<p>im with drama mom on this issue and I see you doing a lot bissou. In no ways, can or should you be considered a loser.</p>
<p>Different approaches do work for different students, and families. My D started casually visiting schools early in HS, just to show her what colleges actually look like. </p>
<p>We continued to do several visits here and there over the next couple of years and D fell in love with one in particular and it stayed #1 for a year and a half. She did a shadow day there and although she still loves it, she felt that it was smaller than she originally thought (what DH and I thought from the beginning) and now has her eyes set on another school. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to visit that particular campus until the spring audition, so I think we have experienced a mixture of all scenarios.</p>
<p>Sydsim. We did the same stared early on to show my D what college was like. We didn’t visit a ton but did visit nearby ones and different types so we could say this school is similar in size or in a city like that school we visited. But my D had one on the top of her list for a year and a half and when we went back at auditions she was able to compare to others and the way they ran their program and it was no longer the holy grail school. It was not at the top and by the end off February she had evolved and really knew what she was looking for or wanted out of a school. Then we visited some of the accepted ones on Easter break for her to make a final decision.</p>
<p>We had a similar process to you all, but with a different final outcome: started visiting early (at son’s request) over school vacations, etc., and in spring of his sophomore year, he had that moment you always read about but seldom experience: he walked around the campus and thought “This is it, this is where I can be at home for four years.” Was afraid to even say it out loud, but we both acknowledged on the trip home that it had just felt right. Over the following year and a half, he visited more schools, did pre-college summer intensives at two, was very enthusiastic about several schools, and returned (twice) to the original this-is-it school to see productions and attend admissions events. The only schools he didn’t visit were his non-auditioned academic safeties, which we would have gone to see in person if necessary. Final outcome, he got into two of his favorite three schools and by that point had spent so much time thinking and comparing and talking to other kids, etc., that there was no hesitation. Very different from my older kids who also visited everywhere but whose instincts never pointed them in one direction till the very end. For both of them, a mid-April visit helped confirm their final choice. It really is different for every kid (not just every family) and, at the same time, you just have to work within your resources (both time and money) and have faith that the visits you CAN make will help. You can only do so much as a parent!</p>
<p>“You can only do so much as a parent!”</p>
<p>Here, here, Times3!!! bisouu, you are definitely not a loser parent. I see you on here asking questions to help your daughter. I thought we would visit schools on my daughter’s list. I knew she was VERY interested in three NY schools so we visited those this summer. The experience was great for her. One of the schools that has been numero uno for 2 or 3 years, slipped in position after visiting. I thought we would get to the rest of her schools until I realized that she had about 12 on her list and they were all over the place and very long drives from NC. And then I realized that we had to travel to auditions. So, yeah, school visits over…for now. During spring break I’m hoping to take her to visit the schools that have accepted her. As Gwen Fairfax said seeing schools with the accepted eye is VERY different and she will have learned so much by then about what’s truly, truly important to her in a program.</p>
<p>Hopefully we will have at least one east coast school to visit come spring…keep fingers crossed. Again, thanks for the words of kindness :)</p>
<p>We haven’t visited anywhere either. He is doing all on campus auditions tho, I cant afford to do multiple trips. He’s not overly concerned about falling in love and being disappointed, its such a personal choice. </p>
<p>Don’t forget Megabus…may not be glamorous but it will get you from Pittsburgh (the stop is not far from CMU) to NYC for a couple of bucks.</p>
<p>Megabus can be good but you have to be careful where they drop you off and pick you up. I was going to have my D take it home on break but thought better of it when I saw where she would have to wait for it. It didn’t seem like a good idea having her get a bus by herself at night in front of a parking garage. Also another stop is by an abandoned mall.</p>
<p>I’m going to wrestle away the “loser parent” title from bisouu, who knows I don’t think she deserves it, and put that patch on my own arm because for sure I do. My kid(s) have been taking Boltbus, Megabus, GoBus, plus our city’s metro bus and now the NYC subway from the nanosecond I thought they could handle it (5th, 6th grade maybe?) </p>
<p>It’s a question of your comfort zone. My family doesn’t know how to camp and that freaks me out way more than a bus stop in a parking garage. I guess we are more urban savvy types than rural savvy types. Chances are at any bus stop, you’d probably find yourself standing next to people like us that think a $13 ticket for door to door service between NYC and Pittsburgh, or NYC and Boston, is less scary than meeting up with a hungry bear on a hiking trail. I respect the concern for the bus and if it worries you, don’t do it. But it’s done… by many people that you’d be OK riding with, and probably a few that you would also wish had stayed home. Yet most of the time, you get there. Just as an FYI.</p>
<p>So funny you should mention bears. I have a HUGE phobia of bears and will NOT camp ever because of this. Besides, my idea of camping is sleeping at the Flamingo in Vegas!</p>
<p>Be really careful with those cheap buses - they’re safety records are horrific. At least 3 or 4 times a year you hear of tragic accidents as well as numerous “inconvenient” accidents where the tires blow or the bus just stops running. Much more frequently than “meeting up with a hungry bear.” It’s not where you wait for the bus, the danger is once you’re on the bus. My kids know they are not allowed to go on those buses ever.</p>
<p>Not to argue a point but the where you wait when you are a girl by yourself with your luggage and it’s dark does matter. I will pay the extra to fly her home than leave her as a target. It would be different if she were with a friend and not alone. We live 10 minutes from a major urban city and being aware of your surroundings and not putting yourself in harms way is important and is common sense. I get lots of people take them and if there was a bus station with employees in it Or she was not by herself I would have had less of a problem. I didn’t even think to check the safety records amtc…once my D left for college I told hubby that I didn’t want to hear any news from where she was at-I don’t need to give myself other reasons to worry…lol. </p>
<p>And I’m with both of you- I see no reason to camping</p>
<p>I’m 100% going to agree that if traveling by bus, including Boltbus etc. is not in your comfort zone, don’t do it. I’m not advocating it if it is not to your liking. I’m merely saying that people do it, including female students traveling by themselves… all the time. They also take the NYC subway (insert any other major metro subway or bus system), by themselves, all the time. It doesn’t mean that either of those things don’t come with risk. Of course they do. If it bothers you and can afford the alternative, you’ve made the right call. </p>
<p>Now back to those darn bears. I grew up in the Northeast and live in the Northwest. I do not have a single hiking, camping, outdoorsy friend nor relative (and I have lots of both) that can’t tell their own “meeting a bear in a trail story” Not one. Truth.</p>
<p>Motel 6. They leave the light on. :)</p>
<p>My 18 year old son met a mama bear and a baby bear on a trail in New Jersey on his first camping trip alone with his good friend.
