<p>I'm a current senior planning on visiting East Coast colleges over fall break (October 5th-11th) with my mom. Since I'm from Arizona, I have no idea how I should go about with all the public transport systems. I'll be staying at a relative's house in Westchester, New York and want to visit the following colleges:</p>
<p>Brown
Princeton
Yale
Columbia
NYU
Cornell</p>
<p>I've heard Amtrack is the best way to get around, but are there cheaper alternatives? Is it even possible to visit all of these colleges in 6 days? </p>
<p>I would rent a car. You can take a regional train from Westchester into manhattan, and from manhattan to Princeton. You’ll need to drive to Ithaca, and amtrak to providence and new haven. Then you’ll need to call cabs to get to and from the train stations to campuses. I would just drive to Princeton, Yale, brown and Cornell.<br>
It’s going to be cheaper and simpler to rent a car for the “outside manhattan” part of the trip. Try comparing rental car prices from the airport vs from a Westchester rental site - I’d bet you can save $$ renting away from the airport.</p>
<p>Princton, Yale, NYU, Brown, and COlumbia can all be visited via mass transit/Metro North railroad. Cornell is not easily accessible, approx 5 hours from NYC. There is a bus that can get you there from Penn Station. It will be tight to see all in 6 days. Good luck.</p>
<p>Day 1, arrival time? If it is very early, you could take train to Yale. Day 2, early train to NYC for NYU and Columbia. Day 3 train to Princeton, Day 4 train to Brown and stay overnight and Day 5 take train to Yale if you cannot see Yale on day 1. Day 6, drive to Cornell.</p>
<p>That is a very tight schedule for the amount of time you are there. I think you should fly into NYC, and take the train to Princeton the day you get here…for an afternoon tour on day one. Then train back into NYC…see Columbia and NYU on day 2. Rent a car. Drive to Cornell for an afternoon tour on day 3… Then drive to Providence to see Brown on Day 4. Then drive to New Haven to see Yale on day 5. Then back to the NYC airport to ditch the car and fly home.</p>
<p>No matter how you route yourself…you have lots of driving to do. Just do the driving at the end of the days so you are at your college destination the night before.</p>
<p>Personally, I’d rent a car at least a couple of the days. By the time you’ve bought 2 (or more) Amtrak tickets, you could’ve rented a little subcompact. And I don’t think Amtrak will take you to Ithaca anyway. </p>
<p>I would see NYU and Columbia in the same day. No car needed, if you can get yourselves to a Metro North station. Take the train into Grand Central. Take the #6 (the Lexington Ave.) to Astor Place. It’s not that far of a walk to Washington Square, and if you plan on going to NYU, it’s good practice. You need to take another train way uptown to get to Columbia. Here’s a subway map <a href=“http://web.mta.info/nyct/maps/subwaymap.pdf”>http://web.mta.info/nyct/maps/subwaymap.pdf</a></p>
<p>You could probably take NJ Transit more cheaply than Amtrak to Princeton, but any train to Princeton is going to eat your day and restrict your arrival and departure times, which may be fine because you probably can’t see any other school that day, but personally, the train would tire me out more than driving. YMMV.</p>
<p>My daughter and I are used to roadtripping for her EC and could do this trip if it were just she and I. With the exception of NYC, we’d do it by car. But it’d be 6 hard days and I’m not sure our resulting bad attitude wouldn’t affect how we viewed some of the schools. I’d probably cut off Cornell or Brown if I felt the trip were getting to be too much. </p>
<p>You might want to substitute Penn for one of them and that is an easy Amtrak (or Metro North/NJ Transit to Septa). You can walk from 30th Street Station in Philadelphia over to the Penn campus. You’ll walk through Drexel to get there. Although you’re in West Philadelphia, the walk is pretty much all students and health care workers. It’s a very safe walk almost any time of day or night. The MegaBus or the Bolt (I’m not sure which one) also stops right outside 30th Street. (Not sure where you pick that up in NYC, but since I have family come in on it, I know it’s a cheap option). I’d rather drive than take public transportation between Westchester County and Philly, but that’s a personal preference and the Megabus/Bolt might actually be cheaper than driving by the time you’re done paying tolls and gas. </p>
<p>If money’s no object, you can also fly into Ithaca Airport. But Cornell is off the beaten track, no matter how you do it. If Ivies are your goal, maybe Penn would be more convenient.</p>
