without a 21 year old? I was not able to find one where she could check herself in.
USAA members can rent from Hertz without an underage driver surcharge. Hertz also has something called a “Gold Family Program”, so if one or both parents are Hertz Gold, their child can sign up and avoid the surcharge.
Very glad to learn about these underage rental tricks. One worry I have had is my kids getting stuck somewhere and not being able to rent a car or hotel room. It hasn’t happened yet, but it is a worry.
I loved visits, but I am weird. I think an in depth visit for accepted student events where the schools are really putting it all out are an excellent way for a student to see the best in the lesser known schools. Ultimately my son chose Carnegie Mellon over Harvard in part over the way they handled those events. He had no regrets about that choice BTW - graduated a few years ago and now has his dream job.
I was hoping to send my daughter alone on an overnight visit next week, but flights are too expensive ($500-600rt) it’s a 16 hour bus ride, and we can drive there in half that time. So I’m going to. Between gas, food and hotel, it be around $250-$300.
S flew alone to his admitted student weekend (several hours away). He had visited the school twice before, once with me and once alone. I will admit that he is a very experienced traveler and can navigate transportation better than most adults.
From a student perspective, I practically had to beg my mom to do admitted student events with me! She flew me out to Houston in Feb to visit Rice for Vision, but I’ve been flying alone for quite some time now so it wasn’t a big deal.
She’s been extremely removed from my entire college process, mostly of my own choice. It doesn’t really bother me that she’s not into all of the visits. Like she says, it’s me who will be attending anyway, she won’t be there during college!
Your daughter is the one who will be spending 4 years at whatever college she chooses – so if she feels another visit in order to make her choice, then the visit is worthwhile. Now that she has been admitted she probably has practical questions and concerns that she might not have thought about at the time she was visiting the first time around
My kids did ALL of their college visits on their own, both pre and post admission. It helped that they were interested in colleges near major urban centers – places that were readily accessible by public transit from airports. But as others have mentioned, the transportation issues are also important: if getting to & from the campus involves changing planes and a 2 hour bus ride, and if the student finds that to be a huge hassle – better to discover that out now than have it become a source of frustration after the student starts college.
My thought is that if they’re old enough to be in college, they’re old enough to get there by themselves. If you go, it’s for you not for your kid.
D’12 went by herself. D’15 will be going to 3 in a row (going from one to the next to the third and then coming home) by herself. I’ve planned the travel, but she’ll navigate it on her own.
She went on her own and it was fine. Given they had some reserved cars on the train, it was definitely the right way to go. The ride gave her further opportunity to meet her peers. She also saw how easy it was to make the trip.
D’s visit was a 3 day affair and H drove her and 2 other accepted students from her high school. They had a lot of parent programming which H wanted to attend, but honestly he said he never saw D once during the 3 days. I think the students are fine on their own but it can be an opportunity for the parent to get to know the school. We were certain D was going to attend so H saw it as an opportunity to get acquainted with the school.