<p>Can you explain why you can only be bothered to take one week a year to do this? There is spring break, in our state there is a fall break of 5 days, and summer vacation. What kind of work do you do that you can’t (or won’t) take more than one week a year off to do it? Do you really expect to be able to foot the bill for college educations when you don’t want to spend any money on travel expenses (eg, plane tickets for one parent and oldest kid) for some in depth visits? The investment you are presumably talking about making for their education is huge, so the apparent lack of due diligence is kind of astonishing.</p>
<p>Why did OP start this thread? If he has a Gulfstream, he could easily get one of his PAs to take his kids around.</p>
<p>Last month I took D2 to visit one school (I am not good at visiting schools). We flew 2500 miles for one visit. Last week H took her to visit 3 schools in 4 days. </p>
<p>Last summer I sent D2 to a summer program where they took her to visit 5 schools.</p>
<p>From the time our kids were well into their mid-teens, whenever we’d travel somewhere (to see family, or on vacation, etc.), if there was a well-known university in the area, sometimes we’d do a sort of drive through, or use the campus as a place to stop, get out and walk around (if it was a car trip). Our goal was purely to expose them to the different kinds of campuses… rural, urban, large, small, private, state U., etc. Once they got a glimpse of one of each, it gave them an idea of what kind of place they thought they’d feel most comfortable at. We never made a special trip to visit any colleges until the end of D1’s junior year, and we did do a road trip for that, to see six schools, in about eight days. </p>
<p>For instance, I knew neither one of my kids would be interested in Rice (because it’s in the south), but because we have family in Houston, we did do a sort of drive-through, quick look-see, just so they could see how a small campus in an urban area felt. That was one genre of school that was then crossed off the list. There was no reason to go visit other small campuses in urban areas until D1 had created a list of schools she was interested in.</p>
<p>Can you give us an idea of your planned itinerary? That might help us make better suggestions. Yes, it’s quote doable to zip by or theology several schools in Boston or NYC in a day, but after the first few, their eyes will probably start to glaze over, and they might find the future college search. A turn-off rather than a turn-on. That would be a shame.</p>
<p>I believe the passing comment to the gulf stream was quite tongue in cheek.</p>
<p>Sorry. I thought OP had a Gulfstream. I tend to take people more literal.</p>
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<p>Yes, been there. Stayed in the faculty housing of a friend. No, never had the slightest desire to slay a dragon, or go to school there.</p>
<p>I’m afraid I don’t think much of the archetype approach. I’m pretty familiar with several different Big State Us, and looking around UMass does not give one a good idea of what Big State Us look like. Similarly, there are some very different mid-size private universities; looking around Notre Dame, for instance, does not give one an idea of what it would be like to go to Vanderbilt, or Wash U, or Univ. of Chicago–location and environment matter.</p>
<p>Again, to each his own. The most useful visits my kids made were during senior year, when they made appointments with people who could answer specific questions about research opportunities and academic options and sat in on classes of their own choosing. Beware the staged show (or is it Potemkin Village)?</p>
<p>Good luck, Schmaltz.</p>
<p>To defend the OP, our family has always included visiting college campuses as part of our driving trips. We did this before we had children and never stopped. We also enjoy visiting historic or interesting churches. My kids (now 17 and 20) would think a trip like this is perfectly normal.</p>
<p>S visited D in Boston for spring break. In 3.5 days he visited 6 colleges. His idea. Three aren’t on his list; he just wanted to visit.</p>
<p>Schmaltz - We did about 18 schools (give or take) over a 5 month span – and my kids were juniors and this was the “real thing.” We did 5 in a 4 day weekend (3 in DC and 2 in Philly), and we did 8 over a spring break (6 in MA and 2 in OH). It was a LOT, we wound up skipping our last planned 3-day weekend trip (MPLS for Macalester and Carleton) simply because we had all had enough. I think the <em>concept</em> of showing them an urban school, a rural school, dad’s alma mater, etc. is fine, but 25 schools in a trip is just going to be meaningless – even just drive-bys.</p>
<p>I actually think you should do at least one college thoroughly despite your time constraints - I don’t think it hurts for kids to hear early on the info sessions spiel and getting the full tour of at least one campus will give them some ideas about things they may or may not care about.</p>
<p>oops-typed on something that tried to guess what I was saying a few posts above (#44). Was not meaning to say anything about theology, lol.</p>
<p>To clarify, sure, in an urban setting you can do a drive-by of several schools, but remember, this involves (unless you are literally driving in, through or by), parking the car, walking around a bit, perhaps chatting with someone, etc. Looking at the architecture or gardens can be interesting, but it probably wont give much of a feel for the school itself. Lots of schools have gothic architecture. That doesnt really narrow anything down, unless someone wants to major in comparative gargoyles or something.</p>
<p>Schmaltz, you have one in college already, don’t you? What did you do on previous visits? What other parts of the country have you visited with them?</p>
<p>Its a long drive from Boston to Syracuse to NYC. Even without the drive time and food/bathroom breaks, thats a pretty massive plan to see so many schools (or really, so many buildings/campuses) in so little time. Even if all you are doing is pointing out the entrance to the campus, it still should be listed on the Extreme Adventures tv show. Do you plan to sleep?</p>
<p>We did visit 10 colleges the summer before Sophomore year. We did BU, BC, MIT, Harvard, Dartmouth, Cornell, McGill, U of T, Columbia, Princeton within 10 days. Some colleges we did tours, some colleges we just drove by, and some colleges we spent an hour or two and visited the bookstore.
