<p>Pizzagirl,
You’re from the Chicago area, right? If you have an I-Pass you can bring along, it will work on all the toll roads in Massachusetts. The systems are inter-operable. Saves tons of time.</p>
<p>Your sked is quite doable with the exception of adding the ME schools. I’d agree with staying in Waltham - especially right off Route 128 (I-95). You’ll have easy access to Boston and Tufts.</p>
<p>As for BU, I’d suggest that you park (on-street parking is free on Sundays in Boston) and walk around campus. Drop in at the George Sherman Union where there’s a food court to get a sense of student life. You can also visit the relatively new Fitness and Recreation Center on Comm. Ave. by leaving an ID, e.g., license, at the front desk - it’s got a climbing wall and a lazy river. Feel free to talk with students and ask them questions.</p>
<p>Same thing goes with MIT and Harvard - just walk around both campuses (check out the Great Dome - Building 10 - as well as Building 7 a/k/a 77 Mass Ave at MIT and wander around Harvard Yard. Sometimes people-watching can give you an idea of a school’s “flavor.”</p>
<p>While in central MA, you could also check out Amherst’s campus. It’s not all that far.</p>
<p>Have fun!</p>
<p>Bite me, coureur 
and note my admirable restraint to the posts that are telling me to do just that! The point of walking around super-reach campuses with single-digit admission rates is what, again??</p>
<p>I think your schedule is doable, and I second the recommendation above to visity Trinity College in Hartford before flying back out of Bradley.</p>
<p>agree that it’s grueling but doable. we did a similar trip, flying in and out of Boston, with the intention of visiting BU, Brandeis, Tufts, Hampshire, UMass, Colby and Bates. Driving in Boston was not SO terrible, though we did get lost in trying to find Tufts and it was tricky getting from there to Brandeis, but it really was less frustrating than just another fun adventure. End of story – on the drive back to Boston, from Bates, we decided we had a moment to check out Brunswick and that is now where S attends! You never know!</p>
<p>PG–schedule is doable, but traffic is always an issue (it can be easy or a nightmare), especially when you’re going from Tufts to Wellesley or Brandeis and you’re driving in the city and on the Mass Pike on I-95/Rt 128 (right road around Boston). Get your iphone GPS ready to go. I second the recommendation to bring an EZ pass (don’t know what you call it in Chgo. area) it will save you time going out to Worcester. Unless you’re going to Albany when you fly out of the Five-college area, you’ll be leaving from Hartford/Springfield–which really isn’t all that close to Hartford. I wouldn’t recommend going to Trinity, unless you really want to see it. Also, wouldn’t add Maine schools–after a while you’ll find that (at least that was my experience) all the schools start blend together and your attention wanes. Good luck. I enjoyed the trips with my youngest D.</p>
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<p>LOL. I lived in Boston for a while and got used to driving there, but it can be a little hairy if you’re new to it, especially with all the roundabouts and 7-way intersections and such. I remember the first time I drove in Boston, with a Boston native sitting in the back seat giving directions. We got to one particularly complicated high-speed multi-directional intersection, and our native guide said, “Go right but bear left.” To a simple-minded Midwesterner that sounds like an oxymoron, and I think I must have gone left and bore right, or something like that. I swear it took us 20 minutes to navigate back to the right street, because a LOT of streets are not on a grid and there’s a lot of “can’t get there from here” stuff where you can see the road you want to be on but have no means of access. We weren’t in any big hurry, so it was OK. But in and around Boston especially, I’d leave a little extra travel time in case you make a wrong turn.</p>
<p>I myself was at both Brandeis and Wellesley campus earlier this year and I’m fine with navigating the highways. The EZ Pass is a great idea I wouldn’t have thought of, thanks for letting us know, bclintonk!</p>
<p>I think we’re more tour than info-session people, ourselves. The info sessions I’ve seen all sort of blend; the tours are what we really spark to, and then just hanging out.</p>
<p>Now if we could just get some of these places to do tours on Sat and Sun I’d be a real happy camper!</p>
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<p>Well, several of them do offer Saturday tours. Smith, Mt. Holyoke, and Tufts have regularly scheduled Saturday tours. Wellesley says it has tours “most Saturdays” and Brandeis says it has tours on “selected Saturdays.” Most Saturday tours seem to be morning and/or midday so it may be difficult to schedule more than one, but if it works with your arrival it might be nice to get one done over the weekend to ease up some of the pressure on the rest of your schedule. No Sunday tours.</p>
<p>bclintonk,</p>
<p>As someone who was born and raised in the Greater Boston area I am offended by your accurate portrayal of the local population as a bunch of motoring Neanderthals. Newcomers need only remember a few things to survive Boston streets:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Street signs are for tourists, morons and “retahds”. Everybody knows where everything is so why do you need a sign. Ex.: “Fenway Pahk?! It’s right ova deah! What are ya, some kinda retahd?” </p></li>
<li><p>Boston drivers are helpful and supportive. If you’re too timid at an intersection they will courteously toot their horns to encourage you to enter the flow of traffic. Oftentimes the horn honking will be accompanied by a hand gesture suggesting that you’re Number 1 in their book. Please don’t be offended if they use a different finger than you’re used to though. </p></li>
<li><p>Finally, if you’re not sure where you’re headed and you come to a rotary (no one calls them roundabouts), by all means, stare straight ahead and speed up. This will get you through the intersection faster and on your way sooner, because after all, what are ya, some kinda retahd?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>^ vinceh,</p>
<p>LOL. Yes, you’ve captured the spirit perfectly. I came to admire the way Bostonians use driving as a form of artistic expression—free yourself from the bounds of convention and let creativity reign, but with a particularly aggressive “in your face” attitude. As a friend used to say, “In Boston there is no such thing as a moving violation!”</p>
