<p>My son had a good suggestion - get in touch with the International Students’ Association at your schools. You can probably find someone willing to give an informal tour or have lunch with your student, particularly on a weekend afternoon. Also, these would be the kids who are most likely to stay on campus during breaks.</p>
<p>Also, he remembered that Wash U’s acceptance notification was about the 26th of March. So, you may want to make that your last stop before the west coast - if it’s a no, you can skip it and keep going!</p>
<p>I think the OP’s son is an American citizen living in a foreign country. But, of course, that doesn’t mean that an Int’l group wouldn’t help him.</p>
<p>“Important March factor- WEATHER. You’ll probably be ok with your southern tier visits, just remember that a late winter snowstorm in the Midwest could affect St. Louis.”</p>
<p>^^I live in St. Louis and would be SCHOCKED if you had a problem with snow in mid March. Wash U’s sping break is March 8th -12th. Blueberry Hill on Delmar would be a fun place to take your son to lunch/dinner.</p>
<p>I would be surprised if the OP had trouble in St. Louis in mid-March…but if there is a snowstorm that is signficant enough to snarl air traffic at other airports…that “could” impact air travel to almost anywhere. My kid was flying to OK City from NC once…no snow or bad weather in EITHER place. BUT the planes couldn’t get to where he was and his flight were canceled. This happened on March 2 last year.</p>
<p>Rice: The Houston Plaza Hilton was lovely, with large suites and friendly staff. Very close to campus too…could have walked, although we knew we would be on our feet all day. Prices when we booked were very reasonable. I genuinely looked forward to returning to our room after a LONG day of touring/info sessions.</p>
<p>Also, I haven’t read each and every post here, but I’d hate to see you drop UT-Austin. The honors programs, particularly Plan II, have an excellent reputation. I’m not sure they’re under the auspices of the regular “top 10%” admissions rule, either. Very good value for a stellar, highly regarded program.</p>
<p>If you want to save some money on hotels, join a large chain and try to stay at only their hotels for your trip. Get their credit card that gives you a free night, a bonus for signing up, and extra points for hotel stays. We have been very happy with Marriott, and found that college visit trips were ideal; in March, they often had available rooms for the lowest amount of points. They also have a current promotion giving extra points for each “stay,” which is ideal with a string of one-nighters!</p>
<p>Such great ideas!!! Yup will definitely try and touch base with the int’l groups. </p>
<p>If we skip Vandy and fly straight from LA to St Louis and then fly to Atlanta, we can perhaps fly to Houston and then drive to Austin. Have to book internal flights. Renting a car is not that cheap either. (we were originally going to drive from St louis - nashville - Atlanta).</p>
<p>This brings back memories! Picking a school while living overseas is a challenge and the campus visit really is important - expat kids don’t have the same level of awareness about colleges - we didnt even get college football on TV and of course there is no in-state favorite school. </p>
<p>I did a similar trip with my oldest over her spring break senior year. We had already toured most of her schools during the previous summer (on two "five schools in a week " roadtrips) but she was still very undecided. She had an invitation to an admitted student weekend at one school and we tacked on a re-visit to another school and a first visit to a school she was deferred at. Even seeing 3 schools in one week was exhausting on jet lag - we flew to Michigan then to Philadelphia and drove to DC then flew back from Philly through Detroit. But we did have time to see family the first weekend and lots of shopping time between school visits so you can probably pull it off! </p>
<p>We visited the school she was deferred at on the day that acceptances were mailed out and they refused to tell her whether she was admitted which was extremely nerve wracking - especially since the notice was by mail and would take 2 weeks to get to China so she would have to call the following week. It left a very bad impression on her.<br>
Another thing to keep in mind is that most of the other visitors will not be seniors and the info sessions are mostly about applying. We only did the info session and tour at the one school - at the other re-visit school my daughter set up an appointment with the specific division she was interested in and we did a tour of those facilities, sat in on a class and did an informal walk around campus. She had asked to speak to a current student but they failed to arrange that - they did take us out to lunch though. This was a school where she had already been accepted but it was a big state school so we were surprised at the personal attention she got once she skipped the admission office. </p>
<p>We booked all our info sessions and tours online - that will help you work out whether your schedule is do-able. Try to pick hotels right on campus if possible - more expensive but will give you a better feel for the campus since you don’t have much time. I dont have specific places because we stayed with friends in St. Louis and Nashville. If the schools have a student Union that rents out rooms that’s always a good choice. Usually the websites will have lists of hotels with the distances to campus.</p>
