Are gas prices affecting your college visit plans?

Parents Forum
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<p>I am tearing my hair out trying to budget D's college visit trips this summer, is anyone else having the same thoughts with gas prices going higher and higher? We are starting to talk to other parents of juniors who are interested in the same schools to try and organize possible car pools to campuses. Some parents are even considering renting Priuses or other high MPG cars for the longer trips instead of driving their gas guzzling SUV's, or looking for bargain mid-week airfares to fly to a campus and back in a day (assuming the school can transport you to/from the airport). Any other ideas out there?</p>

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<p>I know in the past Amtrak offered a two for one deal for a student and parent visiting colleges.</p>

3

<p>WOW - I found a link, thanks!!!</p>

<p>Campus</a> Visit -- Amtrak 2 for 1 Deal</p>

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<p>My mom is having a fit about all the colleges I want to go visit, so I've found these resources:</p>

<p>1) An article written by a student about how to make the most of your campus visit:
Make</a> the Most of Your Campus Visit | myUsearch blog</p>

<p>2) College confidential's campus visit reports: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/visits/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/visits/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Hope this helps!</p>

5

<p>We're doing another review of D's list, and find ourselves eliminating some schools based on distance and travel costs. With our other kids, we were quck to jump in the car for a college-visit adventure.</p>

<p>We have learned how miserable it is to spend 8 hours in a car to travel to pick up a kid from college for a holiday or for another reason - which was bad enough by itself, before you factor in a $100+ gas bill per visit. </p>

<p>We've therefore suggested that D has to be able to articulate why any distant-school on the list has a better program than a closer school, before we spend a few hundred dollars on any overnight college visit. Since she's also done a few of those 8-hour car trips with us to see a sibling who is at a school a few hundred miles away, she understands why we're hoping she finds a school to her liking that is closer.</p>

6

<p>Advice: Bite the bullet. When you're thinking of spending many tens of thousands over four years, why fret over a few hundred now, a few hundred that may help you and kid make a better decision?</p>

<p>Trust me, it only gets worse once they start...</p>

<p>Good luck, and please take the time to ENJOY the visits. Check out cafes. Check out interesting stores. Do some sightseeing. </p>

<p>It is all too easy to see these trips as one mad rush from campus to campus. And in the end, it is all a blur. </p>

<p>I remember when we visited UVA 5 years ago (hard to admit..) and how well we remember it because we made an event out of it, and even stayed at the colonnade.</p>

7

<p>The farther-away schools are still an admissions bargain. If you can't visit before acceptances, maybe you can after.</p>

8

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<p>Depends where. DD's college is FAR away (in CA) and costs as much as Boston University. Not exactly an admissions bargain. It is costing us TWICE as much to fly her home this year as last. Yikes.</p>

9

<p>I found that Amtrak deal impossible to actually use. The Web site would not accept the promotion code, and when I called on the phone - I tried several times - there was no point at which I could enter that particular code. It's all automated on the phone, no live person. If you can figure out how to make it work, let us know.</p>