<p>But as much as I admire it in Bostonians, I think they’re outdone by the drivers in Rome and Naples who take a similar approach but elevate it to a whole new level of intensity, speed, and daring. Such artistry!</p>
<p>I can’t wait to drive in Boston and be told continuously and repeatedly that I’m “#1 in their book” by the local drivers. I guess that other finger is just a “Boston dialect,” right? Cool. I love local dialects!</p>
<p>My self-esteem is going to go through the roof, vinceh, having so many strangers tell me how great I am. This is gonna be awesome! Maybe I should make sure to have each of my kids practice driving in Boston so they, too, can get such a warm welcome!</p>
<p>(I love Boston. Just joshin’ ya.)</p>
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<p>There are conventions when driving in Boston–outsiders just have to figure them out. For example, the person turning left when there’s a light but no left turn signal has the right of way. Cars in the rotary have the right of way. Once you get that down, it’s all good. I agree with poster who pointed out that driving in some European cities makes Boston seem tame. Athens was my nightmare and I even knew the alphabet and could read the signage.</p>
<p>At least there are sidewalks in Boston. In Florence there were none, and trying to walk from point A to point B sometimes felt as if we were taking our lives in our hands. Oh, beware jaywalkers, especially in Cambridge.</p>
<p>Definitely doable . . for those that like 2 colleges in one day :-)</p>
<p>Notes here:</p>
<p>Mon: Tufts AM, Brandeis PM: </p>
<p>the travel between these two will be almost all surface streets and a tad confusing, so planning to eat lunch at/near Brandeis will give you more buffer to get lost and collect those “you’re number one” greetings; if you get out near Brandeis early there is a restaurant row in Waltham (where Brandeis is located ) on Moody Street just south of Main (this map has links to Asian Grill or Bison County; many others in the immediate area: [Waltham</a> Restaurants - Boston | Urbanspoon](<a href=“Best Restaurants in India - Zomato”>Best Restaurants in India - Zomato)
From this map click the “zoom in” tool twice, then migrate southwest to see where Brandeis is located</p>
<p>Tue: Wellesley AM, drive out to Clark PM … After Clark, keep going west and get next to Northampton area, spend night there.</p>
<p>This will be a nice leg; Wellesley is a lovely campus and fairly easy to find; going out to Clark is pretty straightforward, then on to Northampton will be nice, too; for a fantastic lunch go to Blue Ginger in Wellesley; expensive and will take time, but it’s a foodie destination (Ming Tsai’s place: [Blue</a> Ginger — Ming Tsai](<a href=“http://www.ming.com/blueginger]Blue”>http://www.ming.com/blueginger)
if you lunch at Clark instead probably best to eat on campus; Worcester is not known for anything culinary (as far as I know) except the hot dog restaurant sometimes shown in the Zippy the Pinhead comics :-)</p>
<p>Wed: Smith, Mt. Holyoke.</p>
<p>What’s not to like!!! it’s the “Happy Valley”; the Haymarket Caf</p>
<p>Pizzagirl: I think it is doable, colleges are close by in MA and you can do two a day.
Add Brown in Providence, Rhode Island. It is a nice place.</p>
<p>Are you planning to go this weekend. I’m flying tonight and will be at MIT till Monday?</p>
<p>We had a long one around 10 days by road covering MA thru Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>And of course, remember the breakdown lane is the passing lane in the state of MA.</p>
<p>One suggestion to make all of the admissions sessions fun (one I only wish I had thought of during our campus tours (now completed). Buzzword bingo.</p>
<p>Everyone here knows that 95% of all admissions presentations go over the same things. In order to keep you and your child listening (especially after a couple days of these) draw up lists of favorite buzzwords admissions people use in these sessions (I’m sure lots of people here can give you plenty of suggestions, if you don’t know them all by now). You listen to the presentation, checking off the words as they use them. When your last one is checked off, ask a question using the work “bingo” to win. For those of you too polite to interrupt, I guess you could nudge the other one and write bingo on your sheet.</p>
<p>Trust me, you’ll need some reason to pay attention by the time Wednesday rolls around.</p>
<p>Aside from the sarchasm above, your tour sounds like a winner. It is not quite as packed as one we just completed (although ours was shorter), but for a dedicated tourer, it should be a good mix of schools for the region.</p>
<p>To give you an idea of how packed a schedule can get in one day, we visited 2 schools in St. Paul on one particular day. Not only did we get 1 hour admissions visits and 1 hour school tours at each campus, but we also got 1 hour meetings with each coach and watched 3.5 hours of practices at 2 different rinks, neither of which were on campus at either school (4-8 miles apart). Between each event, we never had more than 30 minutes. We were beat when we called in pizza at 9 PM back at our hotel by the airport.</p>
<p>No, this is in the spring. But I hope you have a lovely weekend with your daughter! Thanks for the Brown suggestion; however, as I indicated upthread, that level is out of the ballpark.</p>
<p>^^^: I might go back again during the spring break. How about ‘Bentley’? Few of the students go there from DD school every year but don’t know much about it.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl,
Agree with others that it’s western MA or Maine in the time frame you have, but that otherwise, I like the list and the timing. </p>
<p>DH and I have both done two-in-a-day tours. Our MO is that kid and a parent does the tour, then parent does the info session, kid sits in on a class, strolls through the department said kid is considering, talks to a coach/prof, etc. Unfortunately not many schools will do interviews with juniors before May; they are still trying to get the incoming class finalized. If we were in Boston on Sunday before visiting schools, we’d be driving around to various campuses and walking around to get a feel for the place – just in case one was an immediate turn-off, you could forgo that official visit and decide on a tour of another school.</p>