We did accomplish what I was hoping the college visit would do, D2 is now more determined to keep up her grades for chances at 3 top schools.
I’m glad I did that because I won’t have time for a lot of college visits from now till her senior year.</p>
<p>Dr Google hit on another reason for the visits…if somebody gets entranced with one or more colleges, it will provide motivation for studying. Also, I’m guessing senior year is going to be hectic enough without needing to fit in exploratory trips. Surgical visits to schools already accepted to? yes; throw 'em at the wall and see what sticks? no.</p>
<p>DrGoogle, your trip covered a LOT more mileage than this trip is going to involve. This is basically a trip from Syracuse to Boston to NYC to Penn State.</p>
<p>I would go for it. We did a couple of week long power trips and while neither kid ended up choosing a college we saw on those trips, we had a fantastic time. Bring a couple of guide books and write directly in them any impressions/notes. It really helped my kids with the blurring problem of seeing so many schools in a short time. Esp when the guide book contradicted their impressions. Some of the notations were hilarious.</p>
<p>The guidebooks can help if you decide to tweak your list while on the road. A few years ago, I planned an overly ambitious week in DC. After a couple of days, we realized it was not working. The guidebook helped us decide what to keep on our “to do” list. We also dropped a couple of “maybe” schools after actually seeing some schools and reading how they compared to each other.</p>
<p>Have fun. This is the first year in 3 years we are not looking at schools! Just planning the “drop off”!</p>
<p>Good thing about driving by and not doing guided tours/info sessions is that you can change your itinerary any time you want to. Do it until you (and the kids) get tired of it. Tell them to take lots of notes on each so that it will jog their memory when they go back to make their college lists. Between the pics and the notes, you should be able to narrow down a manageable list of choices in the end. You can always go back later for a more in-depth visit to the ones they really liked. Good luck. I think any time a parent puts forth that kind of effort for their child’s education, its never a bad thing.</p>
<p>A problem we found when driving through the northeast is that alot of these colleges aren’t right off the highway. You sometimes have to drive for hours out of your way, and mileage can be misleading when there’s alot of traffic. construction and small towns to go through. It ends up to be a serious pain in the butt to get from point A…to B…to C. And people get really sick of being in the car, especially when they’re sitting in the back seat.</p>
<p>Now you may consider this like getting the job done, as parents we often suck up the miserable and uncomfortable to take care of business. But I wouldn’t be under any illusion whatsoever that the girls are going to consider this as any fun. And maybe your kids are completely different than mine…but several days of relative boredom and endless driving? I hope they have some good books and a DVD player.</p>
<p>I suggest a plan B if things end up like this. Draw up a shorter plan of must see schools, and start a list of schools to skip if things start going badly. Once the kids get miserable, you’ve lost em.</p>
<p>If you really want your kids to remember what they saw and liked, I would suggest a little prep before hand.</p>
<p>Either do an electronic scrapbook…if you and your kids are IPAD types and will take one with you…or do an old fashioned scrapbook. Before the trip, take pictures of key buildings from the websites of the schools you’re most likely to visit. After (or during) the visit, each kid should write their impressions (and label those impressions, by kid.)</p>
<p>Since you’re planning on doing this over the course of 3 summers, and expect to see a number of schools…it is likely the impressions of the earliest schools may be forgotten or jumbled together when it comes time to make a list of actual schools to apply to.</p>
<p>We drove through college campuses as part of family trips from the time our oldest was a preteen…but we didn’t do more than 1 or 2 a trip. Kids also attended a couple of summer programs on college campuses. Oldest kid ended up applying to 6 schools…hadn’t seen 5 of them!</p>
<p>busdriver11 touched on something I was thinking. I lived in the northeast for 15 years, and I never got used to how long it takes to actually get somewhere that looks like a very small distance on a map. I think I could cover half of Texas faster than I could get from Boston to the southern coast of Maine on a nice weekend. I guess that is one reason your plan sounds a bit ambitious to me. (Yes, I know you are not heading for Maine, that was just an example. I’d go to Maine, though.)</p>
<p>"such as Mom embarrassing them by breathing too loud as we walked around campus etc</p>
<p>LOL!</p>
<p>“Can you explain why you can only be bothered to take one week a year to do this? There is spring break, in our state there is a fall break of 5 days, and summer vacation. What kind of work do you do that you can’t (or won’t) take more than one week a year off to do it?”</p>
<p>I’m not the OP, but totally my son who did not prioritize visits; not so much me. Lots of sports stuff going on during breaks. Where he was LAST year this time was a world away.</p>
<p>In the end, we did most of our visits in the last three weekends before yesterdays decision. For him, a much better use of his time… so far…</p>
<p>I don’t know why some people seem upset with Schmaltz, it’s not like he’s going to make his kids PICK a school based on these drive-bys. It’s to give the family the feeling of certain campuses and their locations. Nothing wrong with that. </p>
<p>I think after seeing a few northeastern LACs he and his kids will discover they’re all kinda the same: the quad, the fake Old World architecture, the white preppy kids. After their fourth campus they may decide - s***w this, let’s hit the beach instead.</p>