homerdog - respect how much thought and resilience you have put into this. The thread is great insight from everyone’s contribution. Insight per airport travel that I can share on W&L - have current student there - is that they offer a shuttle service to the Roanoke Airport and to DC Metro (to get to the DC airports) - while it is no UBER it seems to be managable for the students. Times and dates are set well ahead. It is $15 each way.
@Gen1111 DC airports are a hike from W&L! Kids really do that and W&L has shuttles that go to one or both of them?
When considering applying ED to elite LACs, I think that isolated schools–such as Williams College, Wash & Lee, Grinnell, & Colby among others–require a visit before applying ED–if affordable.
Because your daughter wants to join a sorority, and because Greek life is both dominate & inclusive at W&L, Wash & Lee is worth visiting.
In my opinion, W&L is quite different than Bowdoin or Davidson.
@homerdog my DD at Wake usually shares 30 min Uber’s to Greensboro airport and has frequently shared Uber’s from the airport back to campus if she runs into other Wake students. On the Wake parent FB page I often see parents looking to find ride shares (car service) to Charlotte airport for their students. I think the Wake shuttle’s hours are quite limited.
We did not think to consider travel when looking at schools, but are very thankful that travel from PHL to GSO is quite easy and that the campus is only 30 minutes from the airport. Also GSO is small and very manageable for my DD and there is never a line at security so she does not have to arrive very far in advance for flights.
@UGG2023 yes that’s nice that Greensboro airport is small. So is Portland’s. We laughed when we first flew in there. Where were all of the people? Where were all of the taxis and the policemen shagging cars to keep moving when they were trying to wait for friends and family arriving? There was none of that and it was so pleasant!
$15 is a bargain for a shuttle to DC - that’s a 3 hr drive!
When we were considering Hobart, a 6 hr drive for us, I also saw they offered a shuttle service to/from Rochester Airport. It was $50 each way. Flights were around $200 RT.
I typically pay about $350 for D17 to fly to/from southern CA (though I often use points) so it seemed a little crazy to pay almost the same to get to/from Hobart. But when traveling those lesser known routes, it can be expensive! S19 didn’t end up at Hobart. When people act dismayed at how far away D17 goes to school, it actually doesn’t seem awful to me at all b/c it is SO easy for her to get back and forth to school. It is essentially 8-9 hours door to door on a direct flight - including travel to/from airport on both ends, getting through security and the flight itself. Not bad for being over 3000 miles away!
@4kids4us I agree with that. I’d rather an easy direct flight than a five/six hour drive each way. I hate driving and that’s not five hours, it’s ten because we have to go and come back again!
I think ease of travel is a legitimate factor to look at in the school search. But at this point in the process perhaps throwing out a school due to the airline that services the closest airport might be premature. For that reason I would leave Colgate on the list as if you are willing to use a different airline for Wake, you should be willing at this point in the process to consider it for Colgate.
And wow $180 round trip that Wake charges seems high! But as other posters have pointed out, kids are resourceful and find ways to get to airports/stations with friends etc.
@wisteria100 not ready to take Colgate off of the list. We know some kids there (sorry @Lindagaf !) who are happy and manage to get there. The location reminds me a little bit of Bowdoin which D likes. It would be another one-off trip, though, like Tulane. We know one student (who went to Homecoming with S19 their freshman year!) who was supposed to go to Colgate and changed her mind at the very last minute and is at BC. I’d like to try to reach out to her and see why.
Until we know if D has a favorite and if we are using ED, we won’t likely cut the list much more. I want to drive her down to Denison, too, but that’s an easy trip. I wish the food was better at Denison. It’s just nuts how I’ve seen from multiple posters that the food is bad. That seems odd for a school that almost 100% residential and the kids have to be part of the meal plan.
@homerdog. Just curious since your looking at Lacs. Did she completely rule out Illinois Wesleyan and Beloit College? I keep forgetting your from the Illinois suburbs. So much closer and my daughters graduating from Beloit this May (yea?).
Driving each is about 1.5 hours tops.
