@momofsenior1. Totally agree. Nice being a reasonable drive to both kids from Chicago. Our longest part of the drive is timing traffic out of Chicago… Lol… Then it’s a breeze… Lol…
There have been many times that things pop up or an experience we want to share with them and of course moving. But I guess when your a flight away you just take your clothes and not like everything and the kitchen sink. Hahaha.
To the OP. Totally get the miles thing since though our business we get free travel yearly. Have you considered another airlines and just see where you end up miles wise. Maybe the incentives work out. Both of our kids have credit cards that have travel miles specials.
@Knowsstuff No train ride from Chicago to Roanoke VA is going to happen. If she were at Denison then maybe I would look into that instead of a taxi to Columbus and such a short flight home.
I actually have thought about other airlines and getting a United credit card. Right now, we have a SW one and my husband flies SW for work. If D ended up at Richmond or Wake, I think we’d maybe consider switching our credit card to a United one since I think S19 could also use those miles to get home. it’s an option.
As for “has she done this trip before”, not really. I mean she’s been to Davidson with the whole family. I get what you are saying. Once they try the trip to a college of their choice by themselves, they can gauge how comfortable they are with it. I did let her take the lead when she and I flew to Boston last weekend. Just walked behind her and made her figure everything out. She passed with flying colors. And she knows she can just ask someone if she has questions.
FYI…when booking flights on the United app (only the app) 18-22 year olds get a discount…so D19 books her own flights now via the app, not sure how much the savings are but her last flight was around 10% less than if I did it. Yes, we were online comparing at the exact same time.
There are a lot of schools out there, access to a school is as good a reason as any to take a school out of contention. Travel costs are no joke. I think it is smart to be thinking about logistics at this stage of the process.
No one at my D’s high school had applied to Bates for about 10 years, according to our GC, and I don’t know if that person actually attended. Now, Bates comes to our high school to recruit and at least one student a year is going there. I am pretty sure that the only reason that our school is on Bates’ radar is because my D is there. As you know, she got in from waitlist and that may in part have been due to our school being an “unknown quantity” to them.
…”when a college isn’t represented at all, it does seem a bit random. Like, why would we be the ones finding a great fit school from our community but no one else has ever gone there? (Why not you?) Parents here are pretty savvy so, when a college is completely left off of the list, I wonder why.” You’re pretty savvy, and you know what schools are out there. You know there are a ton of great schools that people in your area have never heard of, and I doubt as many parents as us (at our respective schools) spend so much time on CC, haha.
I think the “Why” is because people tend to talk about all the same colleges at a high school, and everyone wants to apply where everyone else is applying. It’s fear of the unknown. It just takes the first person to do something a little different.
As for W and L, I think you know your kid, so off the list it is. Can’t keep everything on it.
Meanwhile, Tulane is easy peasy travel! But if she didn’t love how BC is situated just on the outskirts of the city, maybe she wouldn’t like that about Tulane either. Anyone been to both campuses?
@homerdog. Once they build confidence that they know they can do it then their good. Funny but your story reminds me when I went with my kids for trial runs to their schools in Chicago before the start of the year . 2 different directions for 2 equally different kids. I would just follow them from the El train to the bus to their school. 35- 45 minute trip daily each way. I did the trip once with them.
@Lindagaf yes maybe it’s because people talk about the same 25 schools here but I still think travel is part of the equation as to why those group of schools are popular. I hear so many good things about the LACs in PA, for instance, but they are so hard to get to from here. Kids would go to Carleton or Grinnell or one of the Ohio LACs instead. There has been some movement in the list of “where kids go from our school” but, when I think of those schools, it’s not to hard to find direct flights. I do think parents here consider travel as I’m guessing most families do no matter where they live.
Bowdoin also seems to be looking more at kids from our school since S19 is now the third student in three years to go, but they are all athletes. Someone has to be the pioneer and give locally uncommon schools a shot, right? Just think a school is more likely to become newly popular if travel isn’t too too bad.