His car was broken into and his iPod stolen from the trail head parking lot.
But he survived both the natural and human beasts!</p>
<p>This thread has done a right (or is left) turn. 
But as long as we are now talking about bears, my daughter had her encounter with a bear when she was about 11 about 100 feet out our door in NJ while walking our dog. At the time, we only had our part Border Collie whose protective instinct was such that she was willing to go after the bear to protect her (and I’m sure that would have been the end of our Border Collie). Fortunately, my daughter ended up holding the leash and headed back in. </p>
<p>My wife not wanting to imagine she’d actually met a bear tried to suggest other animals which my daughter might have mistaken for a bear – as if an 11 year old does not know the difference between a bear and a wood chuck .e.g – but our neighbor confirmed that yes she too had seen a bear wandering through her yard a few minutes after my daughter met the bear.</p>
<p>As my CC name suggests, I spend a lot of time in the mountains of Colorado. The bears aren’t what concern me - it’s the mountain lions! Our kids grew up knowing from a young age what to do if they encountered wildlife, and I expect a city-raised child learns early to negotiate subways/bus schedules, etc! We took a trip to NYC a few years back, and turned the kids (then 13 & 15) loose in Times Square one evening to go see a movie without mom and dad. That was WAY more scary to me than encountering a bear!!</p>
<p>You all are cracking me up. I can’t offer a bear story, but I sure don’t do the camping thing. Roughing it for me is being without a flat iron and having to wear flats or sneakers or something! Now THAT’S scary to me!! HAAAA!!!</p>
<p>Well, I can offer both a bear story <em>and</em> a bus story, how about that?
We love tent camping and each year camp at a National Park. Bears encountered all the way from Yosemite to Shenandoah. Actually, the only time we’ve been safe from wild animals was at Acadia, which is on an island up in Maine–I’m not sure there are many big wild animals there. </p>
<p>Bus: We take the Bolt Bus from the Philly area up to NYC all the time. My D will also take a Megabus from Evanston to Madison, Wisconsin. </p>
<p>I have mixed feelings about both bears and buses.
Bears: They do creep me out but we try to avoid danger by storing our food properly and never hiking off trail or alone.
Buses: Some buses have much worse safety records than others. The Chinese-owned ones here on the East Coast seem to be the worst. We’ve never had a problem with Bolt, knock on wood. The drivers seem more alert and trained. Many kids from our area take the Bolt from Philly to NYC and back. No safety issues so far. The Bolt drops you off by Penn Station. I’m less secure about the Chicago-Madison bus as far as how it’s run. I’ll look into their safety record–good idea.</p>
<p>I think everyone needs to find their own comfort level and also to take reasonable precautions, bears, buses, whatever!</p>
<p>AMTC - I don’t know which part of the country you are in, but here in the Northeast my family and I (including two older teenagers) have never experienced the type of problems you describe on either Bolt or Megabus. Several years ago, before Bolt and Mega were in business, we did take the more or less unregulated “Chinatown” buses a few times, and those were scary - I remember one trip where the driver was on his phone the entire trip! Obviously you and your family will need to do whatever’s comfortable for you; just wanted to let you know that around here tons of people, young and old, are very comfortable with these buses. </p>
<p>Another option along the East Coast (and to some points west) is Amtrak; but that can cost quite a bit more than the buses. OTOH, it’s a much nicer trip!</p>
<p>Either way, the earlier you book the better price you will get. (Of course that may not be much help in the context of this particular discussion.)</p>
<p>Finally, anyone who does use Boltbus (our family’s choice due to a more convenient pickup location) should definitely register for their “frequent rider” progam: if you travel a lot you get free trips fairly quickly, and even if you travel just once you will get a better boarding number!</p>
<p>Edited to add (for Connections and others) - my daughter just told me that in NYC at least some of the Bolt buses are now picking up (don’t know about dropping off) on 11th Ave.* I’m not worried about this, but it will be a longer walk to the subway (34th St. crosstown bus and transfer to subway may be in order) and there may not be a pizza place or diner in which to wait in colder weather! But for the kids at least it should still be OK - they’re tougher than us oldsters.</p>
<p>*This was also why she couldn’t make a reservation at first for her Thanksgiving bus - she was still looking for a reservation from the former stop, and it’s not like Bolt mentioned that she had to reserve for a different departure point!</p>