<p>Okay, so I'm going to Boston in a month, and I want to know a list of colleges I should visit there. I'll probably go from Massachusetts to Rhode Island to Connecticut and back to Mass, and I'll be there for like 8 days (6 full days), so I'd probably be able to see ~12 colleges (2 per day). So far I've got:</p>
<p>MIT
Harvard
Boston College
Boston University
Tufts
Amherst
Williams
Brown
Providence College
Weslyan
Connecticut College
Yale</p>
<p>Are there any good universities in MA, RI, or CT that I'm missing? Should I not bother visiting some of the ones I listed? Any other visiting tips?</p>
<p>P.S. Is October of senior year really late for visiting?</p>
<p>If you have the stats for those schools, it looks like you’re hitting all the high points. Trinity College in Hartford is very nice and might be more of a match/safety for you (assuming you have the stats for MIT/Harvard).</p>
<p>You should have done this spring of junior year or even during the summer. Anyway, you should probably try to check out some colleges that aren’t as elite. Are there any safeties you like in the area? Try to squeeze them in. Maybe with the LACs, since they’re smaller.</p>
<p>Yeah, I know it’s late, but I’m going anyway and I’m mostly just getting a clearer picture of where I’d like to go if I’m accepted. For the most part I already have my college list of where I’m applying.</p>
<p>Thank you, NulliSecundus, I will check out Trinity. Any others like this?</p>
<p>Yeah, thanks Rad, that’s pretty much what I was thinking. The 3rd ones I’ll probably just go there and look around, without doing a tour - you’re allowed to do this right lol?</p>
<p>By the time you get half-way through your list, no matter how obsessive you are about recording details, it will all turn to mush in your mind. Instead of getting a feel for each and your fit, you will be schedule-driven, rushing off. Back home, you’ll remember some nuance and struggle to place it. Ask any parent who did a 4-school tour in one stretch.
Prioritize YOUR top choices, the ones you stand a chance at. If you are qualified for Brown, skip PC. Decide which are just worth a drive-through. If you’re not HARV/MIT material, start woth BU/BC (don’t risk blowing your impressions by starting at top schools you’re not qual for.)
Most school tour schedules barely lend themselves to two/day. Eg, you get on the 10 am tour at Amherst; after it’s done, you may not make it to Williams by their last tour time. </p>
<p>After you’re admitted, you can always run back for a look-see.</p>
<p>I have helped two kids so far check out schools and two schools a day work fine as long as they are reasonable close to each other and if you travel to your next town in the evening … you easily can spend 2-3-4 hours at each school. I do agree the schools might start mushing into each other so take notes and snap some pictures.</p>
<p>Visiting now is fine … a lot of kid do not get a chance to visit unitl after they get their acceptances. You also might be able to handle some of this locally … visit small/large, urban/suburban/collegetown, LAC/ResearchU … you might be able to cut down some of the possibilities … BU and Amherst are pretty different places for example.</p>
<p>“Reasonably close” requires careful mapquesting and concern for traffic. To stay on-schedule, you may need to skip your own walk-around, lunch on campus, a chance to ask a question of the admin staff- just to hightail it to the next school. Fine, you may hate a school and leave early. What if you love School X and want more time there? Yes, it is possible to do two in one day, if everything lines up in your favor. But, the OP asks about 12+ in 6 days. In the end, your decision.</p>
<p>^ a GPS is your friend for college trips (in addition, I also had mapquest printed in advance). Personally, I think info sessions are very inefficient (typically 5 useful minutes in an hour) so they can be skipped … so an 1.5 hour tour in a 3-4 hour window at a school leaves times for hanging out/eating in a cafeteria. Two-a-days does cut down limit the ability to sit in on full classes or visit profs. Ultimately the student has to decide to they want a more in-depth view of a few schools or a quicker look at more schools. For someone who is pretty sure they are interested in just a few schools slowing things down certainly seems like the best approach. For those not so sure exposure to more schools given limited time might make more sense. I agree students visiting should be flexible … we planned the order of the schools so the school my kid thought they were more interested would have more time (often scheduled first) so we could hang out longer if they wanted to … with both kids we aborted visits to a couple schools within minutes of arriving and switched to other schools in the area. The visits this student is considering are before applying for which a 3-4 hour visit seems plenty to me … then if a couple leading contendors need a full-day visit those could happen next spring.</p>