<p>^^ yup for sure it is very different for these kids. We just will have to make do with the time we have and the worst that can happen is we see fewer colleges and skip the ones in between 2 major ones (SCU and GT). It will be nice to see the surrounding neighborhoods and get a general idea of whether he will be happy to spend 4 years there.</p>
<p>I do want him to see UT Austin too, heard a lot about it. For Comp Sc it is indeed one of the top ones.</p>
<p>The Sheraton downtown Austin is nice enough and fairly close to campus…it’s on 11th street I think. I know we walked to a football game from it.</p>
<p>If that’s not available, my husband’s favorite is the Omni downtown. It’s not as close, but you will probably want to drive your car to campus the day of the tour anyway.</p>
<p>pixeljig – if you don’t get a chance to get to Houston to visit Rice, you can take a look at the virtual tour on Rice’s website. It gives you a good idea of the campus and surrounding area. [Rice</a> University - Virtual Tours](<a href=“http://www.rice.edu/virtualtours/]Rice”>http://www.rice.edu/virtualtours/)</p>
<p>scanned posts so may have been mentioned already, but the driving part looks horrendous, did you check flights using multi-city option… go to kayak or some other website and you just click on multi city and put in each place and times/dates of travel so each stop is part of a loop returning to starting point. alot cheaper than driving and car rentals etc. we did 2 colleges that way, 2 roundtrip tickets for each college would have run about 650+. the multi city allowed us to see both with a ticket price of 350.</p>
<p>As an interesting (or not) aside: yesterday my H and I drove down and took our girls and their friends out to lunch. Met one young man for the first time who for a variety of reasons, he hopped on a train and came to school sight unseen on move in day. He did tour some schools but the one he chose was not one of them. Unlike my girls, his parents seemed to have a hands off approach in his college search. He seems happy as a clam there…and though one of the history girls may be part of the reason I genuinely felt he was sure he had chosen a school that fit him in many ways.</p>
<p>This is quite the trip. I completely understand the crunch–you have to get while the getting’s good, but please keep in mind that seeing colleges when stressed and exhausted is often not “seeing” them at all. Especially with teenagers! One’s mood (and the weather, unfortunately) is often a major influence on campus visitors’ impressions.</p>
<p>Having run an international admissions program before, I know the people who work with students traveling from overseas are usually quite accommodating (arranging a tour on Sunday, etc.). BUT those people are not usually the campus visit people, so make sure you’re talking to the right person in the admissions office. Campus visit is often its own little world. If you can’t find who you need in admissions, contact the international students office on campus (or, as someone brilliantly suggested, the intl students’ org). They understand what you’re going through and will be helpful.</p>
<p>Two other suggestions: Call admissions offices (or just look online) to see if they have any suggested hotels, as many offer discounts for visitors to those campuses. Some also have housing available on their campuses, believe it or not, in an “alumni house” or an inn. Consider bed and breakfasts, as well. Also, you really might want to think about enlisting the help of a professional to work with you to set up this itinerary optimally–it’s stressful and time-consuming to make all these arrangements (and from China, no less) and something’s going to fall through the cracks. Talking with a pro might ease the burden and make sure you get a polished itinerary (plus discounts on rental cars, hotels, etc.) with driving directions and good advice about admissions activities. I think EF Tours might help families do this and I’ve also heard about Collegocity.</p>
<p>Good luck! Even if it’s crazy and stressful, sometimes that’s part of the fun :)</p>
<p>Good advice above about the international folk at the college/unis. OP, I’m not sure if you are expats, but our company has a department of people that work with the expats also helping with family “stuff” above and beyond housing issues and travel back and forth for the employee and family. If your husband is an expat and works for a large company the company may be able to offer assistance or be worth tapping for help with this trip.</p>
<p>Husband has found out that we can do all the internal flying (SF-ST Louis-Atlanta-Houston-LA) for 650 each.</p>
<p>So here is a tentative list:</p>
<p>Fly into SF - Landing March 18th night
Santa Clara - March 19th (Fri)
Fly Friday night to make to Wash U ??
Wash U - Mar 20 (they have tours on Sat 10.30am)
Relax Sunday
G Tech - Monday
Fly to houston Mon night
Rice, UT - Tue/Wed
Fly to LA Wed night
USC - Thurs
Fly out Friday. </p>
<p>Yup, its going to be fine…we have driven NY to Toronto almost nonstop and H has driven from NY to Florida in some record time too. Kids are used to flying. I know this is more flying and then mentally taxing too, but I am so excited to see the places where my kid is going to land up! </p>
<p>We love drive-ins and are craving for some real american food!!</p>
I genuinely felt he was sure he had chosen a school that fit him in many ways.</p>