Many schools have been dropped by families or kids for lesser reasons. You are visiting some great schools and once your D has the scores she likes, she may add a few colleges to apply to without visiting. As she goes through the next year, she might choose to visit one on accepted students day. You never know.
Travel was definitely a consideration for us and was the reason S19 ultimately decided not to go to an accepted students day at Colgate, despite them rolling out the red carpet for him and giving him a scholars designation. I do agree having Southwest as an option saves a lot of money and hassle. As it is, it is still a long travel day for D17 to get to Vassar, but she can take a direct flight to LGA and then shuttles and trains to school. However, not having to fly the second kid to college has been very nice!
@homerdog, what did you mean about BC and Tulane being located on the outskirts of the city? I haven’t seen BC, so I can’t compare, but I did go to Tulane for grad school. Tulane main campus is not on the outskirts. True, it’s not In the small downtown section of NOLA (which is not what most people think about when they think of New Orleans anyway) but in an established, green neighborhood well within the city. It,s possible to hop on a streetcar at the edge of Tulane’s campus and ride it through uptown, the old Garden District to downtown and the edge of the French Quarter.
Since it’s easy for you to get to, it might be a fun trip for you and your D whether or not she decided to go for Tulane. A visit to NOLA would be a memorable thing no matter what, especially if you could get a B&B somewhere in the Garden District (my favorite area) orUptown near Audoban Park/Tulane. The city is gorgeous in spring. People tend to love New Orleans or hate it…not much middle ground, but going there is an educational experience, as. it’s an iconic place.
I have had both Delta and American Cards for years and have treated them like a college savings plan. We often use frequent flyer miles for trips home. DD is at Wake and she has a car, so she doesn’t mind driving to Charlotte where American has flights to Nashville most every hour. We use Delta out of Greensboro when she’s going to other places like NYC. FWIW @homerdog, she often takes her friends to the airport when leaving for holidays and breaks. I don’t think too many kids end up using the shuttles. The one time we used a driver to Charlotte three girls rode together and split the cost.
Also, though Tulane is in a residential area, there are plenty of clusters of small coffee shops, restaurants, boutiques within walking distance of campus. It’s not like a suburb at all.
My son is only a freshman in high school but I do have one kid in college already. I was just researching colleges and realized that one of them which sounds great for my middle son on paper is 4 hours from an airport. That just isn’t not going to work and removes the college from our list. I agree that there are so many amazing colleges out there that sometimes what seems trivial to others will cut a school from someone else’s list.
@marrast that is super helpful. I’m going to ask more about how kids get to Charlotte from Wake when we visit. I just got the shuttle info off of Wake’s website.
@inthegarden When I watched the virtual tour of Tulane, it looked pretty “suburban” to me. Lots of space and green, across from an arboretum and close to a zoo. So, see, one cannot tell how urban it feels I guess unless one is physically there. It’s close to all of this pretty nature where BC is surrounded by not much, just a residential Boston neighborhood that seems pretty tight for space. That’s why I was asking about Tulane and if it feels more “suburban” which, to me, just means spacious and green.
I think we will see how spring break goes and then decide what to do about Tulane. At this point, though, I do think it’s the next most-likely school for us to visit.
@2plustrio exactly. When a school is four hours from the airport, it’s also more likely to have students who can drive there and less geographical diversity. How many families are flying their student somewhere and then having them take a four hour bus ride on top of that? Even Bowdoin, with kids from all over the US and is 30 min to the airport, has a abundance of kids who drive home.
As a west coast mom, with a D21 interested in east coast schools, travel distances/ time is the second priority on the list after academic excellence in major. So, Swarthmore is in, Williams is out; Tufts is in, Dartmouth is out. When my son got meningitis at his NY university, it was extremely important that he was a 15 minute uber ride away from a decent regional airport. It’s too bad that it has to be a factor, but it is the price for being able to consider schools outside California.