<p>Yes, I agree with the other posters that this is a lot to accomplish in a short time. Cornell is a 5 hour drive from Westchester, maybe a bit less but if you were to drive there from Princeton and from Cornell to Yale or back to Westchester for a train to New Haven and then Providence. </p>
<p>Maybe drop Cornell or Brown from this visit and add Penn instead as not far from Princeton by train.</p>
<p>For my D’s college trip, we did the whole northeastern thingy. For what its worth, I think you should rent a car. Amtrak is not that cheap, especially since you will need two tickets for every leg of the trip. If you drive, you can come and go as you wish.</p>
<p>When we did it, we mapped out the drive and each night just found a Marriott or other similar hotel to sleep in when we were tired of driving. We usually drove to our next day’s destination so we could get up, eat and then start with an early tour.</p>
<p>We live right outside DC. We went as far north as Maine (Bowdoin). It was a total of 2,000 miles over 4 days (Monday - Thursday). Since I do a lot of highway driving, I am always for the freedom having a car would give you.</p>
<p>I agree with @Tperry1982 . Amtrak is very expensive. There are buses, but they are inconvenient and slow. Rental cars are cheap, there when you want them and go where you want to go. </p>
<p>We also did a huge, one-week college tour last year–flew into NYC, visited schools along the way to VA, drove into upstate NY, up to Maine and back to Providence to spend Easter with DS1 at Brown. We visited 11 schools in 7 states and drove past 2 others that DS2 didn’t visit (didn’t like the looks of the surrounding towns or schools–whatever). </p>
<p>Anyway, we didn’t feel terribly rushed. We did the tours, info sessions, and DS had a couple of on-campus interviews. The East Coast is not like the West–everything is relatively close together. You can EASILY drive to and visit all of these schools. The train will be expensive and inconvenient.</p>
<p>Also, you can drive to most of these from Weschester, visit, tour and drive back to Westchester without needing a hotel. You would probably want to get a hotel for Cornell, and maybe for Brown, but the others are just a day trip from Westchester.</p>
<p>Yes, you “could” drive from Westchester to all of these places. But that is a LOT of driving…and getting up really early to get to your destination (for Cornell and Brown in particular). Driving the eastern seaboard during rush hour is not a cakewalk…not at all. It would be best to be at the destination the evening before…so you don’t have to worry about traffic issues, and your kiddo and you can get a good night’s sleep to be fresh for these college visits.</p>
<p>You don’t want a visit to be totally tainted by student fatigue.</p>
<p>Agreed thumper!, we all said it would be a lot of driving. But the driving is more convenient than the train or bus. Maybe its me. I do have friends that refuse to drive any longer than 1 hour in the car. If this family is one of those, then of course my plan goes out the window </p>
<p>If this student wants to spend all of the nights at the home in Westchester, then yes…this is possible. I would ditch Cornell and Brown if I were driving. Cornell is a haul, and doing a round trip and a tour in one day would be a lot. Brown would require traveling on some of the busiest highways in the northeast. Again…it would be a long day to go there from Westchester. </p>
<p>Going to NYU, Columbia, Princeton and Yale should be OK…although really, The drive to Princeton isn’t going to be a cakewalk either. </p>
<p>It’s not about the time…it’s about the traffic and the time. The student would need to check the times of the info sessions and tours, and see if scheduling so that rush hour could be avoided is possible.</p>
<p>And yes to easy pass, if they are taking the toll roads. I think many rental car companies can offer this to you also…for a fee! I will say, I got dinged one time using easy pass on my new car…which I didn’t have registered with easy pass (the license plate was photographed…this happened in NY). It took me months to get it resolved! I’m not sure how easy pass deals with rental cars…and use of your own easy pass. </p>
<p>Amtrak tickets are often expensive if you don’t buy them a few weeks in advance. The price increases as more tickets are sold on a train. You may find that trains at certain times of the day are much more expensive than other times of the day. A AAA membership will save you 10%. However, Amtrak will often get in the center of a city, which saves money on other transportation.</p>
<p>Sometimes there are cheaper commuter train alternatives than Amtrak, but they cover shorter distances, as noted by other persons. </p>
You need to take another train way uptown to get to Columbia. Here’s a subway map <a href=“
</p>