Her ride home fell threw for tomorrow but she can take the bus to Ohare and we pick her up or she will take it to Ohare then take the blue line home (we live in the City). 2 hours tops…
@homerdog - Agree W&L is far from DC Airports (was just making others aware that W&L provides a service to get to airports). The shuttle goes to the DC Metro and then one can take it to the airports. Roanoke’s shuttle service takes 50 minutes. Never saying it is quick/short just trying to point out that there is a simple way to get to airports from W&L that the University has thought to provide. As you are doing, good to factor all things in to find the right fit for your student.
I don’t need to sidetrack the conversation but just wanted to share I had a real LOL at that comment. Last year my daughter was super excited after one of her club soccer games. I asked her what was up. She said that the coach told her she played well. And it was the second time that season she had gotten a compliment from him. She has played for him 9 years and it has happened less than half a dozen times. So she considered 2 compliments in the same season a big deal!
@dadof4kids yep. That’s pretty much the case. Russian ballet teacher MAYBE gives a compliment once a year and the dancers re-live that moment over and over for months. It’s nuts.
I have to add to this. I treat dancers in the western suburbs. That is about right about Russian Ballet teachers… Lol. But the Irish dance teachers are worse. They expect the kids to dance on broken toes… Ouch.
@Knowsstuff whoa we are in the western suburbs. I’m guessing you may actually know D’s old studio!
I don’t see her at Beloit. I visited with S and it’s just too sleepy. Bowdoin is sleepy but has the whole Maine thing going on with the ocean right there and Portland being a pretty cool city. If I thought she’d like Beloit then I would also add Grinnell. I think the gritty town, LAC school isn’t the best match, but I loved that Beloit was making that new athletic center out of that old building in the town. That’s so cool!
I just don’t think I can suggest Illinois Wesleyan. No one at her school with her rigor and grades goes there. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Cool
Just trying to keep you close… Lol… My daughter loves Beloit. They did open that students center BTW. It’s cool… Well, I tried. ?.
I think that if you have other great options, dropping a school from the list due to travel is just fine. I personally wouldn’t put travel considerations in the top 5 things when choosing schools, in other words, I wouldn’t let it stop kids from going for one that was a great choice, but at some point, you do have to find reasons to cut.
I have two kids in college, one cross country and one that is a 7 hr drive so he sometimes flies, sometimes drives. I understand keeping to one airline for miles, but since we don’t have any work travel, I use all airlines and usually find that SW is not the best price. The changeability yes is huge especially for breaks when professors can do a late cancellation of the last-day class (maddening). But it sounds like you might use your SW miles anyway for yourselves and your S, so limiting D just based on airline might be something to reconsider.
It didn’t take long at all for my kids to become excellent solo travelers, even with weather difficulties. S is about 45 min from the airport and has a car, so it is not a problem. He does give other kids rides and from what I read, the college shuttle times to the airport don’t work out great for everyone, and Ubers get very expensive. I honestly think that when you are talking about a small college town, Uber “surge pricing” actually comes into effect for the college kids coming back from breaks and it can get very high.
We have found that so far we are visiting our away kids at least once a year, so yes, that’s another flight to consider.
As an anecdote, we drove through W&L after our Richmond/WF visits, on our drive home to Ohio. It was on the list as a possible alternate to check out. We didn’t even get out of the car and it went off the list. Nothing against W&L, but S had plenty of other liked schools at that point. Just getting back to my point about how it is OK to cut, especially if you have schools with about the same admissions chances for your D that seem like better choices.
@TS0104 so when your S drives to the airport, he just parks his car there and pays for the time he’s gone? That would get pricey, no, unless he drives home for the longer breaks?
@TS0104 , I agree that you have to find reasons. Shame about W&L though as you can’t even really see campus from the car - the core has no roads. Unless you saw the Colonnade from the road and didn’t like it, which is hard to believe. Maybe just the little town and isolation. It’s not for everyone. (Full disclosure: I’m a complete W&L homer.)
Funny, I have one who loved almost every college we saw and we were desperate to finds ways to filter. He couldn’t help himself. For our next she had so many requirements we were almost out of options before we ever got IN the stupid car. But as in almost every CC college selection story: it worked out beautifully.